Exclusive–Ortiz: GDP Numbers Show Small Businesses Face Clear Choice on Election Day

The votes of the nation’s 30 million small business owners and many of the 60 million who work for them will go to the presidential candidate who can get the economy back on its feet as fast as possible.

Today’s historic third-quarter GDP growth rate of 33.1 percent is just the latest indicator that this candidate is clearly President Trump.

The American economy must fire on all cylinders again. Providing good jobs and paychecks to all Americans who want them is vital for workers’ wellbeing and national cohesion. While Americans take their economy for granted, it is the envy of the world, producing middle-class incomes and opportunities for ordinary people that allow them to live productive and content lives. Returning to this economic dynamism begins by reinvigorating small businesses, the nation’s job-creation engine that accounts for two-thirds of new jobs.

At the beginning of this year, the small business economy was rocking. The unemployment rate was hovering near a 50-year low and a record low for black and Hispanic workers. Median incomes grew by a historic 6.8 percent in 2019, and even faster for low-income and minority workers. And entrepreneurship rates, according to the Kauffman Foundation, were sky-high. This flourishing was largely due to President Trump’s pro-growth agenda that included tax cuts and deregulation. Countless employers across the country were able to hire, raise wages, and expand as a result.

I don’t need to tell you what happened next. The Covid-19 pandemic killed nearly a quarter-million Americans and destroyed even more livelihoods as business activity was curtailed. The economy and employment levels contracted at their greatest rate since the Great Depression.

Despite this suffering, Trump has fostered a capital V-shaped recovery. His strong leadership has allowed the unemployment rate to fall below eight percent in just five months — nearly ten times faster than it took the Obama/Biden administration after the Great Recession. Today’s GDP growth is the fastest in American history.

The economy is not yet back to where it was at the beginning of the year, but we are on the right track. With Trump at the helm — a president who understands business, job creation, and the power of the free market — we can return to the good old days of 2019 in a matter of months.

However, if Joe Biden becomes president, all bets are off. Biden has promised a “dark winter.” And he’s not even talking about his Green New Deal-style climate proposals that threaten power for energy-intensive small businesses. Biden’s platform for job creators is, indeed, dark. He’d reinstitute Covid restrictions, reverse Trump’s tax cuts, and implement numerous California-style labor regulations that would kill jobs. He is the enemy of American small businesses, making him the opponent of all Americans who want to see the economy return to its feet.

Don’t take my word for it. Just go back in history a few years to the sclerotic years when Biden was at the helm with President Obama. These two presided over the slowest economic recovery in the nation’s history, weighing down small businesses with new taxes and a never-ending string of health, labor, and energy regulations. The economy nearly fell back into a recession as late as 2016. You don’t have to look at Biden’s 47-year biography in government to know that he has never run a business. (10 percent “for the big guy,” notwithstanding.)