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PHOENIX — During National Small Business Week, Arizona leaders and small business owners joined a press call to discuss how Donald Trump’s failed leadership has hurt Arizona’s small businesses and plunged the local economy into crisis.
During the call, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, State Senator Tony Navarrete (District 30), Phoenix small business owner Stephanie Vasquez, and Scottsdale small business owner Kristine Reich discussed how Arizona’s small businesses are still hurting as a result of Trump’s failed pandemic response and botched rollout of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which benefited large corporations and wealthy donors while leaving struggling small business owners behind.
Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego: “I wanted to be here today to recognize that our small businesses in Arizona are the heart of our community. They make it a great place to live […] I’m also here because I’m worried about businesses from daycare to dentists who may not make it through the difficult challenges. I’m looking for a president who will take COVID-19 seriously. I believe that leadership means we have to care about public health.”
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“We have to realize that our small businesses cannot succeed unless their customers feel safe and healthy. [..] The majority of the jobs in my community come thanks to the work of small businesses, and we need as many of them as possible not only to make it through COVID-19, but to thrive.”
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“The federal programs have been confusing and difficult — and I’m looking for a strong signal from Washington, D.C. about the investment that we are going to have come. I want to hear from the presidency that we care more about the small businesses in Phoenix than we do about pumping up the stock market for short-term gains.”
Scottsdale small business owner Kristine Reich, whose dance and fitness studio is permanently closing due to the pandemic: “If there’s something that I hope I can share with you today is the visceral reality of being a small business owner right now […] The anguish of losing a business is not just financial, but it’s also mental and emotional.”
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“We immediately applied [for a PPP loan] and it took them 5 weeks to tell us that they were denying us […] There seemed to be a complete uncoordinated, chaotic process that never seemed to be responsive to our needs and our desperation […] We are now faced with closing our doors next week.”
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“We need better decision makers who are coming up with a plan of how do we respond to Americans, how do we respond in a way that people can preserve their communities, preserve their businesses, their financial sustainability, and even their lives.”
Phoenix small business owner of Fair Trade Cafe Stephanie Vasquez: “I am one of 100,000 Latino-owned small businesses here in Arizona. We have experienced economical downturns, light-rail expansions, construction; however, nothing has measured up to the heavy and quick impacts of the pandemic that we are all experiencing now. There was nothing that could have prepared my business.”
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“Like the majority of my colleagues that own small businesses, we don’t feel supported. We don’t feel protected. And we are all on the brink of no longer existing. I am wanting to see strong, clear, supportive leadership in our next president […] We are not out of the dark. To be honest, we are really entering it.”
State Senator Tony Navarrete (District 30): “One thing that we know for sure is that Trump has failed America, Trump has failed our small business community, and Trump has failed communities of color throughout this country […] Since day one, the president has prioritized the top one percent […] What we’ve seen is a tragic situation of a president failing to take up the leadership that he was elected to do to serve our country. And when he fails to lead, we have working families that can’t make ends meet or access capital to maintain their small businesses.”
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“This administration has not been about working families, this administration has not been about supporting minority-owned and women-owned businesses.”
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“When the Paycheck Protection Program was released earlier on during the pandemic, Arizona ranked dead-last in per-capita of our small businesses that were able to acquire some of those funds. Yet we had so many Fortune 500 companies that received billions in funding.”
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