What questions do you have about the 2024 election? What important issues do you want the candidates to address? Let us know.
Small business owners and elected officials joined Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar to campaign for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in Bristol, Bucks County, on Friday.
Speakers praised Harris Plans to expand tax relief for new small businesses and increase new small business applications to 25 million during his first term.
“Am [Democratic U.S. Sen.] “Bob Casey’s best friend,” Klobuchar joked as she addressed the crowd at The Business Club on Mill Street, a locally owned work and events space. “We sit together by choice in the United States Senate.”
Klobuchar said small businesses play an important role in local, regional and national economies.
“My state is very interested in small businesses,” he said, adding that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, is part of the reason small businesses have flourished in the North Star State. “We’ve gotten a lot of our big companies started as small businesses, and we want to keep that happening, keep regenerating new ideas in our country.”
Prior to the event, Klobuchar, along with Bucks County Commissioners Bob Harvie and Diane Ellis-Marseglia, state Rep. Tina Davis and congressional candidate Ashley Ehasz, attended a roundtable discussion Friday morning, meeting with Bristol-area small business owners.
Klobuchar said having those individual discussions is important for lawmakers.
“Sometimes you read big political statements and things like that, and they don’t really resonate with people unless you really understand what the problems are and how you can make things better,” he said.
Harvie led the panel discussion and said Harris’ economic plan “really focuses on what small business owners are going through, the issues they’re facing.”
“Vice President Harris is talking about creating an opportunity economy,” Harvie said. “It’s about opportunity. It’s something they wanted to do. They finally had the opportunity to do it. They’ve created companies. Some of them are companies that are still going strong, they’ve been in business for decades, they’re family-owned businesses. And they’re facing competition from big corporations and these giants that have a lot more resources, but they just want a fair shot.”