America’s small businesses are the engines of job creation, and in the last four years, President Obama has aggressively pursued policies to support and invest in their growth. Intent on distorting the President’s record, Mitt Romney is ripping the President’s words out of context to manufacture a false attack on his commitment to helping small businesses.

But Romney’s manipulative attacks cannot distract from his record and economic policies that undermine the ability for American business owners to expand and hire. In fact, when it comes the support of small business, the contrast between President Obama’s and Romney’s records is stark:

What they’ve done

President Obama:

• Signed 18 tax cuts to support small businesses

• Supported a record volume of small business loans last year, and more than 150,000 loans since he took office, allowing business owners to expand and hire more workers

• Created the new Small Business Lending Fund, which has invested in 332 banks and community development loan funds to help Main Street banks provide loans to small businesses

• Invested $2 billion in Small Business Administration funding for early-stage businesses and businesses in under-served communities or emerging business sectors

Governor Romney

• Watched as the number of new businesses created in Massachusetts fell by 10 percent over his term. In 2006, that number hit its lowest level since 1993.

• Vetoed or cut more than $100 million in economic development investments, including job training, high-tech manufacturing, and support for Massachusetts entrepreneurs.

• Created or raised over 1,000 taxes and fees on the middle class and small businesses that came to $750 million a year.

• Failed to support and encourage Bay State entrepreneurs so that, by his last year in office, more small businesses were shutting down rather than starting up in the state.

What they want to do

President Obama:

• Extend middle class tax cuts for the next year to stop taxes from going up on 97 percent of all small business owners.

• Encourage Congress to pass a new 10 percent income tax credit for small businesses that hire new workers or increase wages in 2012.

• Extend 100 percent expensing through 2012 so owners can immediately write off the costs of updating and expanding their businesses this year.

Mitt Romney:

• Gut investments small businesses depend on—like education, training, and innovation—to help pay for more tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

• Change the tax code to eliminate taxes on corporations’ overseas profits, putting small businesses that can’t shift their profits to foreign subsidiaries at a competitive disadvantage.

• Spend $1 trillion on a corporate tax cut that would give over 90 percent of its benefits to the largest 0.6 percent of corporations.

• Champion a budget that, if cuts are made across the board, would slash the Small Businesses Administration budget by 19 percent, thereby reducing the number of small business loans for entrepreneurs hoping to expand, invest, and hire workers.

The difference between the candidates’ visions could not be more clear: President Obama believes in putting small businesses and the middle class before politics. Mitt Romney is convinced that cutting taxes for the wealthy and large corporations, slashing public support for credit availability, and gutting investments in the middle class will help small businesses, and he’s willing to say anything to bring those policies to the White House.

The Truth Team Obama Biden