U.S. Rep Williams champions small business at Cleburne luncheon
Matt Smith, Cleburne Times-Review, Texas
5 min read
Aug. 31—U.S. Rep. Roger Williams, R-Austin, called upon small business owners and leaders to stand up to the twin scourges of economic and border issue woes during Wednesday's quarterly luncheon of the Cleburne Chamber of Commerce.
Williams, who serves as chairman of the House Small Business Committee, delivered the a state of small business address during the event.
"I'm worried about the economy," Williams said. "In 2016, we passed the greatest tax cuts we've ever seen, and it worked. We had more jobs than people and things were looking good."
Things have changed, Williams said, because of inflation, the rate of governmental money borrowing, ongoing supply chain issues and other factors.
"We were makers, not sellers, in 2016," Williams said. "We're borrowing money at a record pace. Interest rates have got to come down. We need to get that back. America has to be the strongest country in the world when it comes to producing goods."
The greatest thing about America is not America, Williams said, but Americans and added that small business and competition are the drivers of America.
"There could not be a better job for me than to be your representative on the Small Business Committee," Williams said. "Because Main Street America is what America is about. But Main Street America is under attack right now."
Attack from inflation and governmental overregulation among other things, Williams said.
"Is there anybody here who feels underregulated?" Williams asked. "Regulations are choking small business."
Williams called for change.
"The government needs to stop spending, get inventories back in line so people like us can discount products and services to drive inflation down and get interest rates down," Williams said. "The only thing that makes that work is us being the small business people we are. Leading is what we do."
Something Williams said he is uniquely situated to understand given that he is one of the few, on either side of the political aisle, to run and own a business.
Williams said that the Small Business Administration, created to support small businesses, has instead become politicized. Williams said that an independent audit of the SBA, which he requested, uncovered $200 to $600 billion in funds unaccounted for. At least some of that money, which should have gone to American companies, went to foreign nationals, Williams said.
His committee, Williams added, has plans to recover as much of those funds as possible.
In addition to heavy regulation, Williams said the banking industry is under attack by several in the government who want to champion large banks over community banks thus decreasing competition and consumer choice.
Williams decried overregulation in all sectors of business.
"Let us compete against each other," Williams said. "Let us give service. Let us have product and things will take care of themselves. There's a consumer out there who will tell us we're doing good or we're doing bad. We don't need the government to tell us that and we don't need the government to compete against us."
Since 2020, Williams said, regulations on small businesses have increased by $375 billion requiring an additional 120 million additional man hours to oversee.
Car sellers, banks, everybody's playing defense and having to hire compliance officers to keep up with all those new regulations where it's to the point [for banks] that it's almost easier not to make a loan than to make one because of all the paperwork and regulations involved."
Equally troubling, Williams said, is the border.
"I've been going down there since 2005 when I was secretary of state," Williams said. "The border is a serious problem in this country and we have a situation down there where we have completely lost our sovereignty."
Williams described the situation as dire.
"If you go down there people are just running by you and the border patrol is overwhelmed," Williams said. "The drug dealers are running everything down there and they're selling fentanyl they're getting out of China and that's destroying a generation of our kids. Drug dealers are running wild down there with nothing to stop them."
Loss of border control, Williams said, equals loss of sovereignty.
"We have people coming in our country, we don't know who they are, we don't know what they are," Williams said. "Twelve million is the figure given, but I'm telling you, that figure is low.
"I get reports every Monday of confrontations with law enforcement and they will tell you, these are not Mexicans coming over for seasonal work. Those people have been choked out. The people coming over are from Russia, China, Yemen, Iran. They're coming over and they're here, and if they're here they're not going back.
"They're not coming to make America great. They're here to hurt America."
Williams called for military intervention to deal with drug dealers as well as more enforcement and judges on the border to assist those seeking asylum and/or seeking to enter America according to the laws. Many of the young children crossing the border alone, Williams said, wind up in the hands of drug dealers or sex traffickers.
Williams urged attendees not to let their distaste for politics and politicians divert them from the problems of America.
"Let me tell you, you cannot hate this system because this is still the best system in the world," Williams said. "Because America is still the greatest country in the world."
All the same, Williams said, this is this generation's Valley Forge moment.
"You as business leaders, owners, employers and God fearing people cannot stand down right now," Williams said. "You have to stand up. We're where we are right now because a lot of people stood down when they should have stood up and didn't want to confront it.
