After traveling to Fort Belvoir, Culpeper and Frederickburg on Thursday, Senator Warner spent Friday morning in the Northern Neck and on the Middle Peninsula, visiting with business and community leaders in Westmoreland and Essex Counties.  

During a morning round table discussion at the Art of Coffee in Montross and an afternoon luncheon in Tappahannock, Senator Warner sat down and talked with small business owners and community bankers about their concerns and priorities. 

The Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star was there:

Warner said his major goal these days is to increase the availability of loans for small businesses. Helping small businesses grow would increase jobs, he said.

He said one way of doing that would be to cut red tape at the Small Business Administration and "make SBA programs more user-friendly" to both borrowers and banks.

Warner said another way could be a White House proposal to provide $30 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program to community banks for small-business lending.

A third idea would be to allow banks to join together in loss-reserve pools.

"This would give banks a cushion and an incentive to make loans to customers with less-than-perfect credit," Warner said.

"Whatever we do, we need to do it fast," said Warner. "A lot of small businesses that have been just hanging on for the past 18 months might not be around long."

Senator Warner noted his efforts to review government programs through his Task Force on Government Performance and his support for a bipartisan commission to address debt and deficit.  

"We're not going to dig ourselves out overnight," he said.  "But I promise you that I will keep working to make sure spending is controlled in the long-term."

Here is a report from the road:

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"I'm not ready to throw in the towel"
Senator Warner was back on the road February 18 and met with business and community leaders in Culpeper and Fredericksburg to provide an update from Washington.