>> washington journal continues. >> at the table this morning is kevin kuhlman, he is the vice president for federal government relations. thanks for being here, it is national small business week. describe what it is like right now for small businesses post-pandemic. guest: thanks for having me today, happy small business week to the more than 33 million small businesses, it is the nation's leading small business efficacy organization, we advocate on behalf of nearly 300,000 small business owner members in all 50 state capitals

in washington dc, the guiding principle, our mission statement is to promote and protect the right of small business owner members to own, operate and grow their business -- to promote and to protect the right of our small business members to own and operate their businesses. it's great to be here this small business week. small businesses do face and under certain future and has some economic challenges still, coming out of the pandemic. inflation and workforce shortages were a very close one and two other top small business concerns. more than half a small business owners cannot fill open positions, although the good news is that they are continuing to try to hire, even as larger businesses are shutting jobs. inflation just remain stubborn and pervasive, which makes everything within their supply chain more expensive and their businesses, overall, more expensive and difficult to operate. >> what about the issue of crime in downtown cities for small businesses. what impact is it having on

them? >> certainly, downtown crime makes it harder for a small business to operate. as you see, some larger retail stores closed because of crime that has a ripple effect on smaller businesses. more boarded up shops downtown means fewer customers, and so there certainly is a ripple effect and that small business openers -- it also increases their insurance cost, as well. there are some impacts, negative impacts of that, of increased crime on small business owners. >> what type of employees are these businesses looking for, and are there enough of them in this country? >> it's a range. it's anything from skilled, employees skilled in trades that are trying to, certainly construction manufacturing and those industries, but it's also just unskilled employees. for entry level positions, as well. it really ranges it, and it's a mix of soft skills, as well as those hard skills.

nearly half a small business owners cannot fill open positions. of those that are trying to hire, almost all, more than 90%, are unable to find those qualified applicants. it is small business owners are finding where are the workers, and what can they do to try to attract and retain employees. they are increasing wages, they are increasing benefits, they are taking on the training themselves, in sourcing all of that and creating a training program. as well as not requiring as high of sanders as they may be used to. maybe a certificate as opposed to a degree, but they are really doing everything they can to try to attract and retain qualified employees. it's extremely difficult. >> what is the percentage of small businesses that employ teenagers and are there issues around policies -- employing the use of this country? >> that's an excellent question, i don't know the exact percentage, but i do know that, at many locations, you see help wanted in all positions. there certainly are

opportunities for teenagers and i think that small business owners would be more willing to take on less skilled, younger employees. now, it's a very competitive market, right? you have to pay eight -- other local localities that are hiring minimum wage threshold. you certainly need whatever employee you do employee to be productive enough to justify that. but like i said, many business owners are taking on the training themselves. they be more than willing to take on a teenager who is willing to show up on time, who is willing to learn and contribute. they are very open to something like that. >> let's talk about the minimum wage, senator bernie sanders, who has been advocating for higher minimum wage, we'll be talking about it on capitol hill today. what's happening on a state level? >> different states and localities are moving in a different threshold. i know in certain states like new york, california,

massachusetts, they are pushing ahead for even higher than $15 per hour. here in d.c., it's certainly higher than that. i think it's around 16 50 with another step up in july. this does make operating costs more expensive. it's -- a means business owners must become more productive. it's another challenge. it's another variable for small business owners at this point in time. our members are generally against substantial increases to the minimum wage. you do see proposals of $20 or more per hour. that would be extremely difficult during these economic conditions. instead, we believe that the local economic conditions are what should drive the minimum wage. in many cases, because business owners are competing for those employees, it is above the federal standard and many state standards where it does exist. >> we're going to take our viewers questions and comments about small businesses in

america, in the u.s. economy. we've divided the lines by region. if you live in the eastern central part of the country, 202748 8000. mountain pacific, 202748 8001. if you're a small business owner or employed by a small business, your line this morning is two 027488002. you can also join us by texting, include your first name city and state. 202748 is 8003. kevin coleman is our guest, was a national federation of independent business. let's begin with your reaction to the white house celebrating the national small business week. here's the s.p.a.m. initiator, isabelle guseman on the biden administration's efforts to help small businesses. >> you all face unprecedented challenges, made hard choices and pivoted and adapted to survive. the president took swift action to fight the pandemic, and helped millions of our small businesses survive with the

american rescue plan and its critical covid relief for small businesses. your perseverance to help drive one of the most historic economic comebacks we've ever seen. and now, this president and this vice president are working hard to make sure our small businesses continue to survive and thrive by investing in america and creating billions of dollars of opportunity. dollars and contracts and savings from small businesses. they will get from in front spins and infrastructures, pathways to growth by making more in america, with american manufacturing and domestic supply chains. and increase sustainability as we build a clean energy economy of the future. >> kevin coleman. >> yeah, i joined and administrate and guseman and the administration and celebrating the achievements and contributions of small businesses throughout the country. there are more than 33 million small businesses across the country, about 68 million that

have employees. they are, their contributions are very important. we like to describe the small business as half of the economy, small businesses produce nearly half of the private sector jobs. they produce about half gross domestic product, and the small business half of the economy is strong, the national economy is strong. it's not always the same as was reflected in the stock market. we see some of those challenges now. there are warning signs, i mentioned the current challenges of inflation and workforce shortages. there are some forward-looking indicators that are a little concerning as well. expectations for a better business condition six months from now is near historic lows. small business optimism, as well, below historic averages. the small business half of the economy is driven a lot by how small business owners feels. when they feel good about their own business and their local economy, we asked our members if they think the economy is in a recession, and more than half, 55% said they do consider us

currently in a recession. that's concerning. i share the administrators feelings that we want to celebrate the perseverance of small businesses and we want them to survive and thrive. >> this is from one of our viewers texting to ask you, what will be the impact on small businesses at the government defaults on paying the interest on our national -- >> the good news is that the house passed debt ceiling increase last week, before they departed for their -- report period. the president called for a meeting at the white house next week. that's all encouraging news. of course, the secretary declared that x date of june 1st or the subsequent weeks that followed, but it seems that everyone is willing to negotiate, granted, they want to drive hard bargains, willing to negotiate and -- small business owners are already dealing with increased and rising interest rates, so those are to increase further, that would certainly be a challenge, particularly for those who are borrowing to either continue operations or

to grow their businesses. so, that's certainly concerning. small business owners are also concerned with spending, government spending. so, just trying to get some rationality in future government spending and come to a reasonable and good conclusion, i think would be encouraging. there are, like i said, some recent encouraging signs, so let's hope we avoid that. >> let's hear from edgar, who's in milwaukee. >> okay, our democracy is built on cheap labor, and if you want to bring down inflation, you bring in more of the immigrants. but, the parties are fighting each other, and don't really care about this country. >> all right, edgar, i'm going to take your point about cheap labor because you are, you still had your television up and it's very difficult to hear you with that echo. all of you that are hanging on the line, got to mute your television, and talk and listen to your phone. >> thank you, edgar. as i mentioned, small business

owners are increasing compensation at near historic levels. they are adding benefits, doing everything they can to recruit and retain employees. so, i think our members might disagree that they're cheap labor's -- certainly trying to find the best employees and retain them, so they're not just talking to talk, they're walking the walk, as far as offering new benefits and increasing compensation. >> charles, rolling fork, mississippi. you're a business owner, what do you do, charles? what's your business? >> i have a farm. >> okay. >> the -- market will soon deprive the united states of access to the funds to run the government, whether or not we raise the debt ceiling. what do you think they're going to do to address the fact that they broke so much money they can't pay it back, so the interest rates go out to ceiling? >> kevin coleman. >> thank you, charles.

in the next couple of years, interest payments will even exceed defense spending, so that's concerning. as i mentioned, our members are concerned about rising interest rates. they're concerned about increase government spending. so, try to control some of those factors and hopefully, that's dealt with in this debt limit negotiations would -- be promising. we certainly have many agricultural and -- thus, we are trying to advocate on their behalf, for example, the ability to pass a longer business to the next generation. so, pushing backs against chases -- tax treatment, is very important. to our members. protecting like kind exchanges, and making sure that there are sensible tax policy to ensure that small family farmers and family-owned businesses don't have to sell off portions of their business or burrow to pass along to the next generation. >> this morning, we are talking with kevin coleman, small

business -- the national federation of independent businesses who represents small business owners, and we've divided the lines by region and also, a fourth line for those of you who own a small business or are employed by a small business. dan, in woodbridge, virginia. a small business owner. what is it you do? >> i do home improvement. okay, dan. question or comment? >> go ahead. >> the problem that i have is that, first of all, they have -- a really wrong with what they consider a small business. , the government considers a small business 100 employees or less. we used to work for the -- and sad to say, obama came in and changed everything around to where all the -- and everybody else with 500

employees or more took all the work and let the small business people, the real ones, with five or ten employees, and made it to where we had to bid on everything. we only had the working capital to do the job. on these big companies -- companies with 500 employees -- small business, so that's one of the problems. and the second problem is that, where, in my area, there's only maybe, if you're lucky, 2% of american owned businesses because people have taken over everything. and the problem is is that, they don't want to work for you, but for a double or triple the money that they work for their own kind. so, there is the problem -- of what's going on in this country. >> all right, i will leave it there, kevin coleman, your reaction. >> there are, the federal

government has many different definitions of small businesses, whether it's contracting or employment laws or other requirements. so, it is a little tricky. you mentioned the 500 standard, 500 employees standard that the small business administration generally uses. but you are correct, the vast majority, 80% of small businesses have fewer than 20 employees. these are the businesses that are the heart of communities, as well, contributing to local charities, to their sports teams, sponsoring sports teams. they really are the heart beat of the local economy. as far as the government contracting uncontroversial goals, i can see where it might be upsetting where someone -- to that 500 threshold, or so conjuring -- below the 500 threshold would be a little frustrating. i do think there is bipartisan support for either increasing those small business contracting goals, from about 20% up to about 25%, or having

more contracting opportunities for smaller businesses. hopefully congress can come together and maybe achieve some of those goals. >> so, do you represent any small businesses that have more than 500 employees? >> yes. and if i be represented businesses of all sizes, the vast majority of our members are fewer than 500 employees, but the only disqualification for being in an f.i.b. member is you cannot be publicly traded. we have certain larger independent businesses, but the vast majority of our members are smaller businesses. 5 to 10 employees, but they range of all sizes. it goes to one of the difficulties of what is a small business. as i said, there's already dozens of definitions of it at the federal level, it's a constant challenge and it's always changing. but it just shows how dynamic the small business economy is, right? you can't just put a small business in a box, a typical small business is x. it's just impossible to do. >> in philadelphia, --

democratic color. >> yes, good morning. >> good morning. >> i'm a retired government worker it from pennsylvania. i worked for the state for 45 years. and i am calling in reference to the recent article that was published in the philadelphia inquirer. -- efforts had a will, but not always a way. that there is no oversight based on the trillions of ours that we have been providing to these wars, these unconventional words we have these countries. the war of poverty, war on drugs, and also now, the war on terror. we provide these findings in the forms of grants, and everybody is, basically, doing their own thing. we need to have strict laws in place, and we have to have the government to monitor the activities of the funding that

we are providing out of our tax dollars. this is why we are losing with the economy. so, please pull up that article, and i would like to hear mr. coleman comments. the date is april the 30th, 2023. >> all right, mary. kevin coleman, you have a response? >> thank you, mary, i'm not familiar with a specific article, but -- everybody wants to see see accountability of the federal spending in that regard. but i wish i could comment more on the article, i'm just not familiar with it. >> jesse is in albuquerque, new mexico. hi, jesse. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> so, i just wanted to bring up something. i read, i remember i read a michelle milken book about ten or five years ago, sold out how

bipartisan -- selling out america's best and brightest. and they talked about how, basically, the u.s. job market has decreased by about 50 million jobs, since 1995, and so, i just wonder about that labor shortage narrative, and, you know, i'm a teacher, a middle school teacher at a charter school. i think that might be considered a small business, and i live in new mexico. basically, we're all small businesses around here, there is very little corporate interests, unfortunately. walmart just shut down on the main street in albuquerque, and, you know, i'm just wondering, what can schools do, schools and school districts do to better prepare our students, to help them get the jobs that are out in our communities?

yeah, and that's it. >> okay, kevin coleman. >> jesse, i think you bring up a good point about how can local schools how'd and help and contribute. i think that is the key, it's not the local efforts. we've had members, in particular, i'm thinking of a member, chuck nelson, in oklahoma, who, this is a passion of his. he signed up with the governor, and is his local city to get small business owners into the classroom. to educate students, and teachers, to say hey, what are the skills important for the real world? and what are some of the skills you can develop to help get you prepared for your first career job, for your first job outside of high school. i do think a lot of local school districts are going back and restoring some of the more technical aspects of education, career and technical education, which is important. but i think the best examples of success is local school

districts and community college is teaming up with their local employers and seeing, what are the skills, what are the opportunities in our area. i know there are efforts at the federal level, reauthorizing workforce innovation act, that type of thing, but it's much harder to do from washington d.c., throughout the country, i think it's much better doing it locally, almost to mary's point about the grassroots. a grassroots is so important. we'd be ourselves -- 300,000 members, and we just really encourage small business owners to be their best advocates. it is much more important for us if a senator, a member of congress, even a local elected official to hear from their small honor constituents and to hear from us in washington d.c.. we've yourselves as the liaison. to try to share stories atlanta possible. personalizing the letter, communications do your members of congress. acting as a resource to them. that is extremely important. hosting them so they can see

the impact to your business has on the community is very important. i appreciate the call, jesse. i do think that local school districts can do a lot to help with the work force shortage that is pervasive throughout the country. >> we're gonna go to wisconsin. cindy, good morning to you what is your small business. my small businesses thomas horse. we build horse fences in wisconsin. a contractor dirty work hard work my comment would be it is very hard to find employees that have the training the muscle the skill or even the desire to do hard physical labor that is the trade hard physical labor. whether you are a plumber, electrician, a fence builder. anything in the dirt. anything that is difficult it is hard to find employees who have a core skills to do it, along with the core dedication

and muscle and work ethic. getting these things done. a challenge that i think the united states have been facing. and that i think the government should address is, we already know that we have lost a lot of blue-collar work to robotics. and we are going to be losing white collar jobs to a.i.. whether it is law, accounting, any of these high-end level jobs that can easily be done by computers, processing, and that stuff. we are losing those categories. we need to think about how we are going to engage the younger generations to consider trades. to consider local work. consider things that cannot be replaced by robotics. they cannot be replaced by artificial intelligence. things that people need every day. we need to figure out how to make those jobs viable, enjoyable, financially sound

for students. the dream of being a doctor. the dream of being a lawyer. they dream of these, you know, financial withered's. that is fading. a. i've got to take that. over people have to come back to the reality of hard, local, good job. i don't know how we are going to do that with our education system. >> cindy, understood. >> i agree. she talked about the range of the skills needed. hard physical later, dedication, the willingness to show up. we hear that from many small business owner members, as well jessie's previous question about trying to help with local schools. and cindy's concern, there is that emphasis or that stress that could be out there in schools about a lot of the opportunities that trades and certification can help with, as opposed to the requirement that you must go seek a college degree, a graduate degree. and beyond that. what cindy says is emblematic,

or, symbolic of what we hear from small business owners throughout the country. >> dale from burlington iowa. hi, dale. >> how do we do? >> good morning. i have two questions the first is, what is the push behind republican legislature to push back the minimum age for jobs? second question would address the notion of grassroots -- wages at the grassroots level and iowa, various cities try to enact. minimum wage laws. the state legislator took that away. they said, no, that has to be established at the state level. thank you. >> we push to lower a wage or to allow younger individuals to work? >> i think he meant wage.

the minimum wage. he said republicans are pushing back on the minimum wage. >> oh, okay. i think the belief is that the local conditions should drive the minimum wage. there is some concern that if we are headed towards a recession, does it make it more expensive to create that job? i think@ñhat that is the concern there. to the point of states preempting localities, that does happen in many states. i think they just want consistency across the state, as opposed to within a city limit to make it more expensive than to move or couple blocks away to a different city. it would seem to be just for consistency purposes there. >> north carolina. sean. sean, what is your small business? or you work for one? >> myself, i've worked small businesses my entire career. thank you, first of all, for taking my call. every single american citizen has basically been a small

business owner, himself, herself. we do the work of five people for the price of one. to me we don't have any representation. there is not enough representation. someone told all the people in this country on a right to work stay. to write to work for less benefits. the people of this country who built this country. when i was growing up my father raised seven children. he had a union job. we all made it fine. i go out into the workforce and work 88 and a half hours a week. my last ten years i can barely put food on the table. i live in a great state that hand right to work. right to work for less. as far as inflation goes, there is no inflation. it is all corporate greed. greed by the rich people.

they raise the prices on us and we pay for. >> sean -- >> i have a question. who is going to represent the american worker in this country? do something great for us? let us stop the low wages that we have. stop the corporate greed. get rid of politicians who let corporations write our laws. >> shawn, can i just ask you. 80 in a half hours a week? what were the job that you are doing? >> i was a hydraulic technician. i was industrial maintenance. i did anything i could put food on the table to make it better for my children. just as my father did. the difference was my father worked and an economy that had unions. someone so this country on destroying our unions. that is what destroy this country. it made this country to wear,

everyone cries -- >> sean, i'm gonna jump in. and we have more calls to get. to think we end to a point about unions. kevin kuhlman will respond. >> thank you, shawn. for the hard work, i would push back on the corporate greed idea of inflation. that is just not what we are hearing. the pandemic is a big driver of that, the supply chain disruption. that is not what i'm hearing from our members. it is pervasive, it is stubborn, it is a problem throughout the economy. i share your concern. >> robbie in miami, republican. >> good morning, greta. >> good morning, kevin. i wanted you to know many in your audience are going to have an elderly parent or relative that is going to need care in a facility, like a assisted living center, a memory care dementia center. i work in that industry.

i can tell you that virtually everybody, first of all, that industry got slammed with covid. no one wanted to put their relatives in a facility because of covid. now they are coming wanting to send their relatives to these facilities where no one wants to work. you do a drug test, it is very hard for applicants to pass a drug test. these are criminal background checks. this is really hard on applicants. you say what the pay is. $15 an hour. they want $25 an hour. the work ethic in this country, in my opinion, has gone down since this administration has spewed a gusher money and train people to stay at home. nobody wants to work. no one wants to care for the elderly. when you pay more, you run a facility and you have to pay double the amount of money to

care for your mom, your dad, your grandparents. the cost of care goes way up. the government is also not willing to pay more for that care. i want to give you some feedback. that industry, there is an explosion of aging in this country. an explosion of dementia and alzheimer's. there is a real problem in these facilities and being able to care for these people. >> understood, robbie. understood. kevin kuhlman? >> i certainly appreciate that perspective, robbie. you do hear from business owners, obviously, increasing of wages has to be built into the product or the service that a small business is providing. that does contribute to the inflation. i'm not saying it's the primary factor. it is something that does contribute to it. it does increase the cost of it. when you are working on a fixed contract, or, getting a government payment such as medicaid or medicare.

it does squeeze. you have to make it be more productive. make the dollar go further. it is certainly a challenge we hear from our members. i hear that concern,. robbie >> on taxes i want to get your reaction to president biden defending his tax proposal in a speech recently in philadelphia. here is what he had to say. >> i was elected, i don't know the exact number because it varies, around 650 billionaires in america. now there is over 1000. do you know the average tax they pay? federal tax? 3%. the hr e. 3%. no billionaire should be paying a lower tax than somebody working as a schoolteacher, firefighter, or any of you in this room. my plan is to make sure the corporations begin to pay their fair share. a used to be 35%. we cut it down to 21%.

i think they should be paying 28%. there is gonna be real flight. it should be more than 21%. under my plan, i made this commitment when iran. i haven't broken it yet, i never will. no one making less than $400,000 will see a penny and federal taxes going on. not a single penny. >> kevin kuhlman, a little more detail from the white house. wants to increase the capital gains increases over capital -- the so-called step up and basis loophole. expand who has to pay investment income tax and at what rate. as he was saying when he started off, increase the corporate tax rate. your reaction? >> a lot of different proposals of tax increase proposals that would impact small businesses. a little over three quarters of small employers are looked at as pat your entities. llcs, sole proprietors, or

partnership. certainly some proposal that would negatively impact them is the increase of the individual race. that expansion of the investment tax. we pushed back on that because it is inaccurately described closing a loophole. when that tax was worse than acted, or created, it was only supposed to apply to net investment income. the idol risk. when you expand it to all active business income, that is the lifeblood of small business. that is the blood flow. the rainy day reserve that may become necessary if we enter a recession. further, it more than tripled the amount of tax revenue collected. i have never heard of a texas poll that triple the amount of revenue collected. it was and intended, by design, only to impact investment income. the passive investors. millionaires, at the time, expanding it to all active business income above for thousand dollars would not be

closing a loophole bit massively expanding the reach of this tax. negatively impacting small businesses. if you combine some of these tax increases than the totality is really problematic for small businesses. it pushes their tax rate above 50% in many states. there is this misconception that anything above $4,000 would only impact millionaires. there is a big difference between the small business income and small business owners income. it is all -- >> we are going to leave this program but you can watch it in its entirety at c-span.org. we take you live now for capitol hill for the senate appropriations committee hearing on u.s. china relations and national security with the u.s. secretaries of commerce, defense, and state. you are watching live coverage on c-span three.