Small Business Is Not a Photo Op

I want to tell you about two men I met while knocking on doors in this district.

The first is a contractor. He has run a small construction company here for over a decade. He builds homes, renovates kitchens, puts roofs over people’s heads. He is not a corporation. He is a man with a truck, a crew, and a reputation built one job at a time. When I asked him how business was going, he looked at me the way people look at you when they are tired of being polite about something that is genuinely hard. Steel prices are up. Lumber costs more. Aluminum has jumped sharply. Every material he needs to do his job costs significantly more than it did two years ago. He cannot absorb that. His bids go up. He wins fewer jobs. The crew he was planning to add this spring stayed home instead. The community investment he had been talking about for years -- sponsoring a local youth program, hiring an apprentice -- got pushed back again. Not because he stopped caring. The math stopped working.

The second man runs a small landscaping company. He has built something real -- a tight crew, loyal clients, a business his family depends on. Then immigration enforcement changed the reality on the ground. Workers who had been with him for years stopped showing up. Not because they had done anything wrong. They were afraid, and fear does not wait for due process. He went looking for replacements and found something that anyone in this industry will tell you is the plain truth: most Americans do not want this work. The hours are long, the sun is unforgiving, and the pay is not enough to make it competitive with indoor jobs. He lost contracts he could not fulfill. He turned away work he could not staff. He is still standing, but he is standing on thinner ground than he was a year ago.

These two men are the backbone of this district. Not a talking point. Not a photo op. The actual backbone.

There are over 424,000 small businesses in Orange County alone, making up nearly 100 percent of all businesses in the county. The cities of this district -- Mission Viejo, Aliso Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita, Lake Elsinore, Murrieta, Menifee, Wildomar -- are built on these businesses. The dry cleaner. The landscaper. The contractor. The family restaurant. The plumber. The florist. The woman who does alterations out of a shop she has run for twenty years. These are the people who sponsor Little League teams and donate to school fundraisers and hire neighbors. When they struggle, the whole community feels it. Washington does not.

Let us talk about what is actually hurting them -- and what could actually help.

The tariffs on steel, aluminum, and lumber are not trade policy. They are a hidden tax on every American who builds, repairs, or renovates anything. Steel prices have risen over 13 percent in the past year. Aluminum is up nearly 23 percent. Lumber has climbed almost 5 percent. These costs do not fall on corporations with purchasing departments and hedging strategies. They fall on the contractor with a single truck who has to hand a customer a bid that is higher than last year’s with no good explanation other than Washington decided to start a trade war. Analysts estimate tariffs have raised the cost of building an average home by over $6,000. That is not a corporate problem. That is a small business problem.

The immigration enforcement crisis is just as real. Nationally, there are an estimated 43,000 fewer workers in landscaping since enforcement intensified. One firm lost $50,000 in contracts when workers stopped showing up because of rumors of raids in the area. The construction industry in California -- where 41 percent of construction workers are foreign-born -- is struggling to replace workers with skills that took years to develop. The argument that Americans will take these jobs if immigrants leave has not proven true. Employers across this district are learning that the hard way.

Here is what I would actually do -- not the usual talking points.

First: small businesses deserve tariff relief that corporations already have access to. Large companies have legal teams and trade consultants to navigate exemptions and drawbacks. A contractor in Lake Elsinore does not. I support creating a streamlined tariff exemption process specifically for small businesses, and a material cost stabilization fund that provides short-term purchasing credits to small contractors when input costs spike suddenly due to trade policy changes. If Washington creates the problem, Washington should share the pain.

Second: the federal government spends over one trillion dollars on contracts every year. Small businesses are supposed to receive 23 percent of that by law. That goal is routinely missed. I support strict enforcement of federal small business contracting goals, with specific set-asides for locally owned businesses in districts like ours. A plumber in Murrieta should be able to compete for a federal facilities contract in their own backyard without needing a Washington lobbyist to navigate the paperwork.

Third: workforce development needs to be treated like infrastructure. The skills that built this district -- how to frame a wall, lay pipe, grade a hillside, maintain a landscape -- do not appear overnight. I support federally funded apprenticeship tax credits for small businesses that train workers on the job, paired with community college partnerships in Orange and Riverside Counties that create direct pipelines from classroom to crew. Train people here. Hire people here. Keep the money here.

Fourth: fix the guest worker program. The H-2B visa for temporary non-agricultural workers -- the pathway that landscapers and contractors most need -- is capped, slow, and administratively brutal for small employers. I support expanding H-2B visa numbers for industries with documented labor shortages, simplifying the application process for small businesses, and creating a fast-track renewal for workers who have already been vetted. Secure borders and functional legal work authorization are not opposites. A contractor should not have to choose between following the law and keeping the lights on.

Fifth: give small businesses a seat at the table before policy is made, not after. When tariffs go up, small businesses find out the same way everyone else does -- through the news. When immigration enforcement changes, small business owners wake up to empty job sites. I support requiring a small business economic impact assessment for any federal trade or labor policy change, with input from chambers of commerce and small business associations in affected districts before implementation. The people who feel these decisions first should have a voice in making them.

The contractor I met is not asking for a handout. He is asking for a fair shot. The landscaper I met is not asking for special treatment. He is asking for a workforce policy that reflects how his industry actually operates. These are reasonable requests from people who have built something real in communities they care about.

The politicians who pose with small business owners at ribbon cuttings and then vote for policies that gut their margins owe them better than a photo. This district deserves a representative who has actually sat across the table from these people, listened to what they need, and is willing to say it plainly in Washington.

Ballots arrive May 4th. Small business is not a backdrop. It is our community.

With respect and resolve —
Nina Linh
Independent Candidate, CA-40