(CNSNews.com) -Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner defended government regulations and said it is “hard to find evidence” that regulations are prohibiting job creation in his testimony before the Senate Small Business Committee today.

Geithner gave his support to President Obama’s small-business provisions of the American Jobs Act, claiming it will help create economic growth. He said tax reform must be combined with short-term incentives for small businesses to spur job creation.

Ranking member of the committee, Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) disagreed, claiming the incentives are creating uncertainty and that short-term fixes are not working. The two then went back-and-forth in a heated discussion.

Geithner said, “If you look at the evidence, and Senator Snowe when you quoted me last week I was quoting your Republican economist Bruce Bartlett, who concluded looking at the evidence that it is very hard to find evidence across the economy today that regulation is having a material effect on growth at all.”

Snowe called for sweeping tax reform and regulatory overhaul. In her argument she quoted a reference of her own, Chair of The President’s Job Council Jeffrey Immelt, “He said, in an article-- Dayton Ohio, back in May 13th, the final priority is improving collaboration between government and business with regard to regulation. Decades of overlapping and uncoordinated regulations create unnecessary hurdles and increase burdens for entrepreneurs and businesses large and small in this country.”

Snowe called for fast action and long-term solutions, “Rome is burning and we’re facing the decimation of our communities, and they want help.”