In washington, d. C. President ial adviser Kellyanne Conway will adjust the gathering, along with senator joni ernst, representative mia love and congressman chris smith. You can listen live on the cspan radio app. President trump has nominated World Wrestling entertainment ceo Linda Mcmahon to lead the Small Business administration. And yesterday the senates Small BusinessCommittee Held a confirmation hearing for the nominee. The committee will come to order. Today for the hearing qualifications and start our advice and consent process for mrs. Linda mcmahon to head the sba. Linda, thank you so much for being here. And we have senators blumenthal and murphy to introduce mrs. Mcmahon. And both of these gentlemen have run against mrs. Mcmahon and vice versa, so i hope they i hope they didnt bring their files on and murphy to introduce her, and i hope they didnt we didnt forget. And senator blumenthal, the floor is yours, and thank you so much for gracing with us your presence. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and to you and the Ranking Member senator shaheen, i am pleased to join my colleague in introducing our fellow resident of connecticut Linda Mcmahon. We know her as a fellow citizen of connecticut, but also as a successful Business Leader as the cofounder and former ceo of the wwe. Also a stig nif cant contributor to many thrill philanthropic causes including where i live in connecticut. Mr. Chairman, i recommend her, because i believe she would be an excellent fit for this agency based on her experience and the expertise as a Business Leader. She knows as i do that Small Businesses are the backbone of the economy and the most vibrant and important job creators. They not only innovate by fostering new jobs, but they also invent new products, and they are the startups in every sense and they embody the American Dream having visited many of them in connecticut. I know how they create jobs and products and opportunities for others. And sba plays a integral role as many of us in supporting Small Businesses financially and encouraging them with expertise and experience. And Linda Mcmahon has that expertise and she is a tireless fighter and leader. Her professional life has been about building businesses. She as struggled and survived in the Small Business trenches hiring and firing and making payrolls and working in the trenches. We have shared our differences, but i have never questioned her unwavering drive and focus. She has used her business to help veterans and women realize their own dreams and opportunities. I am sure under her leadership she will continue to spearhead opportunities for veterans and women. That is what has been the focus of her professional life most recently. And so i am pleased to be here to introduce her and recommend her to the committee. She understands the needs of states like connecticut who are still working hard to recover from the economic recession. Who need new jobs, and i hope that she is going to continue to have connecticut at the top of her mind as she assumes this new role and i look forward to working with her and the rest of the members of the committee will as well. Thank you very much. Thank you, senator blumenthal. I was hoping she would have idaho at the top of the mind. I will let her say that. I dont believe she will. Senator murphy, thank you for coming, and we are all busy these days and it is tough to push some things aside, but the floor is yours. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and chair shaheen, it is my pleasure to recommend Linda Mcmahon as the next leader of the business administrati administrations. It is going to be interesting to see the three us who duked it out after political campaigns, and politics cannot survive if we dont continue to find a way to work after the fight is over. Im here to support linda not because we are magically one mind, but because i have confidence that she is going to give good sound counsel when it comes to President Trump when it comes to Small Businesses. I believe she has passion to the job, and it is vital. At the core, the sba mission is simple. To help build and start Small Businesses. And every owner of a Small Business wants to own a big business. Before you sits a very talented and experienced business persiu who did that. Linda has shepherded her business from a small intenterpe to hundreds of employees around the world. And she understands the unique challenges as senator blumenthal said about women businesses. She cofounded the Women Leadership live which helps to e equip women be successful Business Leader, and i know she will continue to build on the momentum of the previous director of the Obama Administration. And it has for the first time in its history surpassed 5 businesses owned by women. And i am sure she will continue to partner this with the womens business could be sincil which success in connecticutme mentco. And i saw firsthand the fight that linda brings to the endeavor that she takes on and we will have disagreements, but i will never question if she has the determination and the energy to take on this administration. I am proud to be here to support her. Thank you, senators blumenthal and murphy, and we will advice the guinness book of World Records about this event andp keep it noted. And because we know that everybody is drinking out of the fire hose these days, you will be excused and you will see it when you need to see it. Thank you so much, and thank you for coming. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and thank you for the opportunity. Linda, so you know where we are and where we are headed. I will deliver a brief opening statement, and senator shaheen as well and then administer the oath, and then the floor is yours for an opening statement, and then as you can see, you have a list of people with deep probing questions who will take turns from each side. So in any event, and first of all, thank you for coming to meet with me and spending the time that you did. Thank you for being willing to speak on this important appoi appointme appointment, and the Small Business administration is not a large federal agency, as federal agencies go, but to the business person, a Small Business person who it can be one of the most important and critical endeavors that the government undertakes. You and i were able to the loaning of the Small Businesses, and you will find when you drill down that there is a very robust fleet of lenders out there who service the Small Business community through the Small Business administration, and i think that you will be well satisfied with how they operate, what they to, and the work they do for Small Business. Of more importance to me, because of that part of the operation doing so well, is the efforts and the sba undertakes to try to level the Playing Field for Small Businesses. When we talk about every business, it used to be that when we started in politics the most hated organization in any government was irs and they have fallen way back in the other agencies that do the regulatory things that the government does, and have really riztone the top. In my have really risen to the top. In my state, the epa is way up there. After that others, and if you ask any Small Businessman or any business, if you ask what is the biggest problem they wont say access to capital or the taxes are too high, they will tell you that the regulatory structure of the government in america is strangling businesses. And you will find it everybody at the table can tell stories about the Government Agencies coming into the Small Businesses and causing them a great deal of difficulty. We have an operation within the s sba and called the office of advocacy, and they are supposed to be independent, and they have not been, and they are supposed to stand up and complain loudly every time the federal government does that affects Small Businesses. And there is a process in place for them to actually formally do this, and it has not worked well, and i am hoping as we go forward that we are going to be able to make it work better, and the poster child for that is the rule that was proposed for the waters of the united states, and there, the finding and so the office of advocacy is a big problem especially for departments of agriculture and others, and the agency said, no, this is a finding that it wont have a Significant Impact on businesses. I mean, you have to be brain dead to reach that kind of a conclusion. In any event, i know that you are, and you share my concern with that. And i hope that we will be able to do more for the Small Businesses, and we all know that when the government puts out a regulation, if you are General Electric corporation, and it comes in to hand it to the army of lawyers and compliance officers and what have you have to be on an ability to take care of i. And if a man fixes lawn mow ers in the garage, it becomes a federal inquiry from the federal government and cutts into his work dramatically, and we look forward to that working on that as we go forward and with that i yield to my distinguished colleague, mrs. Jeanne shaheen. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and congratulations for taking over the gavel as the chairman of this committee. We have had the opportunity to Work Together in the past very well. I have. And i look forward to working with you over this coming session to address the needs of Small Businesses. I also want to recognize the new members of the committee. Senator duckworth on the democratic side, and on the republican side, senators inhofe, young and rounds, and welcome welcome to the committee. I think that you will find that this is a committee that works on the strong bipartisan way to the address the concerns of Small Businesses. So i look forward to continuing that, and i am please ed d to welcome in linda mchan who is President Trumps nominee to the head the Small Business administration. I appreciated the opportunity to meet with you and to hear your passion for the work that Small Businesses do. I got on the committee in 2008 after i got elected to the senate, because Small Business is such a concern for 96 of our employers in New Hampshire are considered Small Business businesses. And they are not just important to New Hampshire and so many of the states represented on this committee, but they are the engine of the e kconomy that drives this nation. 2 of 3 jobs created are from Small Businesses. They are leaders when it comes to innovation, and they produce, and this is a statistic that is one of my favorites, they produce 14 times more patent thans smapatents than larger businesses, and im not sure that people appreciate that creativity. And unlike the big businesses the Small Businesses have not fully recovered from the great recession. For example, according to a Harvard Business school and si Small Business loans have dropped by 20 since the financial crisis, while lending to large firms has increased to 4 . That is why sba and the programs are so critical. Last year alone, the sba backed more than 70,000 loans to Small Business s, and supporting 29 billion in lending and nearly 700,000 jobs. The sba helped Small Businesses win more than 90 billion in contracts and provide couns counselling to more than 11 m 1 million contracts. And so i know that is why you are here, mrs. Mcmahon and i look forward to your responses to questions today. Thank you. I will warn you that senator shaheen has referred to the members as new members of the committee for a while, but they have been around a while, so you wont be getting the softball questions. With that, i would ask you to stand and be sworn if you would raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and knot being tu truth so help you god . I do. And i understand that you may have introductions of your own . I certainly do. I am proud to introduce my daughter stephanie and her husband paul levesque. And, yeah, please, stand up. Yes, welcome. And i have friends who have traveled around the country to be here today and i appreciate their presence as well. And at this time, the floor is yours for an opening statement. Thank you very much. Thank you, chairman rich, and Ranking Member shaheen and distinguished members of the committee. Im honored to have your consideration to be the head of the small biz usiness administration. I would like to thank senators blumenthal and murphy to have the kind introductions and it is nice to be on an even Playing Field today. I would like to express my gratitude to President Trump for the opportunity to join his administration and the confidence in me. As an entrepreneur, shared the experience of the nations Small Business owners, and we are more than the products and services. We are people. We are families, the Small Businesses that are the engine of the national e kconomy are driven in part by people working to put food on the table, and pay for kids braces and swimming lessons and save for college and prepare for their retirement, and whether it san organic farmer or app developer with one employee or 100, and we cannot for ghaet Small Businesses with people and goals and values that cannot be calculated on the profit and loss statement. If i have the honor of being confirmed as the head of sba i will do my best to advocate on their behalf. My husband and i built our business from scratch. We started out sharing a desk. Over decades of hard work and strategic growth we built it into a publicly traded Global Enterprise with more than 800 employee employees. I am proud of our success. I know every bit of the hard work that it took to create that success. U remember the early days when every month, i had to decide whether i should continue to lease a typewriter or if i could finally afford to buy it. Yes, believe it or not, that 12 a month at that time made a difference in our budget. Like all small biz usiness owne i know what it is like to take a risk on an idea, and manage the cash flow, and navigate the regulations and the tax laws and create jobs. Since stepping down as ceo of wwe in 2009, i have worked to help more people have the opportunity to pursue those goals. In my travels throughout connecticut in 2010, and 2012 when i was campaigning, i met with more than 500 Small Business owners and touring the shops, restaurants, offices, factories and sharing the ideas in the round table discussions. Job growth was a pillar of my campaign, and because small b businesses are responsible for half of all of the private sector jobs and a ma jjority of the new jobs, they were my focus. And for the past two years, i promoted women and en tre repreneurship as the cofounder and the ceo of the startup called the Women Leadership live. I wanted to share my vast experience with others who are launching startups or looking to scale their businesses. Through live events and webinars we educated entrepreneurs about things like applying for a loan and developing a Business Plan. And we worked to build their confidence. I always say that even entrepreneurs with the best ideas need a little wind beneath their wings. Women leadership life hopes by sharing the stories of sucks is and failures and the network of contacts and resources and the strategies for addressing challenges, we can give Small Business owners the confidence to help to propel them forward. Small Business Owners do not just need confidence in themselves. In order to take a risk, they need confidence in the economy. Should i have the honor of leading the sba i will work to the revitalize a spirit of entrepreneurship in america. Small businesses want to take a risk on the expansion or the new hire without fearing onerous fees and taxes and fines that will make the growth unaffordable. We want to renew optimism in the economy. Small businesses have had tough blows in the last decade. I know what it is like to take a hit, and i learned it is not how you fall, but how you get up that truly matters. Early in my career, when we were very young, my husband and i declared bankruptcy and with invested in a company that we did not understand and people we trusted that we shouldnt have. And so we were left holding the bag and