(The Center Square) – As the election nears, the presidential candidates’ surrogates continue to battle it out in the state of Arizona. The newest target group of voters are small business owners.
On October 8, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar visited Phoenix and hosted a networking event with small business owners to discuss the Harris-Walz policies in the newly formed “Small Business for Harris-Walz.” At the event, 50 Arizona small businesses announced their support for Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz.
“We are focused on the vision Vice President Harris has for our small businesses that will transform Arizona and the United States,” said Gabe Hagen, owner of Brick Road Coffee in Phoenix. “Trump’s performance speaks for itself. In his first term, Trump oversaw more job losses than any president since Herbert Hoover, and his tax cheat gave billions to the wealthy and big business 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 to small businesses, citing Harris’ past record. During her vice presidency, she founded the Economic Opportunity Coalition, which spent billions in taxpayer dollars to create opportunities in underserved communities. In addition, she established a $12 billion fund to provide capital to small businesses.
Harris-Walz’s future plan is to set a goal of 25 million new business filings, expand the business tax deduction to $50,000, make it easier for small businesses to file taxes and remove excessive licensing requirements.
According to the report, they plan to do this by establishing a small business expansion fund that would allow financial institutions to cover interest costs while small businesses are starting up, allocate one-third of federal contract dollars to small businesses and remove additional licensing requirements imposed. on small businesses. It’s unclear how she will do this since most business licensing requirements are state and local.
However, former President Donald Trump’s senior campaign adviser Brian Hughes said President Joe Biden has hurt small businesses in the United States.
“Under the Biden-Harris economic disaster, small businesses have been decimated with profit growth below pandemic-era lows, plans to cut workers significantly, and uncertainty about the economic outlook — including taxes — skyrocketing,” Hughes said. “Protecting and making permanent the small business tax credit, which benefits nearly 26 million small businesses, is critical to growing our economy, protecting jobs, and keeping effective small business tax rates consistent with business growth.”
Hughes also noted that small businesses set a record for small business optimism in 2018, according to the NFIB report, under Trump’s presidency. Sentiment has since eased, with July marking the 32nd consecutive month below the 50-year average of 98.
“Historically high inflation remains a key issue for owners as sales expectations decline 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 the success of small businesses has been thanks to Trump’s leadership of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the creation of the Small Business Tax Credit (199A), which is set to expire soon.
“Allowing this deduction to expire would destroy the small businesses that are responsible for creating two out of three new jobs, destroying American employment opportunities,” Hughes said.
However, Jenny Poon, co-chair of Arizona Small Business for Harris-Walz, said the policies proposed by Harris would better benefit Arizona’s small businesses.
“Vice President Harris is charting a new path forward that will increase tax credits for people when they start a new small business,” Poon said. “It would have changed my life when I was starting out.” I could have started my own business much sooner than I did, and I know this new proposal will create small businesses that otherwise wouldn’t have existed and grow our local economies here in Arizona.”
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