BIDDEFORD — On Tuesday, small business owners, and current and former state representatives voiced their support for Democratic Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton’s plans to bolster Maine’s 141,000 small businesses.

Reps. Martin Grohman, D-Biddeford, and Lori Fowle, D-Vassalboro, along with Bangor City Councilor Joe Perry and Coffee By Design owner Mary Allen Lindeman, converged in a call to press on Tuesday to discuss the advantages of Clinton’s proposed plan to support small businesses in Maine and across the nation.

“(Clinton) really is looking at the importance of small businesses and the need for support from the tax base,” Lindeman, who employs 65 people across her six CBD retail locations, said.

“I care about small businesses. I care about the state of Maine. I care about an economy that has the potential to thrive in an international space. I fully support, and have since the beginning, Hillary Clinton for president,” she said.

According to a release sent by a Hillary for America spokeswoman, small businesses represent 96.8 percent of businesses in Maine, employing 279,000 people.

Clinton’s plan calls for several actions to improve the small business environment in Maine.

This includes streamlining unnecessary licensing programs. According to Hillary for America campaign materials, more than 25 percent of Americans require licensing to do their jobs, and occupation licensing fees can run up costs to $209.

Clinton’s plan would make it so any state and locality would be eligible for federal funding if they want to make doing business less expensive, by eliminating licensing costs for employees. This, according to Clinton, would support innovative programs and offset forgone licensing revenue as long as proposals to do so safeguard public health and safety.

Clinton is also calling for a standard deduction to make it cheaper and simpler to file taxes as an entrepreneur or small business, “whether they’re running a business out of their own home, managing a shop on Main Street, or selling online through platforms like Etsy and eBay,” according to campaign documents.

Her plan, however, would still allow for small businesses to opt to track and deduct their expenses as do individual filers.

“I think one of the things she’s pushing that makes a lot of sense to me is simplifying the tax filing process for smaller businesses,” Grohman said. “It just kind of reduces the friction of being in business and it helps people get through that process smoothly.”

Grohman also agreed with Clinton’s proposal to cut unnecessary steps for small businesses to file their taxes, instead letting businesses that bring in less than $1 million take advantage of “checkbook accounting,” which would simplify the tax filing process.

“I think that, having run a small business myself, you want a certain amount of predictability, too,” he said. “I think that unpredictability is something that really hurts business across all spectrums, and just sort of being able to know what policies are going to be laid out and rolled out is worth it to any business.”

Fowle, who is the former owner of Prime Cut Salon in Waterville, said she doesn’t agree with Gov. LePage’s and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s notion that government should be run like a business.

“The notion that government runs well when it’s run like a business I think is false. As someone who works in government now and has owned a business, I believe they run completely different,” Fowle said.

Small businesses are reflections of the people who own them, Fowle said. It’s the government’s job to help small businesses, not the other way around.

“As a business owner, the buck stopped with me, the decisions were mine. But I don’t think government should be run from the top down; I think government is the bottom up and you have to listen to your constituents.”

Perry, a former state senator who now runs Garland Street Market in Bangor, said it’s crucial now more than ever to protect small businesses as people increasingly rely on public assistance in the form of food stamps.

“Without my store, my neighborhood would be a food desert. The vast majority of my customers are poor. If I wasn’t there they’d really have no good choices,” Perry said. “I don’t think anyone should have to use my store as a grocery store, but they do. It’s important that a business like mine survives to so many people in the area.”

Clinton also wants to streamline regulation and cut red tape for Maine’s community banks and credit unions, of which there are more than 85, and allow students to defer their loan payments while they start up their small business ventures.

Grohman, speaking on a local note, expressed his support of Clinton’s plan, saying he is happy to see her embracing students’ entrepreneurial endeavors, given the technical training available to students at Biddeford Regional Center of Technology.

“Another thing I wanted to mention too is I’m a big supporter of the Center of Technology and having the ability to move into technical careers,” Grohman said. “I’m really pleased to see the support that she’s bringing to that and creative ideas. “

— Staff Writer Alan Bennett can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 329 or abennett@journaltribune.com.