Chairman Smith Opening Statement: Tennessee Field Hearing on the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Delivering for Small Business, Manufacturing, and Working Families

COLLIERVILLE, TN – Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08) delivered the following opening statement at a field hearing in Collierville, Tennessee, on how the One, Big, Beautiful Bill is delivering for small businesses, manufacturers, and working families.

As prepared for delivery.

“Good morning. Thank you all for being here, and welcome to the Ways and Means Committee’s field hearing on The One, Big, Beautiful Bill Delivering for Small Business, Manufacturing, and Working Families.

“It’s great to be here in Congressman David Kustoff’s district. David is a strong and steady advocate for the working families of West Tennessee. When the Ways and Means Committee was laying the groundwork for the One, Big, Beautiful Bill, he served as vice chair of our Supply Chain Tax Team. He also led the fight to strengthen the employer-provided child care credit, which became law in the One, Big, Beautiful Bill and empowers employers to open child care centers, so working parents don’t have to choose between their jobs and quality care for their kids.

“I also want to thank our host, the Orgill Innovation Center, which helps the independent hardware retailer, the family lumberyard, and the farm store compete with the big-box chains. I see that firsthand back home in southeast Missouri, where Orgill’s distribution center in Sikeston keeps small-town stores stocked all across the Midwest. I’m told this facility is bigger than Wrigley Field, and took an investment of more than $80 million to build and equip. When the hardware store on Main Street has what its customers need, the whole community benefits.

“It’s disappointing that none of our Democrat colleagues have joined us here today, but perhaps not surprising. Every Democrat on this Committee – and for that matter every Democrat in Congress – voted against the relief we are discussing today. Unfortunately, this is not the first time we have taken the Committee on the road and found their side of the dais empty. Field hearings are how we get out of Washington and into the communities our work actually touches. Today, we are here to learn how the One, Big, Beautiful Bill is showing up in the lives of workers, families, and small businesses across West Tennessee.

“In the process of writing the One, Big, Beautiful Bill, this Committee traveled the country to hear from Americans struggling in the Biden economy. In West Virginia, Oklahoma, Georgia, and beyond, folks told us about how with higher prices and higher interest rates, allowing the largest tax hike in American history to occur would have crushed workers, families, farmers, and small businesses. The 20 percent small business deduction was also about to expire. Tax rates would have gone up on everyone. Businesses were about to lose the ability to write off new equipment right away. Research costs had to be spread out over five years instead of deducted in one. Forty million families would have seen the Child Tax Credit slashed in half.

“Republicans listened. We made the small business deduction permanent, so Main Street businesses – some 36 million employers and their over 63 million workers – can compete with larger corporations, and so they are not facing a tax rate 20 points larger than what similar size businesses pay in Communist China. We made full expensing permanent for new equipment and domestic research, and for the first time we let manufacturers write off new factories in full right away. We made enhancements to the tax credits and deductions that support child care options for working families – including employer-provided child care and out of pocket child care costs – for the first time in over two decades. We delivered No Tax on Tips and No Tax on Overtime for the workers who keep American businesses running, and we delivered the largest tax cut our country has ever seen.

“Today is about hearing what that relief looks like in real life. Our witnesses know better than anyone how tax policy shows up in a paycheck, a hiring decision, or a new piece of equipment. How it supports working families to put food on the table and provide for their kids, or how it gives employers more resources to provide more jobs and better benefits to their employees. I want to thank each of you for taking this time to share how tax relief is working for you, for your business, for your family.

“This hearing is also about what comes next. The One, Big, Beautiful Bill gave families and job creators greater certainty and much needed relief at a time when folks are still facing some tough financial decisions. But, our work is not done. We want to hear from our witnesses about the barriers still standing in the way of small businesses, workers, and families and what this Committee should focus on as we write the next chapter of tax reform – whether it be tax policies that allow workers to keep more of their hard-earned money to put toward family expenses or additional support for small businesses to expand, invest, and hire.

“I look forward to today’s testimony.

“Last but not least, we also want to hear from all of you in the audience. We will be passing around clipboards during the hearing for anyone in attendance who wishes to share with the Committee how the tax cuts in the One, Big, Beautiful Bill are impacting you. We want to hear your voice and your story as we continue working to deliver tax relief for working families and small businesses. Those comments will be entered into the official record for this hearing.”

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