Alfredo Ortiz is the President and CEO of the Job Creators Network. He is the author of “Minority Ownership.”

Federal Newswire:

What is the Job Creators Network?

Alfredo Ortiz:

It's now my 11th year in this organization. It represents 33 million small businesses. I don't care if they're Democrats, Independents, Republicans. If you're a small business owner, you're going to get our advocacy work one way or another. If you’re with NFIB, you know how important small businesses are, to our communities, to our country. 

When Bernie Marcus started this organization, he was a small business owner, believe it or not. Before [his business became] Home Depot and [employed] 425,000 people, he had one store in Atlanta. He remembered all too well what it was like to be a small business owner. 

We have been taking the lead on a lot of different things.

The American Small Business Prosperity Plan was a common sense, eight-point plan to help small businesses. A lot of [this is] legislation that [already] existed in some form.

Federal Newswire:

Are the best entrepreneurs those who look at the market landscape and see what more can be built?

Alfredo Ortiz:

Well, that's exactly right. I jokingly say when I ran the Kraft Cheese business, my job was to sell more cheese, to more people, more often, for more money, and to do it in 30 seconds.

Federal Newswire:

What are the perils of injecting politics into business?

Alfredo Ortiz:

Wokeism is real. It's definitely there [mostly as a big-business issue]. Remember when Major League Baseball pulled out of Atlanta because of the supposed voting rights issue that Kemp had signed into law?

Federal Newswire:

Haven’t more people voted in Georgia since those laws were enacted?

Alfredo Ortiz:

Exactly. We sued Major League Baseball because of that pullout. These large businesses are becoming political arms of administrations. Unfortunately small businesses are getting caught in the middle, and it's unfortunate. Now obviously there are some small businesses that also believe in that.

Federal Newswire:

What’s it like for businesses that don’t care what your political persuasion is and just want to sell you their product?

Alfredo Ortiz:

Case in point, we're putting on a conference in November, and I'm looking for items that are made in the USA only. Because that's what I want to be able to promote, that's what I want to be able to give out. So yes, there's absolutely opportunities for smart entrepreneurs to take advantage of niche opportunities.

Federal Newswire:

What challenges do small businesses face from the government, red tape, and big businesses?

Alfredo Ortiz:

Senator Ernst just introduced the Prove It Act, which I'm trying to promote anywhere I can. It stops this one-size-fits-all mentality in DC that [says] one regulation needs to apply to any business whether it's small or big. 

You were probably around with the Dodd-Frank Act, where 2000 community banks went out of business. That killed our small businesses, because the burden was so excessive on smaller banks versus the larger banks that could absorb it. The big banks just got bigger.

Federal Newswire:

When community banks go out of business, do smaller businesses lose access to capital?

Alfredo Ortiz:

That's what they do. For example, what's happening with Silicon Valley Bank is working quite against small businesses. 

Sixty percent of small businesses are coming out of our regional community banks. I think this particular administration would be perfectly fine if we only had five national banks so they can control them. I honestly think they could care less if our community and regional banks went out of business. Unfortunately, small business would be hurt.

Federal Newswire:

Is that because they want the SBA or Post Office to be giving out the loans directly?

Alfredo Ortiz:

Well it's interesting, if you see what just went into effect May 1 at the FHA, where you're charged a fee for good credit. I see this post office bank thing coming just around the corner to bank the unbankable, which is the craziest thought I've ever heard of.

Federal Newswire:

Are they doing this instead of making it easier for small banks to form?

Alfredo Ortiz:

Exactly. But again, I don't think they truly appreciate or really want the success of small business. I know I probably sound like a conspiracy guy, but I don't think they like it and here's why I think that. Capitalism, free enterprise, meritocracy–you work hard, you can succeed in doing anything you want. You should have unlimited reward. This is the total antithesis of what the progressives believe.

Federal Newswire:

Did Covid policies kill small businesses?

Alfredo Ortiz:

Yes… and inflation's absolutely killing them. I hate that Biden's out there saying, “Hey, come on, man, look how great it is. Consumers are spending more. Things are going great.” I keep saying, “Wait a minute. They're spending more because they're paying more. Things cost more. They're getting less. This is not a good thing for the consumer.”

Federal Newswire:

Are small businesses getting caught in the squeeze because they don’t have the economy of scale that big businesses do?

Alfredo Ortiz:

That's the big thing,… big business versus small business on inflation. Big businesses get their supply chain, the stuff that they need [through] preferential treatment, preferential pricing, long-term contract pricing. They get all of that. 

When you look at labor, they have an ability to pay more for the labor than a small business does. When you think of the cost of the products, I have small business owners who run a Mexican restaurant down in Florida, and they're saying a case of avocados used to cost $25 and now it's $100. They're taking that off of their menu because they just can't make money. They can't charge that much to make a profit. I have to tell you that I have seen more and more Mexican restaurants that don't have guacamole because they can't afford it. 

The stories just go on because [small businesses] are hit the worst when it comes to inflation. They just don't have the offsets or the ability to fend things off the way a large company can. Or [charge] the price increases that these large companies can get away with it.

Federal Newswire:

Do the large businesses absorb the costs to drive their small competitors out of business?

Alfredo Ortiz:

Yeah. Whenever Amazon says, “Hey, we support this regulation for something.” I go, “Careful.”

Federal Newswire:

What regulatory problems do small businesses face and how does the Job Creators Network handle them?

Alfredo Ortiz:

I talked about Dodd-Frank. That's one of the reasons why 2000 community banks went out of business, because the regulatory burden on them couldn't be amortized effectively over as many customers as a large bank. These large companies can survive a heavy regulatory environment, small businesses can't. 

One of the primary reasons we started the Job Creators Network is to push for lower taxes, lower regulation. Of course, under the Trump administration, that's exactly what he did. He cut red tape, he cut taxes. Small business owners take that free capital and they invest it back in. It's not like they went off to The Bahamas and spent it all. They invested it back in their businesses. More labor, higher wages, higher benefits, more capacity.

Federal Newswire:

Are you familiar with some of the new mandates like those relating to gas stoves?

Alfredo Ortiz:

[Yes]. Imagine a Chinese restaurant. I'm sure if you've ever seen the back house of a Chinese [restaurant] with the woks going and flames going…Can you imagine an electric stove top and the guy's sitting there three hours later still trying to do the stir fry. It's never going to work. Things like that just don't make sense. 

We announced…that we're going to be suing the Biden administration on the EV regulations being put out. As soon as those are finalized, we'll drop a suit on them. The administrative overreach is just crazy, especially out of this administration.

We sued on the vaccine mandate. We won. We sued on the college student loan bailout. That's looking pretty good. We'll sue on this as well, because the impact on our American way of life is just going to be horrendous.

Federal Newswire:

How does the EV mandate impact members of the Job Creators Network?

Alfredo Ortiz:

Small business owners absolutely, but Americans overall. It impacts auto workers, for example. 

I'd love to have a conversation with the UAW because, guess what? It takes 30% less labor to manufacture an EV vehicle than a combustion engine. 

When you look at the wear and tear on our roads, [it’s] 50-60% heavier per car. You can go the same mile, but the wear and tear on that road is going to be a lot heavier. These are unintended consequences. The list does go on.

Federal Newswire:

Setting aside the much higher amount of electricity we would need to produce, is the idea of making delivery vehicles switch to electric feasible?

Alfredo Ortiz:

Can [we] mention the farmers? You're in the middle of your field and your EV tractor runs out of juice. What are you going to do? Is there a charging station right in the middle of your cornfield?

Federal Newswire:

What would power that charging station even if there was?

Alfredo Ortiz:

Exactly. I mean, these are the things you think about, and you just have to almost laugh if it weren't so sad.

Federal Newswire:

How does the Job Creators Network help small businesses with jobs and job creation?

Alfredo Ortiz:

Small businesses create two-thirds of new job growth. 33 million small businesses employ 60-plus million people. That's a constituency of more than 90 million hardworking Americans who are dependent on the success or failure of small businesses. When small businesses don't create jobs the economy falters and stops. 

When you add to that, for example, the impact on the consumer, we're seeing a lot of bad signs that we're predicting for the third quarter. Not only recession, but a slowdown of growth. So stagflation for the third quarter because you are seeing the slowdown of the consumer. 

Again, it's not because they're actually spending more, because they're getting more. They're spending more and getting less.

But you're also seeing from our small business IQ poll that we do on a monthly basis, small business owners basically said, “We had a labor problem. We have figured it out. We've made do with what we could. We've had to raise some prices. But pretty much we've brought in family members. We're working triple-time, but I think we're going to hold off on trying to find more labor because we don't know what the future's going to look like right now.”

It's not looking great. That is very worrisome because, when two-thirds of new job growth is in the hands of small businesses and they're basically taking their foot off the pedal, that's going to be a bad sign for unemployment as well.

Federal Newswire:

What’s the impact of regulations on investment?

Alfredo Ortiz:

In any business, especially small business, [it] has to have some level of certainty, whether it's regulations or taxes and stuff like that. They had a great environment under the Trump administration with the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, which we actively worked on. But when you have this future that looks like regulations are going to increase, [and] taxes are going to increase, and when you look at the Biden budget plan, a million small businesses that file as C-Corps are going to get hit with the increase in taxes.

Guess what happens when they get taxed? They employ less, pay less, give less benefits, or invest less in their businesses. It's a simple formula. This administration just doesn't seem to get it or they get it and they don't care.

Federal Newswire:

If you start putting these regulatory costs onto small businesses, will it cause things to slow down?

Alfredo Ortiz:

Yeah. There's a small Mexican grocery store outside of Chicago that I spoke to a few years back. Their regulatory cost is about $100,000 per year. When you look at the profit margin on a grocery store, it's about 1%--and they have to cover $100,000 per year of regulatory costs. That's a crazy number. Again, administrations like this one just don't seem to get that.

Federal Newswire:

What's on the agenda for JCN and what bills are you looking at?

Alfredo Ortiz:

If you look at the eight [point plan], three of those were incorporated into McCarthy's plan that just passed. Senator Ernst came out with the Prove It Act. I highly encourage people to support that, send letters into her and to your Senators. 

It's important because one-size-fits-all regulation just doesn't work. It kills small businesses. Big businesses can survive it. You never really see a big business fighting a major regulation.

But if you look at minimum wage, for example, Amazon supports it. Should we go to $20 minimum wage, a $30 minimum wage? [It’s like they won’t stop] until we drive all of the small businesses out of business. 

Federal Newswire:

Are Latina women the fastest growing entrepreneurial class in America?

Alfredo Ortiz:

Yeah, absolutely. In fact, I wrote a book at the beginning of this year that talks about minority entrepreneurship. That's the solution to bridge the economic and racial divide in this country.

Now, of course, … progressives believe in just more government. Everything is about more government. But we pretty much walked through a lot of situations and showed through data that it really isn't that. There's different situations, family situations, there's different issues. 

In fact, the Black Caucus Foundation did a study that showed a Black entrepreneur is 12 times wealthier than a Black non-entrepreneur. So it basically shows that this is not a… race issue. It's that one invested in an entrepreneurial business and path, and the other did not. 

We want to encourage more and more entrepreneurs. I don't care if they're Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Black, White, Teal or Green. Pursue entrepreneurship because that's the true way of achieving the American dream.

Federal Newswire:

Is that what the American dream is?

Alfredo Ortiz:

That's exactly what it is. It's not owning a house. No. It's actually owning your own little business and having some control of your own destiny.

A lot of our members are immigrants who came from socialist countries, in many cases with nothing other than a couple bucks in their pocket. They saw the opportunities here, niche opportunities. They built businesses. Now they're hiring people. They're successful restaurateurs, for example. 

But the interesting thing is that it seems as though the immigrant population really does appreciate what this country has to offer. Much more so, I would say, than our native population.

We started ‘bringing small businesses back’ tours a few years back. Over four years, we traveled about 105,000 miles on two buses. We hit about 40 states getting input from small business owners. 

Our wish is that more people realize that this is an incredible country of opportunity and I want to emphasize opportunity, not equality. But of opportunity, and I think immigrants actually truly understand that.

Federal Newswire:

How important is it for your organization to get out there and talk to people and small business owners?

Alfredo Ortiz:

It gives you a better sense as to how to address these issues. When you hear about inflation being an issue, you really understand when you talk to these small business owners how inflation is a real issue for these guys. They don't have any solution because what are they going to do about it? It's not like they can buy more. They can’t hedge. 

They are really, in many cases, buying this stuff from a Costco. I mean, they're beholden to the ups and downs of the fluctuations of the market, Whereas all these large businesses can really shield themselves from that. You do find out things like that when you pop out there and actually talk to people.

Federal Newswire:

What’s the title of your book?

Alfredo Ortiz:

“Minority Entrepreneurship,” and it's a great book overall. I think you'll enjoy it. It's a short read. 

It really is something that we need to understand as a country, because if we really want to help the racial and economic divide, it's not through more government or reparations out in California. That's not really the solution. It's providing an environment where people can achieve their American dream, which is owning their own business, having control of their own destiny.

Federal Newswire:

How do folks find out more about what the Job Creators Network is up to?

Alfredo Ortiz:

Use our website, www.jobcreatorsnetwork.com. Or you can also go to www.joinjcn.com, if you just want to jump right in and join. It's a great organization. If you believe in small businesses, if you have a small business, if you have a relative who owns a small business, or a friend who owns a small business,

A couple years back I went on multiple stops with Vice President Pence. We did about 14 stops with him. I would always ask, “How many people own your own business?” About a third of the room. “How many people know a family member or friend [who owns one]?” Another third. “How many people work at a small business?” Everybody would pretty much raise their hand.

Everybody's impacted by small business in this country, everybody. You shop at small businesses. I can guarantee you probably went to a small business and shopped there today. I did too. I went downstairs and grabbed a bagel.

This country needs to make more of the fact that small businesses are so important to our communities.