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Washington, D.C.—Today, House Small Business Committee Chairwoman Nydia M. Velázquez (D-NY) released the following statement in response to the President’s State of the Union Address:

“Our nation’s entrepreneurs deserve lasting and meaningful investments in their futures. Unfortunately, this evening, it is difficult to take the President’s words at face value seeing how his policies and actions are failing small businesses.

“For the first time since 2016, small business owners are more pessimistic about their financial futures than the year prior. This devastating reality ought to alarm a President whose own actions of shutting down the government and imposing erratic tariffs continue to fuel such economic uncertainty.

“During the shutdown, America’s entrepreneurs were abruptly cut off from receiving billions of dollars in federal loans. At the same time, Main Street businesses across the country lost out on consumer spending and thousands of small contractors now face the gut-wrenching reality of lost pay. It is discouraging that despite the extraordinary cost of this shutdown to our economy, the President continues to flirt with shutting down the government again all to cling on to his campaign promise of building a border wall.

“As Chairwoman, I believe that welcoming immigrants is both morally imperative and fiscally responsible. Among our most successful entrepreneurs, immigrants form nearly a quarter of new businesses. Meanwhile, DACA recipients, whose future this Administration continues to put in peril, tend to start businesses at rates higher than the overall public. As lawmakers, we must remember that immigration and entrepreneurship have long stood together as bedrocks for achieving the American dream.

“I am also concerned that the President missed a key opportunity tonight to present a meaningful infrastructure proposal to rebuild our crumbling roads and bridges. For small firms operating in sectors such as construction, manufacturing and agriculture, a robust infrastructure package could fuel new jobs and innovation in the small business sector. Unfortunately, tonight, the President offered no meaningful solutions to rebuild our infrastructure.

“Instead of the President’s continued empty rhetoric and failed promises, the American people deserve investments that will put our small business sector on a path to economic prosperity.”

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