“Optimism on Main Street continues to grow with the improved economic outlook following the election.”
— Bill Dunkelberg, NFIB’s chief economist
expectation of future business condi- tions is absolutely through the roof.”
SMALL BUSINESS REPRIEVE Economic surveys report the top demon plaguing small business own- ers: inflation. Stabilizing prices after costs ran
wild for the first two years of the Joe Biden presidency is critical for Trump’s small business rescue plan to succeed. “Small businesses hate inflation,
and we’ve had a lot of it,” notes Ste- phen Moore of the Unleash Prosperity think tank. “So, bringing down prices will help small businesses a lot.” Price stabilization is especially crit-
ical because some Trump policies — including tariffs and more expensive domestic labor due to fewer undocu- mented workers — could be inflation- ary. That means the Trump adminis- tration will have to find other ways to lower overall costs. Beyond extending the corporate tax
cuts, Trump’s secret weapon against higher prices will be a surge in oil and natural gas. Antoni says Trump won’t be satis-
fied with mere U.S. energy indepen- dence. Instead, he says Trump will seek outright U.S. energy dominance on a global scale. “He believes we should be awash
with energy, and exporting it over- seas,” Antoni explains. “That points to an increase in supply, which means lower prices.” Fuel drives the U.S. economy. With
Business Costs Skyrocket A
merican small businesses must navigate a daunting and costly regulatory maze.
Compliance costs skyrocketed during the Obama and Biden presidencies, as
recently reported by the Unleash Prosperity free-market economics think tank. Looming large above every other potential cost: the Environmental Protection
Agency’s vehicle emission limits imposed under Joe Biden, with a projected cost approaching $1 trillion if fully implemented. Despite a rat’s nest of paperwork and regulatory compliance costs, the
productivity of America’s small business sector remains the economic envy of the world. Why are so many business owners gasping with relief that Republicans have grabbed the reins of power in Washington, D.C.? Consider the daunting numbers published by the Committee to Unleash
Prosperity: REGULATION COSTS UNDER EACH ADMINISTRATION
1000 800 600 400 200 0
-200
Total cost of regulation by year ($ billions) EPA vehicle emissions rule ($870 billion)
BUSH ‘05 ‘06 ‘07 ‘08 ‘09 ‘10
‘11
OBAMA ‘12
‘13
‘14
‘15
‘16
‘17 ‘18
TRUMP ‘19
BIDEN ‘20 ‘21 ‘22 ‘23 ‘24 SOURCE: American Action Forum and Piper Sandler
over 72% of U.S. products delivered by truck, and consumers hopping in their vehicles to commute daily to work or visit their local shopping center, driv- ing down energy costs triggers a ripple effect across the entire country. “We forget energy is an input in everything we do and everything we buy,” Antoni says. “So, if you can lower the price of energy, you’re going to bring down a ubiquitous input throughout the economy. “And you’re going to see businesses
being able to lower prices everywhere.” But another factor is also needed to
unleash the explosion: Mom-and-pop companies are dying to be liberated from burdensome regulations.
CANCELING RED TAPE A staggering 180,000 pages — that’s the federal regulatory burden on America as reflected in the size of the Federal Register rule book.
Antoni says the current thicket of
federal regulations is especially harm- ful for smaller firms unable to hire the army of attorneys, tax experts, and CPAs needed to complete the reams of documents required to prove you’re in compliance. Beyond DOGE — the much-bally-
hooed Department of Government Efficiency led by Elon Musk — the job of paring down the federal regu- latory thicket is expected to largely fall to economist Casey B. Mulli- gan, Moore’s erstwhile colleague at Unleash Prosperity. Trump nominated Mulligan, a key
player on the Council of Economic Advisers during his first term, to serve as chief counsel for advocacy at the Small Business Administration (SBA). Mulligan’s job: to scrutinize the underlying economic rationale for vir- tually every federal regulation that’s being imposed on small businesses.
MARCH 2025 | NEWSMAX 13
$ Billions
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