Freeport Journal-Standard - Bobby Schilling: EB-5 an Example of a Job-Creation Plan that Works

Op-Ed

The Brookings Institute recently released a study suggesting that entrepreneurship and innovation are disappearing in this country. According to the study, more businesses are now being destroyed than created.

America is the greatest country in the world, but let's be honest -- our economy is in bad shape. Good-paying, permanent jobs are becoming harder and harder to find.

We have a job-creation problem in this country, and as a member of Congress I worked hard to solve it. I supported more than 30 jobs bills that promoted American-made energy, strengthened small businesses, and created new opportunities for innovation and expansion. But there's still more work to do.

When I returned to the private sector last year, I decided I wanted to continue focusing on creating American jobs. I could think of no better way of doing that than joining the team over at CMB Regional Centers in Rock Island, as CMB's No. 1 focus is the creation of new American jobs.

CMB operates within the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, under which qualified foreign nationals making an investment of at least $500,000 (that creates 10 or more new American jobs) can seek permanent residency in the United States. The vast majority of these investments occur in "TEAs," or Targeted Employment Areas, which are rural areas or areas where the local unemployment rate is 1 1/2 times higher than the national average.

Through this program, CMB has played a significant role in more than $7 billion in economic activity within the United States and is helping to create more than 80,000 U.S. jobs.

Remember President Obama's stimulus program that cost American taxpayers nearly $1 trillion? Each job created from the stimulus ended up costing the American taxpayer $278,000, and most of these jobs were only temporary. The EB-5 program is a job creation program that costs taxpayers nothing. Not only are the EB-5 applicants creating American jobs, but their worldwide income becomes taxable under U.S. law, and they become subject to our inheritance taxes.

If the Stimulus Bill had a job-creation requirement equal to the EB-5 program, the United States would literally have a zero percent unemployment rate. The EB-5 program has received bipartisan support as members of Congress know that when properly implemented, it is one of the most efficient, effective job-creation programs in the country, and as such, I'm proud to be a part of it!

As you know, I am running for Congress again in the Illinois 17th District. My opponent and I have very different views. Congresswoman Bustos supports policies that ship jobs overseas and destroy the middle class. She supports a bring-back tax that prevents American companies from bringing their overseas profits home to reinvest in the United States of America. My goal, now and in the past, is to create jobs here at home, and since leaving Congress that is what I have been working to do.

It's time for less talk and more action. You're going to hear a lot about jobs this fall. We need to start focusing on jobs programs that actually work, and what CMB has done within the EB-5 program has been a remarkable success.

If elected to Congress, my No. 1 priority will be growing our economy and creating good-paying, permanent jobs for the middle class. Let's get to work.

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