Providing for Congressional Disapproval Under Chapter 8 of Title United States Code, of the Rule Submitted By the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Relating to ``Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Fuel System Integrity of Hydrogen Vehicles; Compressed Hydrogen Storage System Integrity; Incorporation By Reference''

Floor Speech

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Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, we are witnessing one of the most anti- small business administrations in our Nation's history.

Since day one, Donald Trump and his administration have sown chaos in our country and our economy, disregarding the impacts of their mayhem on the American people, including the nearly 35 million small business owners in our country.

From freezing Federal funds to enacting tariffs that harm small businesses and consumers, Donald Trump is taking a wrecking ball to the American economy and the small businesses that fuel it. Now the Trump administration has taken to gaslighting business owners and the American people about the impacts of their recklessness.

Just today, Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler--a billionaire herself--testified before the Small Business Committee on which I sit. To call her remarks Orwellian would be an understatement. In her testimony before the committee, Administrator Loeffler claimed that thanks to the President's economic agenda, ``demand for American goods is rising and small manufacturers are stepping up to meet it.''

On the contrary, President Trump's tariffs are harming U.S. businesses--especially small businesses--and increasing their costs. As a result, business confidence is plummeting.

According to the National Small Business Association, only 59 percent of small business owners are confident in the financial future of their businesses. This is a new low in this organization's survey. It is a new low in the 16-year history of this survey.

According to another organization, Small Business for America's Future, 80 percent of business owners feel concerned or pessimistic about their economic outlook, 79 percent of businesses are concerned about a recession in the next 12 months, and 86 percent are concerned about navigating current economic conditions.

Normally, the SBA would be there for small businesses in moments of pain and uncertainty like this, but this anti-business administration has wasted no time in basically gutting the SBA. To date, nearly 800 SBA employees have been fired or resigned, and the Administrator has a goal to shed another 1,900 employees in the months ahead. The SBA is the smallest entity in our Federal bureaucracy, and they are shedding all these employees. When I asked the Administrator about these employees, the majority of whom are gone, she had a hard time giving me a straight answer.

Already, we have heard from small businesses that have noticed a significant decline in customer service since January when the SBA began shedding all these employees. If the SBA goes ahead with this disastrous plan to shed more employees, nearly half--nearly half--of the Agency's workforce will have been eliminated, leaving small businesses across the country basically to fend for themselves, not to mention all of the programs that the SBA supports on behalf of small businesses.

Gutting the SBA is hardly what I would call, to quote Ms. Loeffler in her testimony today, ``meeting the moment.'' Despite the Administrator's bluster, the numbers are clear: Our small businesses are suffering; they are not prospering. They are suffering under the weight of Trump's actions, especially his tariffs.

That is why I was proud to join Senator Markey in introducing legislation which he will talk about soon to exempt small businesses from Trump's tariffs, tariffs that may well force many of these businesses to shut down altogether. While the massive corporations controlled by President Trump's billionaire buddies may be able to weather this economic storm, our small businesses don't have the same luxury.

Republicans think our Tax Code makes our economy great; that if they keep giving massive tax breaks to their billionaire buddies, some of these tax breaks, this money that is concentrated at the top, will eventually trickle down to working people. We already know that is not so. Democrats know that small businesses, entrepreneurs, and their hard-working employees are the powerhouses of the American economy. We should be making it easier for hard-working people to start and run businesses--not harder--so that they can unleash a wave of innovation and prosperity rather than waiting and hoping for a trickle that may never come. And in fact, it hasn't. It doesn't. But the Republicans keep hoping that we are going to continue to buy this argument.

So, for these reasons, if Republicans are serious about supporting small businesses, they will join us in passing our commonsense bill. On behalf of the nearly 35 million small businesses across our country, I urge my colleagues to join us in passing the Markey bill.

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