Opinion: Empowering Iowa small businesses to support America

By Sen. Joni Ernst

Innovation should not just come from Washington when it is thriving right here in the heartland. In Iowa, small businesses make up 99 percent of businesses and employ more than 50 percent of the workers in our state.

While these businesses have been put through the wringer by inflation and the unrelenting tsunami of regulations, Washington has punished them in a much less obvious way over the last 15 years — by squeezing them out of selling to the biggest consumer in the country: the federal government. Since Fiscal Year 2008, the number of small businesses competing for federal government contracts has been cut in half.

When I became the top Republican on the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee last year, I immediately set out to reverse this concerning decline.

I found one of the biggest obstacles was wacky government jargon and quickly introduced the ACCESS Act to streamline the process and make it more accessible for small businesses to compete. This commonsense bill promotes job creation and supports communities right here in Iowa.

After all, Iowa small businesses are not just mom-and-pop shops. They operate as trailblazers of invention, bringing vital technologies that support our national defense to bear.

Opening the door for these small businesses to compete in the federal marketplace is about providing the government access to the latest cutting-edge technologies and ensuring a robust defense industrial base to protect our nation. It also ensures tax dollars are used more efficiently.

A steady presence of new firms creates the necessary competition to keep costs low and forces Washington bureaucrats to be good stewards of tax dollars, instead of just doling out contracts to the same few companies year after year.

My advocacy is not limited to the halls of Congress. The best way to ensure the federal government understands how to work with small businesses is by sitting down and meeting with them.

This month, I hosted my second annual Entrepreneur Expo in Ames to get federal agencies out of the D.C. bubble and into the heartland.

The event was a roaring success, as hundreds of attendees were able to hear from 75 speakers from 40 different state and federal agencies about how their businesses can compete and win.

Reversing the rapid decline in the federal marketplace won’t happen overnight, but I am confident that we have momentum on our side to unleash entrepreneurship in Iowa and across this country.

Small businesses power our states, and it is long past time we remove barriers and equip them to support and supply the federal government.

Joni Ernst, a native of Red Oak and a combat veteran, represents Iowa in the United States Senate.