Hurricane Helene and Milton Tax Relief Act of 2025

— 754 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise Disaster Loan Program and Direct Lending. The SBA’s disaster loan pro- gram provides low-interest loans to personal, business, and nonprofit borrowers following a federally declared disaster. The program suffers from problems of coordination with Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) disas- ter assistance. For example, disaster relief applicants have an incentive to avoid being approved for SBA disaster loans in order to increase the amount of FEMA assistance for which they are eligible. Moreover, the availability of disaster loans reduces individuals’ incentives to purchase disaster-related insurance. More than 90 percent of SBA disaster loans are loans to individuals such as homeowners, not to small businesses. In view of the challenges the SBA has experienced in its administration of this program, as well as the fraud and abuse in the EIDL COVID-19–related program and the IG’s concern that the systemic problems within this lending program undermine the SBA’s work, the next Administration should: l Work with Congress to assess the extent to which disaster loans should be offered by another agency rather than the SBA and explore private-sector channels for administering the loans. l Specify clearly that no new direct lending programs will be developed at the SBA. Eligibility of Religious Entities for SBA Loans. Current SBA regulations46 and SBA Form 197147 make certain religious entities ineligible to participate in several SBA loan programs. The Trump Administration proposed a rule that would remove the provisions on the ground that they violate the First Amendment.48 Subsequent Supreme Court decisions have made their unconstitutionality clearer.49 In an April 3, 2020, letter to Congress pursuant to 28 U.S. Code § 530D,50 the Trump Administration SBA advised that two such provisions violate the Free Exer- cise Clause of the First Amendment and that it therefore would not enforce them. On January 19, 2021, the Trump Administration SBA proposed a rule to remove all of the unconstitutional religious exclusions from its regulations.51 The SBA has not acted on the proposed rule. A similar religious exclusion once appeared in the regulation governing eligibil- ity for SBA Business Loan Programs,52 but it was removed in a June 2022 final rule that noted tension with the First Amendment and Supreme Court precedent.53 That final rule announced that the SBA would nonetheless continue to make religious eligibility determinations for business loan applicants to comply with putative Establishment Clause requirements,54 but Supreme Court precedent and Office of Legal Counsel memoranda refute the notion that large government-backed loan programs raise any Establishment Clause concerns.55 — 755 — Small Business Administration The SBA uses the same “Religious Eligibility Worksheet,” SBA Form 1971, to make eligibility determinations for all affected programs, including the Business Loan Programs. Thus, the SBA continues to act as though the unconstitutional regulation were still in place, and there is no Establishment Clause basis for doing so. The next Administration should immediately: l Notify Congress under 28 U.S. Code § 530D that it will not enforce these unconstitutional regulations. l Take down SBA Form 1971. l Finalize the Trump Administration’s proposed rule or publish its own updated proposed rule to remove the unconstitutional regulations. Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Programs. The SBA “coordinates and monitors the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) pro- grams for all federal agencies with extramural budgets for research or research and development (R/R&D) in excess of the expenditures established in sections 9(f) and 9(n) of the Small Business Act.”56 The SBIR and STTR Extension Act of 2022 extended these programs from September 30, 2022, through September 30, 2025.57 SBIR requires that 3.2 percent of spending by agencies with extramural R&D budgets of $100 million or more must be directed to small businesses. STTR allo- cates 0.45 percent of federal research spending to small firms.58 Research has shown that this small portion of federal R&D spending is disproportionately effective.59 The SBIR program has consistently demonstrated its ability to fund advanced technologies through to private-market viability and invests more in America’s heartland than venture capital invests.60 SBIR and STTR have overcome the tendency of federal contracting officers to deal only with large firms that are familiar to them and have the expertise and lobbying clout to navigate the federal procurement process. The next Adminis- tration should: l Continue the SBIR and SBTT programs as they successfully fund the next wave of technological innovation to compete with Big Tech. l Urge Congress to expand the amount that other agencies are required to set aside from their general R&D budgets for the SBIR program. l Ensure the enactment of stricter rules requiring that SBIR funds must be expended on capital investments in the United States.

— 154 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise insurance at prices lower than the actuarially fair rate, thereby subsidizing flood insurance. Then, when flood costs exceed NFIP’s revenue, FEMA seeks taxpay- er-funded bailouts. Current NFIP debt is $20.5 billion, and in 2017, Congress canceled $16 billion in debt when FEMA reached its borrowing authority limit. These subsidies and bailouts only encourage more development in flood zones, increasing the potential losses to both NFIP and the taxpayer. The NFIP should be wound down and replaced with private insurance starting with the least risky areas currently identified by the program. Budget Issues FEMA manages all grants for DHS, and these grants have become pork for states, localities, and special-interest groups. Since 2002, DHS/FEMA have provided more than $56 billion in preparedness grants for state, local, tribal, and territorial governments. For FY 2023, President Biden requested more than $3.5 billion for federal assistance grants.13 Funds provided under these programs do not provide measurable gains for preparedness or resiliency. Rather, more than any objective needs, political interests appear to direct the flow of nondisaster funds. The principles of federalism should be upheld; these indicate that states better understand their unique needs and should bear the costs of their particularized programs. FEMA employees in Washington, D.C., should not determine how bil- lions of federal tax dollars should be awarded to train local law enforcement officers in Texas, harden cybersecurity infrastructure in Utah, or supplement migrant shelters in Arizona. DHS should not be in the business of handing out federal tax dollars: These grants should be terminated. Accomplishing this, however, will require action by Members of Congress who repeatedly vote to fund grants for political reasons. The transition should focus on building resilience and return on investment in line with real threats. Personnel FEMA currently has four Senate-confirmed positions. Only the Administrator should be confirmed by the Senate; other political leadership need not be con- firmed by the Senate. Additionally, FEMA’s “springing Cabinet position” should be eliminated, as this creates significant unnecessary challenges to the functioning of the whole of DHS at points in time when coordinated responses are most needed. CYBERSECURITY AND INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY (CISA) Needed Reforms CISA is supposed to have two key roles: (1) protection of the federal civilian government networks (.gov) while coordinating the execution of national cyber defense and sharing information with non-federal and private-sector partners — 155 — Department of Homeland Security and (2) national coordination of critical infrastructure security and resilience. Yet CISA has rapidly expanded its scope into lanes where it does not belong, the most recent and most glaring example being censorship of so-called misinformation and disinformation. CISA’s funding and resources should align narrowly with the foregoing two mission requirements. The component’s emergency communications and Chem- ical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) roles should be moved to FEMA; its school security functions should be transferred to state homeland security offices; and CISA should refrain from duplicating cybersecurity functions done elsewhere at the Department of Defense, FBI, National Security Agency, and U.S. Secret Service. Of the utmost urgency is immediately ending CISA’s counter-mis/disinforma- tion efforts. The federal government cannot be the arbiter of truth. CISA began this work because of alleged Russian misinformation in the 2016 election, which in fact turned out to be a Clinton campaign “dirty trick.” The Intelligence Commu- nity, including the NSA or DOD, should counter foreign actors. At the time of this writing, release of the Twitter Files has demonstrated that CISA has devolved into an unconstitutional censoring and election engineering apparatus of the political Left. In any event, the entirety of the CISA Cybersecurity Advisory Committee should be dismissed on Day One. For election security, CISA should help states and localities assess whether they have good cyber hygiene in their hardware and software in preparation for an election—but nothing more. This is of value to smaller localities, particularly by flagging who is attacking their websites. CISA should not be significantly involved closer to an election. Nor should it participate in messaging or propaganda. U.S. COAST GUARD (USCG) Needed Reforms The U.S. Coast Guard fleet should be sized to the needs of great-power compe- tition, specifically focusing efforts and investment on protecting U.S. waters, all while seeking to find (where feasible) more economical ways to perform USCG missions. The scope of the Coast Guard’s mission needs to be focused on protecting U.S. resources and interests in its home waters, specifically its Exclusive Economic Zone (200 miles from shore). USCG’s budget should address the growing demand for it to address the increasing threat from the Chinese fishing fleet in home waters as well as narcotics and migrant flows in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. Doing this will require reversing years of shortfalls in shipbuilding, maintenance, and upgrades of shore facilities as well as seeking more cost-effective ship and facility designs. In wartime, the USCG supports the Navy, but it has limited capability and capacity to support wartime missions outside home waters.

— 748 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise loan credit subsidy costs, and miscellaneous program “enhancements” to support small businesses through economic challenges or circumstances. As noted by the Congressional Research Service: Overall, the SBA’s appropriations have ranged from a high of over $761.9 billion in FY2020 to a low of $571.8 million in FY2007. Much of this volatility is due to significant variation in supplemental appropriations for disaster assistance to address economic damages caused by major hurricanes and for SBA lending program enhancements to help small businesses access capital during and immediately following recessions. For example, in FY2020, the SBA received over $760.9 billion in supplemental appropriations to assist small businesses adversely affected by the novel coronavirus (COVID- 19) pandemic.18 The CRS further notes that “[o]verall, since FY2000, appropriations for SBA’s other programs, excluding supplemental appropriations, have increased at a pace that exceeds inflation.”19 In terms of current loan volume, the SBA “reached nearly $43 billion in fund- ing to small businesses, providing more than 62,000 traditional loans through its 7(a), 504, and Microloan lending partners and over 1,200 investments through SBA licensed Small Business Investment Companies (SBICs) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2022.”20 The agency’s total budgetary resources for FY 2022 amount to $44.25 billion, which represents 0.4 percent of the FY 2022 U.S. federal budget.21 HISTORY OF MISMANAGEMENT Throughout its history, various SBA programs and practices have generated negative news headlines and scathing Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Inspector General (IG) reports that have centered on mismanagement, lack of competent personnel and/or systems, and waste, fraud and abuse.22 From the 8a program23 to Hurricane Katrina24 to the more current COVID-19 (EIDL) program and PPP lending program,25 the SBA has managed to maintain its lending role even when repeated system failures have affected its distribution of funds. Congress has been somewhat responsive, pressuring the SBA to clean up fraud-related matters within its COVID-19 lending and grant programs.26 Repub- licans in the U.S. House of Representatives have gone farther, specifying that the SBA needs to improve transparency and accountability and deal with mission creep, the expansion of unauthorized programs, and structural and reporting deficiencies that have allowed mismanagement and fraud to reoccur, largely through massive supplemental appropriations.27 The SBA is led by an Administrator (currently a member of the President’s Cabinet) and a Deputy Administrator. Senate-confirmed appointees include — 749 — Small Business Administration the Administrator, Deputy Administrator, Chief Counsel for Advocacy, and Inspector General. Entrepreneurs and small businesses require limited-government policies that do not impede their risk-taking and growth. A future Administration can leverage and strengthen core SBA functions that have been fairly effective at reining in and calling attention to costly regulations and policies that are harmful to small businesses. This core advocacy function is aided both by statutory authority and by a network of small-business organizations and allies that support limited-gov- ernment policies.28 Moreover, an effective SBA Administrator and leadership team can work and advocate across the federal government to ensure that extreme regulatory poli- cies—or anticompetitive rules and actions that may favor big businesses over small businesses or international competitors over American small businesses—are dismantled or do not progress when proposed. MISSION CREEP AND ENLARGEMENT As noted, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have evidenced con- cern about SBA mission creep and the need to make a sprawling, unaccountable agency more focused and operationally sound. Moreover, there is unease that the agency has moved from being open to any eligible small business searching for sup- port to being hyperfocused on “disproportionately impacted,” politically favored, or geographically situated small businesses and entrepreneurs. Today, initiatives aimed at “inclusivity” are in fact creating exclusivity and stringent selectivity in deciding what types of small businesses and entities can use SBA programs. For example, even though the SBA under President Donald Trump proposed a rule to remove all of the unconstitutional religious exclusions from its regulations29 to conform with Supreme Court decisions that have made their unconstitutionality clear, the SBA has not acted on the proposed rule and still uses religious exclusions in determining eligibility for business loans. Several other specific concerns include but are not limited to: l The SBA’s request to become a “designated voter agency” in response to President Biden’s executive order on “Promoting Access to Voting.”30 l The creation of duplicative channels and “pilot programs” for the delivery of business training rather than working through existing counseling partners. The programs are largely duplicative of private, state and local government, and educational system offerings.31 l A push to expand direct government lending.32