WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congressman Roger Williams (R-TX), Chairman of the House Committee on Small Business, and Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA), Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, led a joint hearing titled “Prosperity on Main Street: Keeping Taxes Low for Small Businesses” to discuss making the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent and keeping taxes low for Main Street America.

“Despite the Democrats’ claims that it only benefits the rich, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 brought savings and prosperity to Main Street. With these tax cuts set to expire, small business owners are faced with financial uncertainty and concern regarding how their businesses may be impacted,” said Chairman Williams. “Today, House and Senate Republicans came together to address these concerns and take a critical step in making the Trump Tax Cuts permanent for Main Street America.”

“We heard directly from Main Street today about how the Trump tax cuts fueled incredible growth and job creation,” said Chair Ernst. “Allowing these historically successful provisions to expire would put Americans’ livelihoods at risk. I will continue working with Chairman Williams to make the Trump tax cuts permanent to unleash a Golden Age of prosperity for small businesses and our nation.”

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Watch the full hearing here.

Below are some key excerpts from today’s hearing:

Rep. Van Duyne: “According to NFIB, letting that 199A deduction expire would force sixty percent of small businesses to raise prices and nearly forty-four percent to delay or cancel capital investments. On the other hand, making the deduction permanent would create two million jobs annually. That’s more than eight thousand in just Texas-24, my district, alone. So, Mr. Click, how would your business be harmed if the Section 199A deduction were to sunset?” Mr. Click: “Again, as I’ve said, it would slow us down. It would also slow down our plans to make more products here in the U.S.A. that, unfortunately, the country has stopped making. There’s a lot of talk about tariffs. I’m definitely not a tariff expert. But I can tell you from personal experience, when my wife, Sarah, and I put the company together, we made sure that our products were made here in the U.S.A. We’re the only company that guarantees all of our aluminum products are made here in the U.S.A, mostly in Virginia. Our feedstock, the products that we import, represent less than two percent of our revenue. Again, we’ve been through the tariff discussion before and see minimal impact from that, but I don’t want to slow down, I want to continue to make those products that we have to go to other countries for.”

Rep. Alford: “Mr. Brashers, many of my Democrat colleagues have painted an extension of this Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as handouts for oligarchs and tax cuts for the rich. Can you explain why they’re wrong?” Mr. Brashers: “After the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was passed, we actually saw that the bottom fifty percent paid a smaller portion of federal taxes than they did prior to the TCJA. The idea that the TCJA was simply a giveaway to the very wealthy is just not backed up by the facts.” Rep. Alford: “And in fact, it is going to be a big deterrent to starting small businesses in America, will it not? Explain that.” Mr. Brashers: “Yeah absolutely. So, what we’re talking about right now with the extension of these provisions—keep in mind that the corporate rates, that’s been locked in—so, if you were to allow this to lapse what you would actually have would be that small businesses would be slammed with a twenty percent tax increase in the case of the 199A deduction. All businesses would be hit  with tax increases from the expensing and all these other provisions that we have been talking about today. These would be pretty much across the board for businesses. They’re going to be paying significantly higher taxes, and absolutely, it is going to be hitting the small businesses the hardest.”

Rep. Stauber: “Mr. Akers, from your experience as a franchise owner, how did one hundred percent bonus depreciation improve your ability to grow your business, and what risk do you see if this benefit is not made permanent?” Mr. Akers: “Bottom line is, since that was put into place, we have grown our business by about twenty-five percent, in the number of units—which is a huge explosion for the Midwest, for rural America, as you said—with that goes fifty job  or something in that neighborhood. So being able to reinvest in that has accelerated our growth and will continue to accelerate the growth in the future, as well as allow us to give more benefits and wages to our employees.”

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