Consequences on profits and jobs. There are thousands of Small Businesses that are Government Contractors or whose businesses depend on Government Contractors. Many Small Business contractors have already had to cut back due to seek estrogen sequestration. To make matters worse, Small Business owners are suffering from the fact that Small BusinessAdministration Loan processing is grinding to a halt. Why is the Government Shutdown right now . It is because a narrow band of ideologues are hellbent on relitigating a Health Care Law that has been passed by congress, signed by the president , upheld by the some green Court Supreme court and went into effect. Small businesses are not interested in ideology. We are interested in creating products, taking care of customers and making payroll. We need our government to recognize and support this. We launched a National Sign on campaign at www. S toptheshutdown. Com, asking Small Business representatives to let their government no that the shutdown would at earthly adversely affect their bottom lines. Hundreds of Small Business owners have already signed. We need more. Congress needs to get back to the business of governing instead of playing politics. Doing otherwise puts countless Small Businesses and our economy in jeopardy. Thank you and now it is my pleasure to introduce lynn ozer the president of sba lending and also the chair of the National Association of government guaranteed lenders. I want to thank chairman landrieu senator shaheen for allowing me to be here. Thank you to john for the introduction. My name is lynn ozer and i am the president of Susquehanna BankGovernment Guaranteed Lending Department where i manage the sba lending and all other government guaranteed lending. Over 233 branches. This bank has served the community for over a century. The loans are centrally administered and our we participate in virtually all of the sba programs under the seven aon grella. For the last 25 years 7a umbrella. For the last 25 years, i have been on a trade association for banks and nonbanks that participate. I am presently the chair of the board of that trade association. Chairwoman landrieu spoke of over 2000 banks that art is a great in Small Business lending. 750 of the most active participants are members of our trade association. I wish to thank the Small Business majority for having me in attendance and i wish it was under better circumstances that we could brag about what the sba and its programs do. I still want to teach share with you the traumatic effect of the shutting down of the government and what it has done to our customers. At sba would provide Small Business access to longterm capital. They obtain the most vital funding through the program of the sba. They use them most often to start up and expand their existing businesses. The most heavily utilized products, Small Businesses rely on these loans to create jobs and propel our economy forward. The Government Shutdown with this Government Shutdown although additional sba loans have been vetted and approved and submitted to the agency after monday at midnight, we were proud to approve over 2. 9 billion of sba loans just in the month of september alone. The shutdown of the government has ground to a halt many of the loans and they are now put in a queue waiting for funding when the federal budget is passed. The Government Shutdown should not be impacting borrowers. They are the innocent bystanders who are being impacted by this shutdown. I ask you, please do not hurt these borrowers. With no alternative access to capital, Small Businesses across our community will suffer crippling effect to growth especially if the shutdown lasts for an extended. Operiod of time. Cutting opportunities for businesses to expand will only create additional Economic Uncertainty as the banks and lenders are no longer able to fill the fundamental need. The sba allows banks to approve loans that they were unable to approve under normal banking regulations and policies and procedures. Just yesterday, i learned of a customer that has applied for a loan at Susquehanna Bank. Tl technology owned in part by a veteran operates a manufacturer and the next order in pennsylvania an exporter in pennsylvania. They are about to receive a new government contract that would begin on october 20. They are buying a new piece of equipment and hiring two new employees who are about to begin. As of now, the bank has approved the loan but we cannot get funding through the sba because the deadline hit before his application got to the sba. This is causing a very difficult time for him and he is only an example of one of the many. We have a young couple who finally secured a lease and a sought after location in the city of philadelphia to open their french restaurant. Their legal permanent residents but we cannot get their sba loan approved without verifying their immigration status which we are unable to do because the government is shutdown. Through this difficult time, we would like to applaud sbas outstanding commitment to ensure access to capital and meet demand from lenders and Small Businesses that need access to capital to start or grow their companies. To meet the demand, the sba approves 740 million in gross approvals just last week. The ability the inability of lawmakers to successfully avoid a federal government shut down is distressing as a lender who relies on the sbas government guaranteed offering to be able to meet the needs of my Small Business customers. In the coming days and weeks, i urge them to Work Together as quickly as possible to agree upon a budget and restore access to muchneeded capital for the hardworking smallBusiness Owners across the country. The one thing that i find to be most distressing is Consumer Confidence creeping back up to be hit with another blow as devastating and lasting as this. The need to resolve this is greater than ever. Thank you very much. Good morning. I am very honored to be here today especially to share this podium with so many esteemed speakers. My name is lajuanna russell. I am the owner and president of Business Management associate. We are a Management Consulting firm here in washington dc we are 90 federal contractors so most of our employees are working either on site or performing some other type of federal work. I came here today and i have this whole little list of comments that i want to provide and hit the point home about how difficult this is but i think the most interesting thing that you will hear today is my story. We have been hit hard by the shenanigans on capitol hill. I think it is important that you put a face to what is going on. I think it is important that you hear that this isnt just some decision this is a decision that impacts people every day. It impacts their ability to buy groceries. It impacts their ability to get gas to go to work if they can. It impacts people every single day. So, starting out and understanding sequestration, you know that smallBusiness Owners, we hear a lot about what goes on on the hill and some of it, that could never happen, they would never let that happen. Sequestration happened. Again, as a Small Business owner youre like, oh my god, the be happening. This cant be happening. Those who were sent to help us would not let this happen. Well yes, that small faction of irrational individuals let it happen. We are being held hostage. It happens. I had to layoff probably 10 people when sequestration hit. If the goal is to increase the number of jobs we have out there, to decrease unemployment, to ensure our economy is booming, why layoff 10 people because of sequestration . I dont want to make another phone call to some dad who is trying to figure out what he is going to do for his kid for Health Insurance to say, i am sorry. That contract was cut. I am sorry, the funding is gone. I am not quite sure what you and your family are going to do for Health Insurance but then, i had a ray of hope. We had the Affordable Care act coming. I knew then as an employer who cares, at least those families would have that insurance coming. Now, you want to put that insurance on the chopping block as part of some chess game . When you see the millions of people that that actually impact daytoday, you see the millions of people who flooded the internet trying to get that care. I said no, shutdown can happen. Cant happen. Here we are again, held hostage. I had to contracts that were supposed to start on october 1. They didnt start. Do i have another call to make . I hope not. I dont want to make any more calls. I dont want to call one more dad or one more mom who is just trying to get by and tell them i am so sorry, that funding was cut. We have some folks in congress who dont understand real life, who dont understand what it is to go paycheck to paycheck to make ends meet. They dont understand what it is to need Health Insurance. I am proud that i can offer my employees Health Insurance. But if i have to terminate them because of lack of funding on a contract, that throws them into a different area. While you guys are playing chess and figuring out how youre going to cut some corners on things that real people actually need daytoday, consider the impact you are having on the millions and millions of Small Business owners like me. We dont want you to play chess anymore. We want you to think about what we wait we need and to follow suit. This isnt a game. This isnt about winning and saying yes, i got it. In the end, we lose. Thank you. [applause] thank you for going off your script. That was excellent. Can we open it up to any questions . [inaudible] first of all, it shouldnt be about whether democrats like myself will crack or not. It should be about whether these businesses can sustain their shenanigans. The answer is, they cannot. This group of republicans is playing with fire. It is hard to describe their actions of shutting the government down, why they seem to be giddy about that, how could they possibly be happy about hearing these stories . That is what shutting the government does do Small Businesses all over the america. The answer is, they need to open the government now bypassing the resolution that was passed by republicans and democrats in the senate, that would pass them open the government, and then decide to go to a conference on the Budget Committee which they have resisted for six months. Step one, open the government. Step two, go to budget conference. I want to remind everyone here the senate has voted 18 times to go to a budget conference, to have a debate about what senator shaheen and senator heitkamp said about the issues that are affecting us. Our 10 year outlook, our debt burden that we are carrying, the challenge to the economy. The first step is for the tea party to stop their tea party and open the government. Step two is to go to a budget conference. That is what we are here to say. This is not a game. In their effort to hurt the government, which they have said is their point, they do want to hurt the government, but they are very confused about what the government is. Small businesses and private Sector Companies are partners with the government. In their attempt to hurt the government, they are hurting millions and millions of Small Businesses. As one of the speakers said, even when the government comes back to work, which one day i am assuming we will since we are the greatest in the world, not perfect but the greatest in the world, while the Government Employees may get their paychecks, these businesses might not be there. If they miss payroll or default they are gone. It gets more dangerous every day that this goes on. What could happen when the market sees that this group of irresponsible individuals is not only holding the government of the United States hostage all businesses that are partners with the government which are millions then, they seem willing in their comments to hold the economy of the United States hostage. That will cause havoc on every business in america, every family in america. Their Credit Ratings will go down and it is hard to even contemplate. Heidi, i dont know if you want to add to that. Just the point that as bad as what this is, if we cant figure out how to solve and increase the debt limit, that is going to have catastrophic results. We need to Start Talking about those catastrophic results. Far too many people in the American Public think this is about increasing the ability to spend money. Instead of the responsibility that we have to pay our debt. Treasuries are held on Balance Sheets because they have always been backed by the full credit of the United States of america. What happens when we violate that trust . It happens to that . For all of business, for the entire economic structure, this is not a game. That is the point we are trying to get across. This has incredible impact on a fragile and hopefully growing economy that we cannot let this continue. We have got to solve this problem. The quickest way is not picking winners and losers but funding the government for the time he word period, getting to work on the tough issues. Stop playing games with the american economy. And more important, with the lives of American People. [inaudible] that is leader reids decision. The key is for the house to pass the resolution to open the government. This cannot be done by a piecemeal and should not be done by piecemeal. What part is more important than the next . Many of us argue while those might be important issues, what is more important than the millions of Small Businesses who undergird the entire economy of the unit is dates . The tea party has to understand that they cannot hold government and private partners which are many, from Big Companies like boeing and lockheed, two small companies, hostage over their inability to get a law that they dont like amended. This has hardly ever been done before in the history of the united dates. It cannot be done. They have to open the government. When the government is open, we can get back to work and get to the negotiating table over those issues about how much we should spend on our troops, how much we should spend on domestic, how much we should spend on intelligence, etc. Those games, those gimmicks are not going to work. The only thing that the house can do is open the government, pass the resolution their budget numbers, say yes to their own budget number, get the Government Back open again and then we can all get to a negotiating table and put everything on the table. We can put everything on the table. That is what we need to do. [inaudible] i dont think that all the republicans are going along with this. Many of them are being quiet until they hear from their constituents. Every day that this goes on, they are hearing from their constituents and it is my hope, my hope that many brave men and women in the Republican Party will stand up and close this tea party down. It is not a party. In the real part tea party, they threw tea overboard. In the real historic one. Today, they are throwing Small Businesses overboard. By the boatload. They are throwing people overboard. They are throwing their own neighbors overboard. They are throwing their communities overboard. This hostage taking of the government and our private sector partners is unparalleled action, unprecedented. It has got to stop. [inaudible] i am not surprised but i remain hopeful because i know many of these men and women personally. I have the deepest respect for many of them. I think hopefully in the next day or two, you will hear more voices joining senator mccain, senator graham, senator corker, representative king, who have tried to speak the truth. They have been quieted by their party for now but hopefully they will continue to provide really good leadership. [inaudible] i dont think negotiating with that kind is a good thing to do. Their own people should never be held hostage. We have to get back to the work of government. Open government, let the private sector get back to work, get to the negotiating table. That is what were going to do. Thank you. Republican senator rand paul asked his colleagues to meet on the steps of the capitol for a show of bipartisanship. He and the one democrat who attended, tom corker discussed how to tone down the bickering in congress. Here is some of that. They had everybody together for lunch. It doesnt mean it still d