Widener forum focuses on job opportunities, growth
CHESTER >> Republican lawmakers met with business and community leaders late Thursday morning at Widener University to find ways to expand business opportunities for all.
U.S. Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Tim Scott, R-S.C., and state Sen. Tom Killion, R-9 of Middletown, along with two dozen business and community activists spoke for about 40 minutes on how to entice perspective entrepreneurs.
Issues discussed included illegal foreclosures on homes, a former onestop-shop resource center in Chester and the DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act’s effect on business.
“I’m really concerned about access to capital for small businesses, start-ups and I think that Washington did something that has made this problem much worse,” said Toomey, alluding to the Dodd-Frank act, which was seen as a Wall Street reform act to prevent risk-taking actions that led to the 2008 financial crisis.
“Prior to Dodd-Frank being signed into law (in July 2010) … America was launching 125 community banks from scratch per year on average. Do you know how many community banks have been launched in America since then? Two.
“What we used to do routinely is gone. We’ve eliminated this whole category of start-up banks that no longer exist. How many small businesses have not been funded?” Toomey said.
Toomey claimed the cost to comply with banking regulations under DoddFrank doesn’t work and that act puts taxpayers on the hook for another potential bailout of big banks.
Johnny Young, a community activist from Philadelphia, said Dodd-Frank has allowed for transparency of banking practices, particularly in regard to alleged illegal foreclosures by banks of properties among African Americans and Latinos.
“I think it helps the consumer a little bit more because they’re trying to find out why these banks are not validating any claims that lawyers are bringing in,” said Young on the 8,000 foreclosures a month in Philadelphia. “How do we stop that hemorrhage before we start talking about the economic roles in the community?”
Toomey responded that illegal activity should be reported and stopped.
Barbara Muhammed, a lifelong Chester resident, talked about a service in the Community Hospital of Chester from 1997-2000 that provided educational, social, entrepreneurial and other services to its residents. This resource center, Muhammad testified, decreased the dependency of welfare and food stamps from 86 percent of a certain neighborhood in Chester to 14.
“I am appealing to you, Senator, that we look to put something like that back in the city of Chester, plus other things that other people may feel are appropriate,” said Muhammed.
The service was discontinued due to lack of funding.
“It got them where people were aspiring to go. Domestic, education, career development, entrepreneurial development, education, the whole gamut of the possibilities that they had, but never had someone to connect them in a way that the outcome was successful,” Muhammed said.
She was grateful that lawmakers present, including Toomey, didn’t make it a political issue on Thursday, saying he was more interested in the feedback of the community and that he didn’t “overwhelm the conversation politics.”
Toomey said it’s always helpful to reach out to his community members for issues involving business growth.
“It’s an on-going dialogue,” said Toomey. “There’s no single answer, there’s no magic wand to make a distressed community (like Chester) prosperous overnight, but there are ways to move that forward.”
A statement from Toomey’s Democratic challenger Katie McGinty’s campaign Thursday evening read in part: “She knows that there’s no singular, catchall way to build up a community that has seen factory doors close and thousands of jobs disappear, but she’s committed to working with Democrats and Republicans to retrain our workforce, offer apprenticeship programs to students, strengthen ‘Buy American’ laws, and stop rewarding companies that ship American jobs overseas.”