Opinion: Main Street rising – How Trump’s tax cuts power the Southeast

OPINION

BY TYLER TERESA, Southeast Regional Administrator, U.S. Small Business Administration

America’s 250th anniversary marks one year since President Trump’s Working Family Tax Cuts stopped a $4 trillion tax hike dead in its tracks and put Washington back on the side of working Americans. As SBA Regional Administrator for the Southeast, I’ve spent this year on the road – from North Carolina manufacturers to Alabama machine shops, from Georgia diners to Florida hotels – hearing the same thing over and over: President Trump’s tax cuts didn’t just change the numbers on a form. They changed who our government serves.

For years, the political class in Washington treated small business owners like ATMs to fund their agenda. They pushed higher taxes, more red tape, and rules written by people who had never signed the front of a paycheck or worried about making payroll on Friday. Under President Trump, that changed. The Working Family Tax Cuts are a clear statement of conservative priorities: let families keep more of what they earn, let entrepreneurs invest in their own growth, and stop weaponizing the tax code against the gig workers, service employees, and Main Street risk-takers who are the backbone of the Southeast.

Travel through the Southeast and you see the difference. A family‑owned manufacturer in the Carolinas can 100 percent expense new Made in America equipment, choosing to expand at home instead of shipping jobs overseas. A restaurant owner in Savannah or Birmingham watches servers walk out with bigger paychecks because tips aren’t clawed back by the IRS. A woman‑owned defense and aerospace supplier in Huntsville can immediately expense domestic R&D, competing globally while keeping engineers and technicians rooted in Alabama. A logistics firm in Jacksonville or Mobile gets crews willing to take extra shifts because No Federal Tax on Overtime means those long hours are rewarded, not penalized. I have witnessed these savings first-hand visiting with small business owners across the region.

Under Trump’s Working Family Tax Cuts, 97% of filers saw their tax bill go down, unlocking tens of billions of dollars in relief, with families under roughly $73,000 facing no federal income tax at all. That is not a handout from Washington; it is Washington finally stepping back and letting working people breathe.

For small business owners, the single most important shift has been certainty. The 20% small business deduction is now permanent. Under this policy, S corps, LLCs, and sole proprietorships can plan hiring, expansion, and succession without waking up every election cycle wondering if an ideological wave in Washington will rip their plans apart. Economists estimate this deduction will fuel major economic growth and over a million new jobs nationwide. In the Southeast, that means more apprenticeships, more high‑skill manufacturing positions, more hospitality and tourism jobs, and more confidence for owners who have been burned too many times by temporary, unstable policies.

The law also corrects the tax code’s bias against investment. Doubling the cap on immediate expensing to $2.5 million and allowing 100% expensing for machinery and equipment reward productivity, risk‑taking, and long‑term thinking. A timber mill in Mississippi upgrading its line, a food‑processing plant in North Carolina modernizing its operations, or a trucking company in Kentucky adding cleaner, more efficient vehicles can see the payoff sooner, not years down the road after the accountants have had their say. Immediate expensing of domestic R&D turns “I’d love to invest, but I don’t trust Washington” into “I’d be foolish not to.”

And this is just the economic side. Working Family Tax Cuts also strengthen the foundation of family and community. A $6,000 Social Security deduction recognizes that seniors, especially in the Southeast, where they are anchors of civic and church life, should not be squeezed for one more dollar after a lifetime of work. A permanently doubled Child Tax Credit helps young families in growing metros and rural towns who are doing the hard work of raising the next generation without expecting Washington to do it for them. Trump Accounts (Baby Investment Accounts) give children a financial foothold in the future and signal that our system should reward saving, investing, and ownership, not dependency. Permanent relief from the death tax means family farms, machine shops, construction companies, and local manufacturers can think about passing down a business to future generations instead of selling it off to pay the government.

Lower taxes mean stronger communities, because the extra shift taken by a hotel worker in Panama City or a line cook in Charleston becomes spending at local shops, church donations, Little League fees, and mortgage payments, which make our towns more resilient. Lower taxes mean stronger Main Streets, because owners spend their time serving customers, training workers, and innovating.

As SBA Regional Administrator, my mission is not neutral. I am committed to advancing a pro‑growth, pro‑family, pro‑freedom agenda for the Southeast. That means defending President Trump’s Working Family Tax Cuts from those who would roll them back. It means calling out any attempt to resurrect burdensome reporting rules, hike rates on pass‑through businesses, or punish investment and risk‑taking. It means standing with the welders, waitresses, truck drivers, bookkeepers, shop owners, and gig workers who know from experience that high‑tax, high‑regulation politics kill opportunity.

The Southeast is proving that when you let families keep more of their paychecks, they thrive. When you unshackle small businesses from punitive taxes and rules, they hire, they invest, and they revitalize Main Streets from the mountains to the Gulf. One year into President Trump’s Working Family Tax Cuts, the message is simple: we have been given the opportunity to grow and create stable businesses built to last generations. That makes for a very happy 250th celebration of our great Nation.

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