Fact Sheet: Encouraging American Businesses to Invest and Expand

Small And Mid-Sized Business Owners Taking Advantage Of Economic Growth Package Investment Incentives

Today, President Bush met with small and mid-sized business owners to discuss temporary tax incentives in the economic growth package. In February 2008, President Bush signed into law an economic growth package that will boost our economy by putting money back into the hands of American workers and businesses. This growth package meets the criteria the President laid out in January – it amounts to more than $152 billion, or about one percent of GDP, provides tax rebates to more than 130 million American households, and offers temporary tax incentives for businesses to invest in their companies and create jobs this year. These incentives are already in place and are starting to have an impact. The growth package was carefully calibrated and is large enough to promote short-run growth in our economy without jeopardizing our long-term budget objectives.

Today's Meeting Participants Were Prompted To Make New Investments This Year As A Result Of The Economic Growth Package

• Dan Glier is the President of Glier's Meats, Inc., an 18-employee, USDA-inspected meat processing plant located in Covington, Kentucky. Established in 1946 by Glier's father, Glier's Meats is a manufacturer of many types of gourmet meats but is most renowned for their specialty product, Goetta. Holding in excess of 90 percent of the Goetta market, Glier's annual production of Goetta now exceeds over 1,000,000 pounds. Earlier this year, Glier installed a new replacement refrigeration compressor for approximately $15,000. When the stimulus package passed, he additionally began planning to install a deer processing facility, an investment he would not have made without the incentives in the stimulus legislation.
• Tony Jimenez is the President and CEO of MicroTechnologies, LLC, a small Northern Virginia business focused on information technology and systems engineering. Since founding MicroTechnologies in 2004, Jimenez has led the company through a period of uninterrupted growth. MicroTechnologies' professional staff, now numbering more than 100, supports more than 30 prime contracts with civilian and defense agencies. Jimenez says that the savings from the stimulus package will allow him to move his company into a new rented space. He will also be spending $500,000 to $600,000 on new servers, technology upgrades, a phone system, copiers, furniture, and lease-hold improvements to the new space. He estimates the tax provisions will save him around $60,000 on his new investments, and he would not have been able to make this move without those savings.
• Bob McCutcheon is the President of McCutcheon's Apple Products, Inc., which has been a family-owned business since its founding in 1938. Originally, the company began as a simple apple press shop and later grew to produce apple cider, apple butter, and other apple recipe products. McCutcheon's Apple Products, Inc. continues to add new products and is committed to "maintaining the highest quality for the best homes recipe products." McCutcheon is in the middle of a major retail expansion and is planning to purchase at least $150,000 in ovens, demonstration products, furniture, and cash registers. This expansion has been in planning for a number of years, but McCutcheon indicates that the company is proceeding this year as a result of the incentives provided in the stimulus package.
• Darlene Miller is the President and CEO of Permac Industries , a manufacturing "job shop" that produces custom-made manufacturers' parts according to its client's blueprints and specifications. The quantities produced range from a few pieces to several thousand and include a variety of metals and plastics. As a result of the stimulus package, Miller has invested in a Computerized Numeric Control grinder that will allow Permac to complete its grinding processes in-house. The company has also invested in a computerized quality control vision system, which performs and documents quality control measurements electronically.
• Ray Pinard is the President and CEO of 48HourPrint.com, a leading online supplier of high-quality customized printed products to businesses. The company offers a broad spectrum of products ranging from business cards and brochures to tickets and pocket folders. Pinard responded to the bonus depreciation in the stimulus package by purchasing a $2 million off-set press. The purchase could have waited until next year, but the investment incentives provided by the stimulus package made this purchase possible in 2008.
• Ryan Robinson is the CEO of Signal Metal Industries, Inc., a second-generation family-owned business founded in 1973 by Robertson's father. Signal Metal is a highly diversified heavy steel fabrication, machining, assembly, and engineering company dedicated to providing high quality U.S.-made products to steelmaking, mining, and heavy construction equipment industries. Signal has more than 200 employees, mostly welders and machinists, at its corporate headquarters located in Irving, Texas, and it also operates plate-burning and sandblasting facilities in southern Dallas. In response to the stimulus package, Robinson purchased a large computer-controlled machine tool called a "Horizontal Boring Mill," a John Deere Tractor, a coating facility, 10 overhead 5-to-20-ton capacity cranes, and a $125,000 forklift.
• Tom Sawner is the CEO of Educational Options, Inc. (EdOptions), an accredited, web-based provider of high school and adult education curriculum and the parent company of Blue Ridge International Academy, the Nation's first triple-accredited "virtual school." In 2006, EdOptions was selected by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as the National Small Business of the Year. In response to the stimulus package, Sawner has already spent $70,000 on new phones, furniture, and office equipment for new buildings in Virginia and Arizona, and he plans to spend another $100,000 on computers and servers and office equipment. Due to the increase in the amount of first-year depreciation deductions for automobiles, Tom plans on purchasing two new Priuses this year for his most active salespeople.
• Charles "Shorty" Whittington is the President of Grammer Industries, Inc., which he founded in 1977. Grammer Industries, Inc., includes his equipment sales and leasing, specialized tanker fleets, and terminal trucking operations throughout the Midwest. In 2006, Whittington partnered with his son John to create Integrity Biofuels when he recognized the need for renewable fuels in the future of the transportation industry. Integrity Biofuels, Central Indiana's first Soy Biodiesel Plant, is located in Morristown, Indiana, just east of Indianapolis. This production facility uses soybean oil as its primary feed stock to be converted to methyl-esters (B100 Biodiesel). The process will incorporate the latest technology and automation to produce some of the finest quality biodiesel fuel in the United States. Whittington is planning on buying several new trucks and trailers for Grammer Industries, Inc. in response to the stimulus package.
• Ray York is the CEO of Ewing, Inc., a source for water conservation solutions and a leading authority on the latest water management products, trends, and practices. Ewing provides water management solutions, commercial and residential irrigation supplies, landscape and agronomic products, landscape lighting, erosion control, water features, and industrial plastics primarily to professionals serving the landscaping, turf, golf, and industrial industries. Ewing has more than 185 locations throughout the United States. York plans to purchase new trucks and other distribution equipment as a result of the stimulus package incentives.