Op-Ed: Zach Thapar and Alex Titus: America needs Kelly Loeffler after a difficult four years for American small businesses

Through Kelly Loeffler's leadership, American families and communities will be better off, advancing a core component of President Donald Trump’s plan to promote American greatness.

President Donald Trump announced that former Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R., Ga.) will lead the Small Business Administration (SBA). In picking Loeffler, President Trump is placing an experienced leader and businesswoman at the forefront of his efforts to “unleash opportunity for our Small Businesses to grow, innovate, and thrive” and “crack down on waste, fraud, and regulatory overreach.” She could not be taking the helm of the agency at a more critical time for American small businesses.

Over the past four years, the state of small businesses in America has deteriorated rapidly, and the current outlook is grim. A survey before the election found that nearly half of American small business owners felt they could not survive another four years of Biden-Harris policies. In the last year alone, small businesses have been forced to cut over 43,000 jobs, while wholesale costs for these businesses remain high — up 20 percent since Biden’s inauguration. At the same time, the Biden administration has created 30 times more regulations than under President Trump, leading to more than $1 trillion in new regulations.

Clearly, the Biden administration’s economic policies and overregulation have wreaked havoc on American small businesses, but unfortunately, the pain does not stop there. The current administration’s insistence on discriminating against business owners on the basis of race, gender, and sexual orientation has further crippled once successful companies while violating core tenets of American democracy.

The Biden administration’s SBA has been reprimanded by the courts on several occasions for relying on race to determine which businesses were, for example, prioritized to receive COVID-relief funding.

These policies stand in stark contrast to President Trump’s first term when businesses small and large received sweeping tax cuts as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Under Linda McMahon’s leadership, the SBA enhanced resources for rural businesses, created new programs to support women and veterans starting businesses, and improved connectivity between entrepreneurs and the government.

The second Trump term will offer an exciting opportunity to build on key initiatives from the first term while undoing the disastrous policies of the last four years.

At the helm of the SBA, Sen. Loeffler will be responsible for supporting small businesses through various loan programs, counseling and advocating for entrepreneurs around the country, assisting small businesses in navigating government contracts, overseeing key business certifications, and producing economic reports. Competent leadership over such matters will be critical to ensuring that small businesses get back on track and can thrive in the years to come. Sen. Loeffler is a great selection to lead this endeavor.

Loeffler, a fourth-generation farmer and the first in her family to go to college, has spent most of her career in the private sector. She worked with her husband to scale a Fortune 500 company from 100 to 10,000 employees and started another successful enterprise. As a result, she is intimately familiar with the challenges that entrepreneurs and both small and large businesses face in America. Moreover, with experience ranging from rural farming to waitressing to Wall Street, Loeffler has the knowledge to help all sorts of businesses thrive, including rural and women-owned businesses.

Loeffler importantly also recognizes the value of free enterprise and reducing burdensome regulations on small businesses. In accepting the nomination for SBA, she wrote “I know firsthand that free enterprise is America’s greatest source of opportunity, growth, and job creation — not the government.” This is the exact mindset that the SBA Administrator must have to accomplish President Trump’s goals of unleashing prosperity for small businesses and eliminating waste and fraud.

Finally, to successfully helm a federal agency, the administrator must have a strong relationship with the president. This is undoubtedly true for Sen. Loeffler, who voted in line with the president’s public position more than 90 percent of the time during the 116th Congress. Loeffler was instrumental in securing the President’s election victory in Georgia this year, helping to ensure election integrity and register voters, and she has publicly campaigned with and supported President Trump on countless occasions.

Sen. Loeffler has the experience, knowledge, and support necessary to wrack up big wins for American small businesses at the SBA while undoing the damage of the last four years. Through her leadership, American businesses — and by extension American families and communities — will be better off, advancing a core component of President Trump’s plan to promote American greatness.

Zach Thapar is a former Public Interest Fellow and a graduate of the University of Notre Dame. Alex Titus served as an advisor in the Trump administration.