(The Center Square) – As the election grows nearer, surrogates for the presidential candidates continue to campaign in battleground state Arizona. The most recent voter bloc being targeted is small business owners.
On Oct. 8, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar visited Phoenix and hosted a networking event with small business owners to discuss the Harris-Walz policies in the newly-launched “Small Business for Harris-Walz.” During the event, 50 Arizona small businesses announced their endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz.
“We are focused on the vision that Vice President Harris has for our small businesses which will transform Arizona and the United States,” said Gabe Hagen, owner of Brick Road Coffee in Phoenix. “Trump’s record speaks for itself. In his first term, Trump oversaw the loss of more jobs than any president since Herbert Hoover and his tax scam gifted billions to the wealthy and big corporations and created new incentives for companies to ship American jobs overseas.”
In Harris-Walz’s campaign document, “A New Way Forward for the Middle Class,” the campaign outlines how they would provide economic support for small businesses, citing Harris’ former record. During her vice presidency, she established the Economic Opportunity Coalition, which spent billions of taxpayer dollars to create opportunity in underserved communities. Additionally, she established a $12 billion fund to provide capital to small businesses.
Harris-Walz’s plan for the future is to set a goal of 25 million new business applications, expand the startup expense deduction to $50,000, make it easier for small businesses to file taxes and remove excessive occupational licensing requirements.
According to the report, they intend to do this by establishing a small business expansion fund that would enable financial institutions to cover interest costs while small businesses are starting up, allocating a third of federal contract dollars to small businesses and removing the extra licensing requirements put on small businesses. It is unclear how she will do this as most business licensing requirements are at the state and local level.
However, Brian Hughes, the senior advisor for former President Donald Trump’s campaign, said that Joe Biden’s presidency has hurt small businesses in the U.S.
“Under the Biden-Harris economic disaster, small businesses have been decimated with profit trends falling below the pandemic-era low, plans to hire workers down sharply, and uncertainty over the economic outlook — including taxes — skyrocketing,” Hughes said. “Protecting and making permanent the small business tax deduction, which benefits nearly 26 million small businesses, is crucial to growing our economy, protecting jobs, and keeping small business effective tax rates in-line with corporate rates.”
Hughes also noted that small businesses set a record in small business optimism in 2018, according to a NFIB report, under Trump’s presidency. The sentiment has since declined with July marking the 32nd consecutive month below the 50-year average of 98.
“Historically high inflation remains the top issue for owners as sales expectations plummet and cost pressures increase,” said NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg. “Uncertainty among small business owners continues to rise as expectations for future business conditions worsen.”
Hughes said he believes what success small businesses have had is thanks to Trump’s leadership on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the creation of the small business (199A) tax deduction, which is set to expire soon.
“Allowing this deduction to expire, would destroy small businesses who are responsible for creating two of every three new jobs, and thus annihilate Americans’ employment opportunities,” Hughes said.
However, Jenny Poon, co-chair of “Arizona Small Business for Harris-Walz,” said that the policies proposed by Harris would better benefit Arizona’s small businesses.
“Vice President Harris is charting a New Way Forward that will expand tax relief for people when they are starting a new small business,” Poon said. “That would have been life-changing for me when I was starting out. I would have been able to start my own business a whole lot sooner than I did, and I know that this new proposal will create small businesses that wouldn’t have been created otherwise, and grow our local economies here in Arizona.”
