WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Committee on Small Business Chairman Roger Williams (R-TX) spoke with Matthew Foldi of The Washington Reporter to discuss the importance of small businesses and how the Committee is supporting Main Street America.

In Case You Missed It:

“INTERVIEW: Rep. Roger Williams rings in Small Business Week: "Everything Trump is doing is geared towards small business"

Washington Reporter

Matthew Foldi

May 6, 2025

Rep. Roger Williams (R-TX), the Chairman of the Small Business Committee, has owned and operated a small business for almost 60 years.

And the Texas Republican has a message for both the mom-and-pop shops and the Dallas Cowboys: “It’s a great time to be in business in America.”

Williams said help is on the way. He told the Washington Reporter in an interview that “we'll get [the Trump tax cuts] done by the end of May.”

“We’ve got to do it,” Williams said of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act extension. “Why haven’t we already done it? We came out with a program out of the House, which was great, versus the Senate, they dragged their feet a little bit.”

“I'm hoping, like the Speaker does, that we can have it done by the end of May,” he continued. “There are some who say by the Fourth of July, that's fine, get it done. But I'm just telling you, Main Street America is not talking tariffs.”

“Main Street America is talking about tax cuts,” he added.

Williams explained that Trump’s tax cuts benefit both employers like him and his employees. The former supports the tax cuts because “it cuts payroll taxes.” The latter backs it because “they want more money in their pockets.”

Additionally, the bill “allows 100 percent expensing, which is huge, where you buy equipment and write it off the year you buy it.”

Main Street America, Williams emphasized, cares far more about tax cuts than tariffs.

“Of course, the press wants to talk about tariffs and this and that, but they need to be talking about the opportunities out there,” Williams said.

Williams, himself a long-time car dealer, said that his industry hasn’t even seen any tariffs hit yet — but he said that he’s not “afraid” of them, regardless.

“I'm aware, and the industry is aware, but we're not afraid, because this industry has always had a way to get around and take problems and turn them into opportunities and turn opportunities into development, and you're going to see that in the auto industry right now,” Williams said.

“I think there'll be deals made. You'll see manufacturers commit to redoing plants, commit to building plants. If they can get that done in five years, maybe they can cut a deal where, for five years, they don't have any taxes or whatever. But you just see stuff like this happen, but the auto industry is going to be thriving. I told my staff the other day, ‘if we don't have a good year, that’s nobody's fault but our own.’”

Williams also told the Reporter that Trump’s move to visit a General Motors factory in Michigan on his 100th day in office was both great politics and policy.

“The president was right to go to Detroit,” he said.

It’s not only Trump with whom Williams has been eager to work — the Texas Republican is partnering with both Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Kelly Loeffler and Sen. Joni Ernst (R., Iowa), his counterpart across the Hill, to create new opportunities for American small businesses. All three, along with Trump, have spent years working in the private sector.

“Between tax cuts and higher opportunities with the SBA, and 100 percent expensing, what a great time to be in business,” he told the Reporter. “We just got a jobs report last week that showed 177,000 new jobs; we are rolling…we're gonna come up with some really good stuff, and I’m excited about it.”

One of those policies is a Texas-style bounty system of sorts that puts Americans on commission, just like how Williams has worked for decades in the auto industry. Williams wants to empower Americans to claw back the billions of dollars of fraud from coronavirus-era relief programs.

“Let's empower everybody to find this money,” he said. “We're not going to find $220 billion, but let's just say we found $50 million… That’s taxpayers’ money, it's your money and it’s my money. People made a deal. They said they’d pay this stuff back, then pay it back. And so I'm all over that, and that's what we're doing.”

Williams’s plan, he said, is “unheard of,” and it is quite simple: “If you'll find money that is missing, and you bring it back, the Treasury will pay 10 percent of what you found, and if it comes from back from China, we'll pay you 15 percent.”

With Loeffler, Williams has a partner at the SBA, in contrast with her predecessor Isabel Guzman, who Williams was forced to subpoena following reports about the SBA “register[ing] Democrat voters in Lansing, [and] in Detroit.” Those subpoenas were the first his committee had issued in over two decades, and they were needed “because we couldn't get anybody to cooperate with us and tell us what they were doing and why they were doing it.’

“That's not going to happen again,” Williams said.

Throughout Small Business Week, Williams and his committee are spotlighting shops from across America — his favorites in his district, other than his own, are the Texas Rangers and the Dallas Cowboys. But he has a sweet spot for others who make morning commutes a little more tasteful.

“It's the fellow who has the donut store and opens up at 5:30 in the morning to take care of people going to work,” he said. “It's the oil industry. They're rolling the dice every single day. The Medal of Honor Museum also just opened in Arlington, Texas, and that is well worth a visit too.”

###