The Big Story: Biden proposes billions in COVID relief for entrepreneurs. President-elect Joe Biden unveiled an ambitious $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package yesterday focused on bolstering the nation’s response to the pandemic, providing more direct relief to working families, and supporting small businesses and communities that have been most affected by the ongoing economic uncertainty. Building off of economic relief efforts signed into law at the end of last year, Biden’s proposed package would place a greater emphasis on relief for the U.S. entrepreneurial and small business communities.
Biden’s relief package would drastically expand the federal government’s response to the pandemic by, in part, allocating $440 billion for small businesses and communities that have been most affected by the ongoing pandemic. The set aside for small businesses includes a new $15 billion grant program—separate from the Paycheck Protection Program—for startups and other small businesses, as well as a proposal to “leverage $35 billion in government funds into $175 billion in low-interest loans to finance small businesses.” In a speech announcing his proposal, Biden said his administration will focus on ensuring that emergency small business relief is “distributed swiftly and equitably,” while also making sure that minority- and women-owned small businesses have “equal access to the resources they need.” Biden added that the focus on providing low-interest loans will “help entrepreneurs of all backgrounds create and maintain jobs.” Biden’s plan would also provide $1,400-per-person stimulus checks to certain Americans, raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, and offer $400 per week in enhanced unemployment benefits.
Biden’s proposed relief package is welcome news for the startup community, but policymakers should continue exploring proposals to help early-stage companies. As we have repeatedly stressed, U.S. startups and entrepreneurs need targeted relief so that they can be well suited to help drive the nation’s economic recovery and spur job growth once the pandemic has ended. After consulting with entrepreneurs and lawmakers since the start of the pandemic, Engine developed a roadmap for recovery to identify some of the targeted relief measures needed to support startups during this difficult time. These proposals include a dedicated “startup fund” to better direct relief to early-stage companies, joint public-private equity investments in startups, and investor tax credits. While the latest relief package would expand grant and funding opportunities for startups, we hope that President-elect Biden and lawmakers will continue to examine the needs of the entrepreneurial community—and consider some of our alternative policy proposals—moving forward.
Policy Roundup:
Internet companies move to prevent threats ahead of inauguration. Following last week’s violent pro-Trump riot at the Capitol, Internet companies are working to prevent any similar violence from occurring ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration next week. Twitter has removed over 70,000 accounts associated with the fringe QAnon conspiracy as part of a broader crackdown on content that could lead to real world harm, and Airbnb announced that it is canceling all reservations made in the D.C. region during inauguration week in response to officials’ request that people do not travel to Washington for Inauguration Day. Facebook has also increased efforts to remove content that could incite violence, including removing any posts that use the phrase “Stop the Steal.” And Google announced this week that it is blocking all political ads—including any related to the Capitol riot—”ahead of the upcoming presidential inauguration.”
Trump, Republicans deflect from insurrection with cries of tech censorship. President Trump blamed large social media companies this week for dividing the country, remarks that came after a number of Internet companies banned him from their websites and after a mob of pro-Trump rioters attacked the Capitol. Some Republican policymakers—including Trump—have spent much of the past year falsely claiming that online companies are using Section 230 to broadly censor conservative voices online. (The critical liability limitations in Section 230 allow Internet companies of all sizes to host and moderate user-generated content, and private companies have their own rights and agreements with users that allow them to host and moderate speech as they see fit.) Rather than engaging in misleading allegations of bias, policymakers should work to incentivize responsible content moderation, while also recognizing the inherent difficulties of content moderation—particularly for the startup community.
FinCEN extends comment period for regulations requiring exchanges to collect info on private wallets. The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced yesterday that it has extended the public comment period for recently proposed regulations that would require banks and other financial services to record and verify personal information from U.S. customers and their counterparties for cryptocurrency transfers from exchanges to private wallets. FinCEN extended the comment deadline by 15 days for feedback on the proposed reporting requirements for relevant transactions of more than $10,000, and 45 days for its proposed requirements on recordkeeping and counterparty reporting.
NIST releases privacy resource for startups. After consulting a variety of stakeholders—including Engine, startups, and entrepreneurs—the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology released a new two-page document aimed at getting small and medium businesses familiarized with the agency’s Privacy Framework, which came out last January.
Startup Roundup:
#StartupsEverywhere: Campbell, California. 21Labs is an autonomous testing and analytics platform that lets mobile app developers and engineering teams accelerate their release cycle and perfect the user experience of their iOS and Android applications. We recently spoke with 21Labs’ CEO, Shani Shoham, to learn a little more about his startup’s work, his experience as an immigrant founder, and why it’s so important for the U.S. to attract and attain the best talent from across the world.
