How Trump’s presidency could benefit Alabama: Tax and regulation cuts fuel business optimism

The decision by American voters to return Donald Trump to the White House and put Republicans in control of the U.S. Senate and House signals a change of course for the nation.

In Alabama, where Trump racked up almost two-thirds of the vote, Republican officials and business leaders are optimistic that the changes will benefit the state.

Trump has nurtured a warm relationship with Alabama since his first major campaign event in Mobile in 2015, returning to the state for rallies, a Republican party fundraiser, and college football games.

Main Street tax credit

Rosemary Elebash, Alabama director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, says her organization’s 7,000 members are optimistic about the new Trump administration.

Elebash said their No. 1 issue is preservation of a small business tax deduction that was part of Trump’s 2017 tax package passed by Congress.

The deduction, which Elebash said is called the Main Street Tax Certainty Act, is scheduled to expire at the end of next year, which she said would force businesses to pay higher taxes.

See also: How Trump’s presidency could hurt Alabama

“Making this deduction permanent would allow small, independent, family-owned businesses to grow, hire new workers, provide for their employees, and of course, give back to their own communities, which small business owners do,” Elebash said. “Any study you’ll find is that they are the biggest contributors back to their own local communities.”

Elebash said businesses are also rooting for the repeal of the Corporate Transparency Act, which she said added regulatory burdens for companies with fewer than 20 employees.

Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a Trump ally, is sponsoring a bill to repeal the law, which the NFIB is also fighting in court.

Elebash said a survey of NFIB members in November showed a better outlook after three years of high levels of uncertainty about the economy.

“Small business owners across the nation are so encouraged with the election results that they are now optimistic,” Elebash said. “That’s significant that you would have that kind of increase in one month. It’s all due to the election. Members in Alabama that I have spoken to, they are really encouraged.”

Tax benefits for households, businesses

Alabama Sen. Katie Britt blamed the Biden administration for rising costs of groceries and other necessities and says the Trump administration and the Republican majority in D.C. can get the nation back on the right track.

Britt, in an op-ed after the election, said that will start with renewal and expansion of the Trump tax package of 2017, which she called a “generational opportunity.”

“I look forward to building on the success of his first tax package in order to strengthen economic opportunity, incentivize ingenuity, and lift up the hardworking American people who were left behind by the Biden-Harris Administration,” Britt wrote.

Britt said she wants the renewed tax package to include legislation she introduced in July called the Child Care Availability and Affordability Act and the Child Care Workforce Act. She said it would create tax credits to lower costs and increase the supply of child care.

“The goal is to ensure no American is forced to choose between participating in the workforce or taking care of their kids,” Britt wrote.

Alabama lawmakers have targeted the same problem in a bipartisan effort, part of a legislative package to raise Alabama’s labor force participation rate, which is lower than the rate in most other states.

Britt said another goal is to strengthen a research and development tax credit to promote investment and entrepreneurship.

Moving U.S. Space Command to Huntsville

Alabama Congressman Mike Rogers, R-Saks, who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he expects Trump to overturn President Biden’s decision to keep the headquarters of the U.S. Space Command in Colorado Springs.

Trump had supported the U.S. Air Force’s selection of Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville as the preferred location for the Space Command back in January 2021.

“I look forward to working with President Trump to reverse Biden’s political meddling in the basing process, and I will be sleeping sounder at night knowing we have a real commander in chief,” Rogers said.

Biden said he picked Colorado because the base would achieve operational readiness faster there, but Rogers and others dispute that.

Rogers added a provision to last year’s National Defense Authorization Act that prohibited spending money on Space Command’s headquarters pending the outcome of reviews by the Government Accountability Office and the Department of Defense Inspector General.

Those reviews have not been completed.

The command headquarters would lead to construction, investment and long-term jobs in its permanent location. Siting the command in Huntsville would mean at least 1,600 new jobs for Alabama, and more as its missions grow.

Conservative Christian values

Sen. Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, chosen by the Republican majority to lead the Alabama Senate next year, said the election of Trump has boosted people’s confidence.

“I think the economy is going to come back a little stronger than it has been in the past,” Gudger said. “People have more belief that the economy is going do to well further out and are starting to spend money again. As a small business owner, l feel it in my own small business, much less the industrial side and the big box side.

“And number two, it’s just nice to have Christian conservative values, which is what the Senate stands for, the Legislature here in the state of Alabama.

“It’s nice to be able to have somebody that will back that up at the federal government and the executive branch. So I’m proud to be able to work any way I possibly can with the administration at the federal level.”

Support for farmers

Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Rick Pate said Trump was a strong proponent for farmers during his first administration, and Pate expects the same during the new term.

“He was the best friend to agriculture that we’ve ever had,” Pate said. “With COVID and all the stresses that put on so many farms, he really had the federal government step up and help a lot of the farmers.”

Pate, who was elected in 2018 and re-elected in 2022, said cattle and poultry operations are generally doing well, but that row crop farmers are struggling.

“People planting cotton, corn, beans, wheat, the commodity prices have gotten so low and the input cost have gotten so high,” Pate said.

Pate said it is important to protect America’s independence as the source of its food supply.

“Trump’s going to be good for business,” Pate said. “Closing the border, I think we can start to talk about a viable guest worker program once we shut that border down. Nobody is going to talk about it when people are just pouring in here.”