"President Trump was talking about a guy who owns a couple of pizza parlors in the [US state of] Nevada, and he stopped the president on the campaign trail and told him he was trying to get a loan to open a third one," Pence stated. "Largely because of the heavy mandate that followed Dodd-Frank, he said his local bank told him ‘we just don’t make loans like that anymore’."
Small businesses owners, such as the neighborhood pizza entrepreneur cited by Trump and Pence, have traditionally powered economic growth in the United States.
Neighborhood entrepreneurs employ about half of all US private-sector employees, generate 60-80 percent of net new jobs and are responsible for more than half of non-farm US economic output, according to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), which represents 350,000 small businesses.
"We’re going to work with each one of you [lawmakers] to make it possible for resources to be available so small business can thrive once again," Pence explained.
Earlier this month, the NFIB reported that small business optimism skyrocketed in December to the highest level since 2004, with a 38 percentage point jump in the number of owners who expect better businesses conditions during the Trump administration.
