THE PRESIDENT:  Good morning, everybody.  It is good to be here at Ernest Maier Block.  I just had a chance to take a quick tour, a look around with Brendan Quinn, President and CEO of Ernest Maier, and it’s a remarkable story.  Brendan came here initially（最初，首先） to help a family business, turn it around; it was experiencing losses.  He ended up purchasing the company and now has grown it enormously（巨大地，庞大地） , has terrific employees here.  He provides full health insurance to them.  They are supporting their families, and even during this difficult downturn he hasn’t had to lay anybody off and is still confident about his growth.  So we’re just very proud of him and what this company has accomplished.

These are the guys that build serious stuff –- concrete blocks, bricks for walls that are thick, difficult to move, and can stop anything in their path -- sort of like the way I feel about Congress sometimes.  But this is a family business that’s been here over 80 years.  They believe in investing in their workers.  They care about the environment, so they collect and process using cooking oil from local restaurants to power some of their equipment.  Their community cares about them, so business is growing.  Brendan has hired folks this year and with the smart investments he’s made, he hopes to continue that growth.

Small businesses like this one are the bricks and blocks of our entire economy.  And over the past two years, my administration has been doing everything we can to help encourage more success stories like this -- because it is small businesses that will power our growth and put our people back to work.

This morning, we learned that in the month of September, our economy gained 64,000 jobs in the private sector（私营部门） .  July and August private sector job numbers were revised upwards.  So we’ve now seen nine straight months of private sector job growth –- in all, more than 850,000 private sector jobs gained this year, which is in sharp contrast to the almost 800,000 jobs that we were losing when I first took office.  But that news is tempered（调和） by a net job loss in September, which was fueled in large measure by the end of temporary Census jobs and by layoffs in state and local governments.

I should point out that these continuing layoffs by state and local governments -- of teachers and police officers and firefighters and the like -- would have been even worse without the federal help that we’ve provided to states over the last 20 months –- help that the Republicans in Congress have consistently（一贯地） opposed.  I think the Republican position doesn’t make much sense, especially since the weakness in public sector employment is a drag on the private sector as well.  So we need to continue to explore ways that we can help states and local governments maintain workers who provide vital services.

At the same time, we have to keep doing everything we can to accelerate this recovery.  Yes, the trend line in private sector job growth is moving in the right direction.  But I’m not interested in trends or figures as much as I am interested in the people behind them -- the millions of honest, hardworking Americans swept up in the most devastating recession of our lifetimes.  As I’ve said before, the only piece of economic news that folks still looking for work want to hear is, “you’re hired.”  And everything we do is dedicated to make that happen.

Last week, for example, I signed into law the Small Business Jobs Act -- a small business bill that does some big things.  And I want to mention three of them today.

Within the 11 days since it took effect, more than 2,000 small business owners have already received more than a billion dollars’ worth of new loans -– with more to come.  And beginning today, the Small Business Administration is offering larger loans for folks who need them.

Second, it expands the tax cut for all the equipment investment small businesses make this year -– something that Brendan is planning to take advantage of here at Maier Block.  And we were just talking about his belief that the more we can accelerate depreciation（折旧，贬值） , the more likely we’re going to see businesses like his make these investments.