AOL Inc. co-founder Steve Case will lead a White House campaign seeking to increase private sector investments in startup companies and small businesses as part of President Barack Obama’s directive to promote entrepreneurship, the administration announced.
Case will be at the White House Monday to help kick off the “Startup America Partnership,” part of a week-long series of events aimed at encouraging investments by U.S. businesses in small firms. Carl Schramm, the president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation, a nonprofit promoting entrepreneurship, will be a founding board member of the private-sector led campaign.
The initiative includes pledges from companies including Facebook Inc., Intel Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., and International Business Machines Corp. to increase their investments in startup companies, according to an administration statement.
Case, who created the Case Foundation in 1997, a charity that pays for after-school technology programs for poor children, will be joined by entrepreneurs, business leaders and administration officials at Monday’s event. Administration officials will include Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Small Business Administrator Karen Mills, Director of the National Economic Council Gene Sperling, and the White House’s chief economist Austan Goolsbee. The president will not be at the event.
In his Jan. 25 State of the Union address Obama said part of his plan to “out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world” includes more investments in education, technology and infrastructure to reduce unemployment and ensure the U.S. can compete with economic rivals.
Budget
Obama’s fiscal 2012 budget, set for release the week of Feb. 14, will include a proposal to make the elimination of capital gains taxes on certain investments in small businesses permanent, according to the announcement. The budget will also include an expansion of the New Markets Tax Credit to help encourage investments in startup companies and small businesses based in low-income areas.
The White House also will announce that the Small Business Administration will direct $2 billion in existing guarantee authority over the next 5 years to match private sector investments in lower-income areas.
