U.S. Representative Mark Alford (R-Raymore) championed the GOP’s campaign to extend President Donald Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) during a round table discussion on Friday with select area business personnel. More than a dozen business and community leaders and members of the Columbia Chamber of Commerce met with the second-term congressman following a tour of Missouri Pacific Lumber. Without the cuts, he claimed an estimated one-third of small business owners in America will be forced to go out of business.

The discussion was arranged by Monique Thierry, Vice President of the South Central Regional Office of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Alford later made an appearance at Fayette High School (see story on Page 2 of this newspaper) before hearing higher education concerns in a meeting with Central Methodist University President Roger Drake.

The visits were by invitation only, possibly to avoid another situation like what happened in Belton, near Kansas City, four weeks prior when a town hall-style event turned into a shouting match led by those protesting President Trump’s downsizing of the federal workforce.

During Friday morning’s round table, Mr. Alford touted that small businesses would create a million new jobs annually if the 20% small business deduction is made permanent.

“This is for uplifting those in the urban core as well in these opportunity zones, where if small businesses don’t have the opportunity to compete with the big guys, they’re going to go out of business,” he said.

While Mr. Alford pitched the tax cut renewal to a largely sympathetic gathering on Friday, concerns over Mr. Trump’s threats to install import tariffs were voiced by local business leaders. While it was acknowledged that the tariffs are likely being used as bargaining tools, the uncertainty to international trade was on the minds of those visiting with the congressman.

Missouri Pacific President Bucky Pescaglia said that more than half of the black walnut lumber his company produces is exported overseas. Bruce Addison, President and founder of Addison Biological Laboratories in Fayette, said shipments of products all over the world, particularly to Brazil, could be in jeopardy because of the tariffs.

“I know there’s a lot of consternation and uncertainty right now, and that’s not good for your business,” Mr. Alford said. “I can’t control President Trump on the tariffs. I think a lot of it is a negotiating tool, not necessarily bluster, but he is getting things done. Let’s see how it plays out.”

He told those present we would take their message back to Washington, DC. “I will tell you, we will be here for you, getting the message back to the White House, getting the message back to the OMB Director, getting the message back to Elon Musk, whoever we need to, to tell your story to them, so that they can really realize the impact that these decisions will have. I may not be able to change any minds, but I can tell your story.”

Rep. Alford also defended actions taken by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by tech billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, that has allegedly uncovered more than $200 billion in government waste. 

“That is just making sure that our taxpayer dollars are going to where they should be, and the people who actually paid into the system are getting the benefits that they paid in for,” Mr. Alford said.

Mr. Pescaglia also serves as chairman of the National Hardwood Lumber Association. He said some of the organization’s programs are funded by a federal grant, which is currently on pause. “We have employees and programs that are intertwined with this money. We’re not being reimbursed yet, and so we’re in a really tight budget trying to figure out how long should we keep these programs up and these employees hired until we find out are we actually going to get paid back like we were promised when we signed these.

“That’s a message I would like you to deliver.”

Mr. Alford said he would draft a letter to the White House regarding those specific grants.

He also assured the writer of this article that he would write a letter in support of waiving tariffs on newspaper print imported from Canada. About three-quarters of the paper on which newspapers are printed is imported from Canada. Further hikes to printing charges could spell the end of local newspapers like the Fayette Advertiser all over the country.

Mr. Alford’s predecessor, Vicky Hartzler, stood up for newspapers when printing prices rose significantly during tariff threats in President Trump’s first term. Ultimately, a waiver was issued for newsprint imported from Canada.

In a meeting with CMU President Roger Drake that afternoon, the two discussed the state of higher education in the United States.

“It’s a tough, tough time, Congressman, for higher education, especially independent higher education,” Dr. Drake said. 

Central is one of only two independent colleges in the state to operate in the black. The other is Washington University in St. Louis.

“We have to entrepreneurially make it work,” President Drake explained. “But we’re a pretty innovative college.”

President Drake stressed that the Central administration is deeply concerned about programs within the Department of Education upon which the university depends. For instance, 46 percent of CMU students receive Pell Grants.

Last week, Mr. Trump signed an executive order to make good on a campaign promise to dissolve the Department of Education. If the administration is successful, many of the department’s matters will be overseen by other bureaucracies.

“Without the Pell Grant, they just couldn’t do it, and we couldn’t do it,” Dr. Drake said.

He asserted that independent colleges operate more like small businesses in that they do not receive tax support like public universities.

“Quite often when people talk about, ‘well, we have to do something to help the colleges,’ they think about the public schools. Well, we are far, far more efficient,” President Drake told Mr. Alford and his team. “The cost of producing a degree at a private college is much, much less than the cost of producing a degree at a state school.”

Mr. Alford listened to Dr. Drake’s concerns regarding higher education policies but made no promises regarding President Trump’s plans with the Department of Education. He later took a short tour of the campus, including the recently renovated Stedman Hall of Science, on the way to a meeting with state legislators elsewhere on campus.

Rep. Alford is a former television news anchor. He was elected as the U.S. representative for Missouri’s 4th Congressional District in 2022 and re-elected in November. His current term ends on January 3, 2027.