Small businesses are the ‘ESSENCE’ of the American dream: Liz Peek

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]But first, the state of Main Street with our all-star panel. Joining me now, Contrarian Thinking Capital founder Cody Sanchez, Fox News contributor and columnist Liz Peek, Sidekick Operators president Chris Valletta. It's so great to have all of you here. Liz, start with just sort of this big picture of how we got small businesses to create and be the backbone of this country and employ the massive workforce that they do.

[00:00:27]Well, I think of it as the essence of the American dream. Everybody wants to have their own business, they want to be their own boss. But what has enabled America in particular to make that happen? I'd say several things. One, we have a culture of success, celebrating success. So if you do well, up until very recently, people thought that was great. You could make as much money as you want. And these small businesses, by the way, turn into big businesses. You know, Amazon started as a small business. Now it's a huge business. So it's incredibly important to our economy. I think individualism plays a role in that.

[00:01:01]Uh and also going forward, Taylor, I think energy, not just individual energy, but the energy resources of this country. And I have to say I think AI is going to be a big booster of small business innovation going forward.

[00:01:14]Chris, small businesses are the lifeblood of this economy. You raise them, you think about them, you help them grow, you help get them funding.

[00:01:24]What's been the biggest challenge? Well, the the the challenge across the board is is is labor and talent, particularly with the area that I'm in, which is mission-critical, you know, blue-collar trades. Finding skilled workers in this country at a time when we need them more than ever is the greatest challenge they face. But you know, we're talking about 62 million Americans. It's not a statistic. It literally is the country. I mean, these are 62 million people that wake up every morning and go to work with a boss that knows their their first name, knows their families' names. That's sort of the fabric of America. And so the business owners that I get to talk to you day, it's favorite part of what I do, is understanding just the the day-to-day life. We talked before the show about what does it mean to start a business? It means you're going to get punched in the face 24/7 365. You're going to love every second of it.

[00:02:07]Um, not all of it maybe, but you're going to wake up even dreaming about it.

[00:02:10]The reality is that the these people need they need talent um, and they need a regulatory system that gets out of their way. You know, it's like having we it's like having you know, we have seven referees in a football game. We wouldn't want 17 or 27. It would destroy the game, slow everything down. So, we need referees on the field, but we need to to get out of their way. You don't treat a $20 million HVAC company the same as Goldman Sachs. Mhm. It's funny when you bring up the 27 different referees. That reminds me why the US is so unique to Europe, which has a thousand different regulators in different blocks in different reporting structures. And in the US it sort of has been this singular framework that has been so successful.

[00:02:48]What is the environment like for small businesses right now, Cody?

[00:02:51]Well, we see in small business land that capital is the lifeblood of small businesses, right? They have to have cash flow in order to continue to survive. And so, one thing that I think it's been incredible with this administration and the SBA in general is that you have seen a significant increase in the funding to small business come from the government, which we really, you know, didn't see in this prior administration. So, I think that's really positive. For the first time ever we've also seen a lot of private credit go to small businesses. Now, this market is exploding. It's not always great, but a really big new market. And I think for these small businesses, when we do have some inflation, we do have some issues with tariffs and increasing costs for small businesses, they have to be able to have capital to hire incredible talent and to be able to expand. And so, I think one of the most important things that we're seeing for our business owners today is that they can actually get loans to grow. Because we know Wall Street isn't giving that to them unless they come in and buy out the businesses.

[00:03:45]And private equity already owns about 20% of America's businesses. I don't think they should own any more. And the The we stop that is we allow individual citizens to be able to get capital for small businesses as opposed to just really big corporations.

[00:03:57]>> That's a good important point. Liz, one of the biggest things in small businesses right now, my dad's a small business owner, it's passing on to the next generation. He was sort of at the situation where he was a boomer, the three millennial daughters didn't want the business, so he's trying to find that succession plan. Is that sort of this tipping moment where you not only think about the transfer of wealth, but the transfer of the business and waiting for that next generation? Are they more entrepreneurial? Can they pick that up?

[00:04:25]>> One of the incredibly important things to do is to begin to index capital gains for inflation because when you're passing on a business, you can get completely taken out by the fact that, you know, it's grown in value and you're having to pay enormous taxes on what is often a not very liquid business. So, that's number one. The next generation, I think Taylor, one of the interesting things that happened in business schools over the last 20 years is they went from very formulaic management courses on how you run General Motors to how do you start up a business? Stanford led the way in that, Harvard followed. All of them now have courses and actually required courses on requiring students to start their own business because I think everybody understands, particularly in the era of tech dominance, that the way we stay dominant, the way we stay fresh in tech is to have young people inventing new things, inventing new companies and services and so forth. So, I think that is something that's going to going to be very important for the next generation stepping up. But, are they going to be well willing to work 24 hours a day? Different question.

[00:05:32]Thank you. You guys will be back with us in just a moment. But first,