Transcription:
Congressman María Elvira Salazar: Thank you and wonderful to see you again Isabel Guzmán and thank you for your visit to my 27th district, the city of Miami. I must say that it was a very productive visit and I am sure that from now on my small business owners will enjoy the best service that the SBA can provide, so thanks for that. Thanks for taking the time and going, taking a plane and going to Miami. Very grateful. I just want to share some little glitches we have. One of them, for example, is a $ 140 billion problem, and what is that? It is the COVID test. Every time someone comes to this country, international tourists, That person needs to be tested 24 hours before getting on that plane, and that move is wiping out the tourism industry in Florida, specifically Miami.And you know that Miami is the center of international tourism in Florida. So could you tell the President the next time you see him at one of the cabinet meetings that we should remove that measure? ¿Could you do that?
Isabel Guzmán, Small Business Administrator: I will definitely convey your concerns to the White House and our team will continue to point out this problem and work with you to see what we can do to help better support our small travel businesses and industry, which we know have been affected by so many factors.
Salazar: Because you know Florida is open for business and my small business community is eager to sell those services, but if you don't have people, then you can't pay the payroll at the end of the month. So, understand that. So since you are there with the President, I would really appreciate it if you could tell him that this is killing us.
Guzmán: I continue to advocate for our small businesses and I appreciate that...
Salazar: But will you be able to tell the President at one of the cabinet meetings that this is happening and is crushing our little merchants?
Guzmán: I will definitely highlight the issue for the White House. Thank you.
Salazar: Very well, thank you. So, you have a pretty good budget, over a billion dollars, and it will probably increase next year. But we discovered something that is worrying, Mrs. Guzmán. The budget allocated for salaries, for regional and district offices is falling, not rising. But in the meantime, his decision has been to increase the money in the hands of the Washington bureaucrats. I think someone who is sitting in D.C. can not serve, understand or worry as much as one of your boys sitting in one of those district offices that the budget for wages in those is being cut. And even more, I'm going to share what is happening in Miami or Tampa, is that we only have a district office in South Florida for two million small businesses.We don't even have a permanent district director. ¿Is there any reason to cut money at the regional level and give it to D.C.?
Guzmán: Over time, because we had to increase wages and benefits and decrease some of these positions, I understand that all our offices were affected. This budget would allow us to recoup some of those positions across the agency and we have continued to try to empower regional offices to make sure we collect that knowledge, key that our team on the ground can share with us...
Salazar: You can empower them by hiring them and paying them good wages, but right now you're cutting those budgets.
Guzmán: We are committed to ensuring that we can help improve our staff plan in all regional offices, and that includes trying to ensure that your positions are maintained and that you receive the benefits of our expansion.
Salazar: Finally, I have one more minute, I just want to ask you a personal question. You are one of the most outstanding Latinas in the Administration, so we have the same cultural code. Your parents are Mexican, you understand the border, you know what's going on down there. ¿Don't you worry, that's the concern I have, that what is happening on the border is giving Hispanics, Latinos a very bad reputation? Because down there we have no legality whatsoever and my concern is that the favorable perception of other groups of us, the largest minority in the country, may be changing. So when you sit down with the President, don't you express it from a very personal point of view, because your parents are descendants of Mexicans? Mine are Cuban, so we belong to the same minority. Please,give me your personal appreciation. If you want to share that with us.
Guzmán: Well, what I would share is that I have continually defended and made it clear that the face of entrepreneurship is changing and I would like to portray Latinos as the ones who are leading that because They are starting business at the highest rate and in most states according to Mckinsey studies, making entrepreneurship and that face of entrepreneurship...
Salazar: And we know that, we created, we are probably the top job creators, but when it comes to the border, That could be hurting the rest of our plan to want to live the American Dream. Yes or no? Don't you think that's what's going on right now?
Guzmán: I agree that I would like everyone to know that small business, the face of the Latino community, is entrepreneurship.
Original source can be found here.
