Guests - Chad Heinrich, Betsy Smith
The Big Beautiful Bill: A Game Changer for Small Businesses
NFIB's Chad Heinrich on Tax Reforms and Small Business Wins
The recently signed "Big Beautiful Bill" represents a landmark victory for small businesses across America. According to Chad Heinrich, NFIB State Director for Arizona, this legislation delivers the most significant win for small businesses since the 2017 tax cuts.
"For your listeners, I'll tell you that this is for sure a game changer for small businesses," Heinrich explained. "The crown jewel in the big beautiful bill was the 20% small business deduction and that being permanent now in law."
This deduction allows small business owners to reduce their taxable income by 20% before calculating taxes. For example, if a small business has $100,000 in gross income, $20,000 is deducted before tax calculations begin. Making this provision permanent provides certainty that helps businesses plan for the future.
"Some estimates show that it would have been an over $3 billion tax increase in Arizona alone if this deduction had expired," Heinrich noted. "This would have cost tens of thousands of jobs every year for the next decade."
The bill contains several other provisions beneficial to small businesses:
Section 179 expensing caps were doubled from $1.25 million to $2.5 million, allowing larger write-offs for equipment purchases
Permanent 100% expensing for capital investments, enabling immediate tax benefits rather than depreciation over many years
Locked-in marginal tax rates that prevent tax bracket increases
"Without that, five out of 10 of those tax bracket rates would have spiked," Heinrich pointed out, noting that 90% of small businesses file taxes on individual returns.
Benefits for Workers and Tax Relief
The legislation doesn't just benefit business owners—workers will see advantages too. The bill makes up to $25,000 in tips tax-free, as well as up to $25,000 in overtime pay for joint filers.
"In combination you can be making roughly $50,000 as a working person in those fields and not have tax on your income," Heinrich explained. "It's a win-win for workers without adding a dime to the small business owners' cost as an employer."
The bill also removed a controversial IRS reporting requirement for payment apps like Venmo and PayPal, raising the reporting threshold from $600 back to $20,000.
"This would have been a paperwork nightmare for anyone that uses Venmo or PayPal or those types of apps in their business," Heinrich said. "A lot of times, these are one-person operations—their toolbox and their truck, or they have a studio where they're doing cosmetology."
Economic Impact and Deficit Concerns
When asked about concerns regarding the bill's price tag and potential impact on the deficit, Heinrich emphasized the economic growth the legislation will generate.
"It's hard to have government services if you don't have an economy to fuel the needed services," he said. "Just making that small business deduction permanent will create 1.2 million jobs per year and create another $750 billion into the private economy."
Heinrich referenced a Small Business Administration report showing that after the 2017 tax cuts, 7 out of 10 new jobs in Arizona were created by small businesses.
"By creating certainty for the small business owner, you allow them to invest in their businesses which grows the economy, creates jobs for people, and now even those individuals will be able to keep more money that they earn," he added.
Arizona Legislative Wins and Losses
During the 2025 Arizona legislative session, small businesses saw both victories and setbacks. A significant win included in the state budget was an increase in the tax exemption on business personal property.
"Senator JD Mesnar has long championed increasing that exemption," Heinrich said. "It moves it to half a million dollars."
This means businesses with equipment valued under $500,000 will not pay business personal property tax to the state or county, and the threshold will increase annually with inflation.
However, several business-friendly bills were vetoed by the governor despite bipartisan support:
House Bill 2515, which would have required clearer notices to taxpayers about bond elections
Senate Bill 1050, aimed at reducing risk of lawsuit challenges on subsidies that local governments give to property developers
House Bill 2576, which would have allowed businesses to rectify regulatory violations prior to enforcement actions
"The governor has set an all-time record this session for vetoes," Heinrich noted. "It's unfortunate because so much work is put together. And when both sides can come together to do a common sense bill to encourage small business, and then it gets vetoed—it just makes no sense."
Law Enforcement Challenges and Immigration Enforcement
Minnesota Murder Case Receives Limited Media Coverage
Betsy Smith, spokesperson for the National Police Association, highlighted a recent case that has received surprisingly little media attention. A man named Vance Boltear, who had been appointed by Governor Tim Walz to a bipartisan board in Minnesota, murdered the Speaker of the House in Minnesota and her husband, then shot another legislator and his wife (who survived).
"He left not a manifesto, but more of an operational report with letters to people including FBI Director Cash Fertile claiming that Tim Walz made him commit these murders," Smith explained. "Imagine if this was a Republican—imagine instead of Governor Tim Walz, we were talking about a mentally ill guy who is claiming Ron DeSantis wanted him to murder a bunch of people. It would be all day, every day in the media."
Smith noted that the story has largely disappeared from mainstream media coverage, suggesting a double standard in reporting.
ICE Agents Under Attack
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have become targets of political attacks and physical danger while conducting enforcement operations. Smith explained that many politicians are "calling ICE agents everything from Nazis to terrorists," with some demanding that agents be "unmasked."
"ICE agents are hiding their faces from the cameras and from the criminals because their faces are being used to dox them," Smith said, explaining that this practice puts agents and their families at risk. "They're doing things, including going to the ICE agents' kids' schools."
Smith emphasized that agents concealing their identities is standard practice in law enforcement when conducting certain operations, not something nefarious as some politicians suggest.
"Poll after poll after poll, including a new one that CNN was forced to talk about on the air, shows that most Republicans and half of all people support the ICE raids. They support the mass removal of illegal aliens," Smith noted.
California Pot Farm Raid Reveals Exploitation
A recent joint operation involving ICE, DEA, and the Department of Homeland Security targeted a partially legal cannabis farm in California that was employing and exploiting illegal immigrants, including children.
"What the Department of Homeland Security is trying to do is they're trying to find the parents of these children. They're trying to determine how they came to be at this farm and working at this farm," Smith explained. "As I have no doubt we're going to find out, some have been sexually exploited."
Smith connected this case to the broader issue of missing children in the immigration system: "They admitted to 323,000 people, but those on the inside say it's closer to half a million undocumented illegal immigrant children."
Connecticut State Troopers Injured
Two Connecticut state troopers were hospitalized after being struck by an 18-year-old illegal immigrant from Ecuador who entered the country in 2023 under the Biden administration.
"This is Connecticut. So now the bond has been reduced to $500," Smith noted. "And it's very doubtful that the agency that has him in custody is going to honor any kind of ICE detainer to deport him back to Ecuador."
Smith also pointed out the staffing impact of such incidents: "We have two police officers in the hospital. Two more police officers who aren't out there taking 911 calls and arresting people for DUI and things like that. We are still in this country so terribly short staffed."
Self-Deportation Options
Smith highlighted the options available for voluntary departure: "If you are an illegal alien, you download the CBP-1 app, you get a free plane ticket to wherever you want to go in this world. Probably your second or third free plane ticket you've gotten in the last few years. And you get a thousand dollars put in your pocket."
Public Opinion on Immigration Enforcement
A recent Breitbart poll found that 49.5% of Americans support ICE raids to remove illegal immigrants, while 47.5% oppose them. Support falls along partisan lines, with 89% of Republicans supporting raids and 86% of Democrats opposing them. Among independents, 42% support raids while 52% oppose them.
"How is following the law a political issue? How can a Democrat oppose that the law be enforced?" Winn questioned.
Road Diets and Affordable Housing
Smith also touched on urban planning issues affecting cities like Tucson and Las Vegas, noting the implementation of "road diets" that reduce driving lanes to accommodate bicycles.
"They are shrinking these roadways down to make it more convenient to bicycle and less convenient to drive a large vehicle," Smith observed.
She connected this to debates over affordable housing: "What affordable housing really means is income housing that you and I are subsidizing. And it makes our housing less affordable."