Lloyd Chapman: America Is a Small Business Economy, and Washington Is Starving It
Lloyd Chapman, founder and president of the American Small Business League (ASBL) and the Don't Cheat Women Project, joined Kathleen Winn to make a case that he says gets almost no airtime: the federal government is shrinking the one agency built to help the businesses that employ most Americans, just as AI threatens millions of jobs. "I'm not a Democrat or Republican," Chapman said. "I'm an American."
The Numbers
Chapman opened with the figures he uses in every fight. Ninety-nine point nine percent of U.S. businesses are small businesses, he said, and 98 percent have fewer than 100 employees. About 87 percent have fewer than 20, and the average American company, "from Amazon down to my barber," has about 10 employees. Small businesses account for half of gross domestic product, half the private-sector workforce, most U.S. exports and, by his count, more than 90 percent of net new jobs. "You will never, ever hear that on network television," he said. There are 36 million of them and only one federal agency, the Small Business Administration, to assist them. He said its 2026 budget is the lowest in its history, lower in real terms than when Ronald Reagan took office, and that its staff has been cut by roughly 80 percent since 1980.
Chapman noted that Elon Musk has predicted that within ten years AI could eliminate most jobs, and Chapman said the government's response to that threat so far has been "nothing." He argued that the opposite approach is needed: pump up federal programs that help small businesses create jobs. He cited a Senate Small Business Committee report from about 15 years ago finding that every one-point increase in the share of federal contracts going to small businesses creates about 100,000 net new jobs.
Redefining "Small"
Chapman said the little-noticed threat is a push to change the size standards that define a small business. Under the Small Business Act of 1953, which he called the largest economic stimulus program ever passed for the American people, small businesses are supposed to get 23 percent of federal contracts. He said the real figure is closer to 3 percent, because large corporations, including Fortune 500 firms and their subsidiaries, have been counted as small businesses. He said the proposed redefinition would allow companies with up to $500 million in annual revenue to qualify, while the average small business takes in about $1.7 million a year. "If you were to use that same formula, you might change the retirement age from 65 to 650," he said. In his view, that amounts to repealing the Act by redefinition.
Chapman, who is 77, said he has won more than 100 legal victories against the federal government, including a record 110 Freedom of Information lawsuits, with a win ratio of about 98 percent. His 1991 FOIA filing, Winn noted, forced the Air Force and Lockheed Martin to steer an additional $501 million to small and minority-owned firms. He said he has prompted more than 25 federal investigations and testified before Congress. If the new size standards are adopted, Chapman said he will file for an injunction. "I think a federal judge will agree," he said, "that any definition of a small business over 100 employees is inconsistent with the congressional intent of the Small Business Act."
Taxes and the Deficit
Chapman said the Government Accountability Office found that about 34 percent of the largest corporations in the country pay no federal income tax. "You paid more taxes in 2025 than Amazon did," he told listeners. "That needs to stop tomorrow." He said he would also halt foreign aid until the deficit is zero. The debt rises by nearly $100,000 a second, he said. He also argued that oil companies are profiting from high gas prices while American families struggle and urged listeners to look up the companies' recent profits, and said he is troubled that no one in Washington talks about the federal defense budget as a source of waste. Winn agreed that people need to be treated the same. "Everybody paying taxes," she said.
Don't Cheat Women
In the second half of the interview, Chapman described his Don't Cheat Women Project. Women own about 43 percent of American businesses, he said, but have never received more than about 3 percent of federal contract dollars, while firms owned by men have received more than 95 percent. "That's got to be discrimination," he said. He rejected the claim that contracts simply go to the most qualified firm. "So you're trying to tell me that companies owned by women aren't qualified?" he asked.
Winn, who has seven children, five of them girls, and 20 grandchildren, said she worked her way up in banking and finance and said that was the fairest environment she experienced because it was based on production. She said her husband, a Boeing vice president who worked on the Apache program, saw women rise in aerospace and subcontract to women-owned firms. "You have to work twice as hard as a man," she said. She said she wants the best person for any job, not a woman just because she is a woman.
Chapman said a bill he wrote will be introduced in the next couple of months to raise the federal goal for women-owned small businesses from 5 percent to 10 percent, which he estimates would create about one million net new jobs without new spending or taxes. Chapman also said Senator Mike Lee of Utah has introduced a bill that would eliminate the 5 percent goal altogether, which he argued would leave nearly all contract dollars with firms owned by men. "And nobody knows," he said. Winn said she finds it hard to believe there aren't enough qualified women-owned firms to receive contracts. "We don't need to reduce contracts to women," Chapman said. "We need to increase them."
His personal reason for the focus is that he believes women in government would make the world safer. Looking at photographs of children killed in the Middle East, he said, he concluded that "women are nurturing, and men tend to be more violent." He said he would support a woman president of either party. Winn said she has no objection to a woman president but not for the sake of being a woman. Chapman's website is ASBL.com, and listeners can search for the Don't Cheat Women Project. He said he is happy to come back.
Kelly Walker: A "Come to Jesus Moment" After the Midterms
Kelly Walker, who writes and publishes Real Freedom Talk and has worked with election-integrity activists, called in from Tennessee, where she now lives after years in Arizona. Winn thanked her for helping candidates in the state. Walker praised Winn for her hard work and said the candidates were brave and generous to run in Arizona in this cycle.
Why Republicans Lost, in Her View
"There aren't just one or two smoking guns for what happens in the midterms," Walker said. She said what she hears from voters across the country is a mix of grievances. She said President Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance have cited the war in the Middle East and gas prices, and that some voters accepted the need to take on Iran while others felt they had been promised no more Middle East quagmires. She said Republicans also failed to answer young voters, noting exit-poll reports that Gen Z voters leaned heavily Democratic, and Hispanic voters. "Nobody owns the Hispanic vote," Walker said. "They're going to go to whoever treats them well and makes them feel included." She described a Latino author and speaker who said someone at a Republican event had asked him whether he was documented. "That's just ignorance," Winn said, adding that the same ignorance exists in both parties.
Walker said the party needs what she called a "come to Jesus moment" about what has been accomplished in the last two years. "This is a time for reflection," she said. "It's a time for assessment."
Parents and the Justice Department
Walker's main theme was the parents she says were targeted during the Biden administration after speaking at school board meetings, along with people prosecuted in the January 6 cases and others she calls victims of "lawfare." She said she and many others have received little help from the Justice Department under President Trump, and that some people she knows who voted Republican all their lives stayed home or changed their registration out of frustration. "How come Trump hasn't taken care of these parents?" she said, adding that commentators including Steve Bannon have asked the same question. She said Arizona Congressmen Eli Crane, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs have supported the parents and told her they have raised the issue with the administration without answers.
Walker said she visited the Justice Department in January and that the experience left her convinced that an entrenched "deep state" element is resisting reform. She said the issue should be treated as a win for the Trump administration and that the administration can fix it quickly. She noted that attorney Peter Ticktin has offered to represent the parents on contingency and that the group is now in the courts. "I stopped depending on Congress to do the right thing a long time ago," she said. Winn pointed out that with Democrats now controlling Congress, relief is unlikely to come from Washington. Walker said people will have to focus locally. She described a Tucson woman whose son she and others fostered while the mother was in prison, and who now struggles to find work because of her record, and said a man she knows may go to prison this month.
The Dhillon Resignation
Winn read a report that Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon announced her resignation on November 5, saying she had told the White House three weeks earlier and was asked to wait until after the midterms. Attorney General Todd Blanche accepted the resignation and thanked her for her service. Walker said she appreciated that Dhillon would talk with her, but said she could not judge the motives behind the resignation. "I think J.D. Vance and Rubio and others probably have an eye toward 2028," Walker said, and will reflect the mood of voters.
Don't Give Up
On the broader state of the country, Walker said Americans should not despair. She said the Chinese Communist Party has telegraphed its strategy in a book called Unrestricted Warfare, written by two People's Liberation Army colonels, a form of warfare that she described as psychological and economic. She pointed to mass illegal immigration and what she called the fall of Europe, and said Americans need to be resolute. "We cannot give in. We cannot pull back," she said. She said Americans have faced worse times and urged listeners to keep their heads up and their eyes forward. She thanked Winn and asked listeners to support independent media. "The mainstream media has abdicated their role as the fourth estate," she said, "but some of us out here who are independent media are carrying the torch."
Winn added that she hopes people will stay engaged. She said the party must now look at why independents did not show up, and that the infighting inside the Republican Party was exactly what the other side wanted. "Republicans hurting Republicans," she said.
Kathleen Winn: Where Things Stand and What's Coming
Winn spent her remaining time on the state of the count and on local events. She said Pima County was still tabulating ballots, with about 17,700 coming in on Friday alone, and that volunteers from every party, including Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians and Greens, would conduct the hand count on Saturday for about four hours. The process is a legal one, she said, "just to verify what we already know." She said she expects Democrats to hold the governor's office and both chambers of the Arizona Legislature, with a supermajority that could block the governor, and that Republicans have not elected anyone statewide. She said Republicans in Pima County turned out at record rates and that the party cannot be responsible for what happened elsewhere. "Whatever was going on in Maricopa, they didn't turn out to vote," she said.
Winn said she is proud of the results in the districts Pima County Republicans could control, thanked Rachel Keschel and Congressman Juan Ciscomani for their service, and named Congressmen Paul Gosar, Abe Hamadeh and Eli Crane among the winners. She noted that Republican Jay Feely lost in Scottsdale. She encouraged Republicans to rest, not attack each other and then come back stronger, since 2027's city races are around the corner. "The most important days that we have are not the ones behind us," she said, "but the ones ahead of us."
What Small Businesses Are Seeing
Winn read results from a National Federation of Independent Business survey sent by Arizona state director Chad Heinrich. Seasonally adjusted, 36 percent of Arizona owners reported job openings they could not fill in October, up four points from September and 12 points above the historical average. Thirty-one percent had openings for skilled workers and 15 percent for unskilled labor. Forty-eight percent of those hiring reported few or no qualified applicants. Her takeaway was that the state is not training people for the jobs that exist. NFIB will join the show next week.
Rockin' for Heroes and the Arizona Bowl
Winn promoted the sixth annual Rockin' for Heroes on Sunday, November 8th, at James Kriegh Park off Oracle Road, with music from the Lexington Lab Band starting around 3:30 p.m., awards and new scholarships. She said bringing a hat is wise because the seating is in full sun. The event, created by Bonnie and Mike Quinn to honor the first responders who helped their son, celebrates military, law enforcement and first-responder heroes. She also urged listeners to buy tickets for the Arizona Bowl, which kicks off Saturday, January 2nd, with Snoop Dogg and Gin & Juice as presenters, at Casino Del Sol Stadium. All net proceeds go to local nonprofits.
Winn said she will be out Monday, with Dave Smith filling in, and will be back in the studio Tuesday.