In this special Black Friday edition of The Jenny Beth Show, Jenny Beth Martin sits down with Alfredo Ortiz, President and CEO of Job Creators Network, to break down the state of America’s small businesses under President Trump’s economic agenda. Ortiz explains how deregulation, tax relief, energy independence, and renewed investment in American manufacturing are transforming the outlook for job creators nationwide. He also exposes the real impacts of Obamacare, the role of AI in reshaping the workforce, and why empowering Main Street entrepreneurs is essential to rebuilding the American Dream. A must-listen conversation for anyone who cares about small business, economic freedom, and America’s future.
On this special Black Friday episode, Jenny Beth Martin welcomes Alfredo Ortiz, President and CEO of Job Creators Network, for a deep dive into the state of America’s small businesses and the policies shaping our economic future.
Alfredo shares how President Trump’s economic agenda—deregulation, tax relief, and restoring American energy independence—is driving optimism and real growth on Main Street. He explains why lower energy prices, reduced federal regulations, and immediate expensing are critical lifelines for small businesses trying to recover from years of inflation, lockdowns, and government overreach.
They also discuss the growing impact of AI on the workforce, the need for nationwide job retraining programs, and what policymakers must do to prepare Americans for a rapidly changing economy. Alfredo outlines why Obamacare continues to drive up costs, how subsidies primarily benefit insurance companies, and what real healthcare reform should look like.
The conversation also highlights:
Whether you’re a small business owner, policy-minded listener, or someone concerned about America’s economic direction, this episode provides a clear, insightful, and actionable look at the challenges—and opportunities—ahead.
Learn more about Job Creators Network:
jobcreatorsnetwork.com • joinjcn.com | @JobCreatorsUSA
Narrator (00:14):
Welcome to the Jenny Beth
Jenny Beth Martin (00:16):
Show. I'm Jenny Beth Martin and this is the Jenny Best Show. Today is Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping days of the year. For many people, that means Turkey sandwiches, football, sales lines, and online deals. But for millions of small business owners, it's something much bigger. It's a difference between being in the red or the black. It's about whether they can hire another employee, expand their shops, or simply keep the doors open. On this Black Friday special, we're going to talk about the people who make the American Dream possible every single day. Job creators, the entrepreneurs, the small business owners, the men and women who take risk, sign the front of the paycheck and keep our communities alive. And to help us do that, we're joined by someone who has dedicated his life to fighting for them. Alfredo Ortiz is the president and CEO of Job Creators Network. He's a national leader in economic policy, a relentless advocate for small businesses and a voice for Main Street entrepreneurs who Washington too often ignores. Alfredo, welcome to the Jenny Best Show. It's great to have you with us.
Alfredo Ortiz (01:23):
Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for having me. Happy Black Friday.
Jenny Beth Martin (01:27):
Thank you. It's a good day to go shopping and engage in deals, which there are a lot of deals online right now. Oh, yes. Before we get into policy, I want our audience to get to know the heart behind what you do. One of America's greatest entrepreneurs, the man you and I both have had the honor of working for Bernie Marcus, the co-founder of Home Depot, founded Job Creators Network. Tell me why Bernie founded Job Creators Network and what inspired you personally to help him build a national movement around job creators.
Alfredo Ortiz (02:01):
Sure, absolutely. Well, I mean, truly one of the greatest patriots ever out there. Bernie passes exactly almost one year ago, and we lost a great man, not only as a conservative Patriot, but just as an American. I mean, he did so much, it was philanthropic work, but the one thing that he really did for our small businesses is started Job Creators Network. And I've been honored to basically lead now for 14 years and which is a crazy thought, but it really desperately needed that leadership because he remembered first of all what it was like to be a small business. I mean before Home Depot was the gigantic retail success that it is today. It started with one store in Atlanta. It was a renovated seven 11 basically, and that's how we started. And then two stores. And so he remembered what it was like to be a small business that was really challenged with a lot of regulations and heartaches of working with government and stuff like that.
(02:59):
And he found that there was really no representation for small business, but he remembered that all throughout his career and through the success of Home Depot. And so he started Job Creators Network to be able to have a real voice for small business. And he felt as though the voices that were out there being represent, representing small business weren't really representing small businesses. I won't necessarily name organizations or names, but I will tell you that you just felt there was a need there, a niche that wasn't being filled. And Job Creators Network was formed to do that, to really try to advance those policies that help our small businesses, which is really simply lower regulations, less taxation.
Jenny Beth Martin (03:36):
And then when did you start with Job Creators Network? Have you been with them the whole time and why did you decide this is what you wanted to do?
Alfredo Ortiz (03:45):
Yeah, it's interesting. So I guess Bernie kept wanting to call me towards the end. He is like, Hey, Alfred, you're a co-creator with me on this one as well. I've been doing this now for 14 years. Job Careers Network has been around for just about 15 years, so I pretty much have been there since the beginning. It had a little bit of some false starts and stuff like that, but I was able to bring a lot of my management experience to it, a lot of my branding experience to it. It really kind of built it out to what it is today. Along with of course, Bernie's assistance and financial assistance, but also just mentorship and guidance and leadership. I mean, he really truly was an amazing boss. He wasn't an easy boss, I'll tell you that much. He definitely expected success, but I think we gave that to him, and I left the corporate world to do this because I really felt it was an opportunity for me to give back.
(04:37):
I mean, first of all, who doesn't want to work for a great band like Bernie Marcus? So that was just in of itself an honor for me to do that. But to be able to give back to this country, I came am a son of immigrants. My parents were both from Mexico. My mom was a housekeeper, my dad was a tailor. And so we didn't have anything growing up. And so this country brought a lot of success to me through my mom's hard work, through God's blessings. And so I've been able to do that, and it was my opportunity to give back. My pastor always said, he goes, there's two phases in people's lives. Your first phase is success, and your second phase is really significance. And he goes, I think you can check out the success part. And he goes, now it's time to move into your significant stage. And I think what I'm very proud of what we've done,
Jenny Beth Martin (05:27):
I love that success and significance. I worked for Bernie when I worked at the Home Depot, so I didn't work with him nearly like you did. You worked with him very, very closely. And I was an employee, one of thousands of employees, but I worked there when they went to, they had 500 stores and when they had a thousand stores, while it was really growing and it was the best corporate work environment I ever had, and I'm so grateful I had the opportunity to work there and to see how his vision, his leadership, and his management style affected the entire culture of the organization.
Alfredo Ortiz (06:10):
Yeah, it really did. I hope you bought a lot of Home Depot shares back then.
Jenny Beth Martin (06:14):
Oh, I did. And they had great opportunities for employees. In fact, Alfredo, there were a lot of people who, Bernie made millionaires who were working there because they owned so much stock. He just really gave so many opportunities to the employees who work there.
(06:36):
So we've seen a lot of good things happening for entrepreneurs and for job creators. In the past year, well, not quite a year, but since President Trump has been in office, the big beautiful bill has tax relief measures and for businesses and for individuals. And we're seeing some easing in the economy now, which I think hopefully as that Bill continues to be in place, that law continues to be in place. We're just really going to see the economy growing. What are you seeing and what are the job creators seeing right now since Trump has become president?
Alfredo Ortiz (07:15):
So obviously it's night and day from the Biden administration. I mean, the deregulation focus, the tax cut extensions, first of all, in the one big beautiful bill that was huge, there are two provisions in that. One big beautiful bill that we fought for in the first time around the Tax and Jobs Act. But then in the one big beautiful bill, the 20% tax deduction, obviously huge, making that permanent and then the immediate expensing. And that really is enormous from an opportunity standpoint to reinvest back in their businesses because no longer do you have to depreciate something over 5, 10, 15, 20 years, you get the immediate impact of that depreciation. And for all small business owners out there, I know they know what we're talking about here, is that you're able to take that immediately in that cashflow and reinvest it back into your business, which is exactly what they needed.
(08:07):
And so those were two big booms. But overall, president Trump understands how important small businesses are to our economy, to our communities, and a lot of things. First of all, like I mentioned, deregulation, it's already flowing through the economy. I mean, remember Biden really imposed over two and almost two and a half trillion dollars of regulations on our American economy. So removing that has been a big relief. And then the tax cuts portion of that through those two different provisions that I mentioned, but also things like impacting energy prices. I mean the drop in energy prices, which energy flows through every single aspect of our lives has really been able to keep that inflation to a check. Now, president Trump unfortunately had the hard task of basically inheriting really high prices already. So he's been able to successfully hold those prices steady. Dropping those prices is really a big challenge, and I think that's where we continue to see and Americans continue to see.
(09:11):
And so our small business continue to see, we need to be able to, in essence, deflate some of those prices. And a lot of that comes from supply, for example. So we got to make sure that we keep our regulations down to keep our supplies moving, except especially for housing. Housing which impacts all Americans, small businesses, our consumers. A lot of that is a supply issue based on a lot of the local regulations, which at a federal level is very difficult to impact. And so we got to just keep on putting that pressure on. But right now, look, our small businesses are optimistic. They feel great about an administration that actually believes in them and knows how important small businesses versus the Biden administration, which really, quite frankly, in my opinion, was just there to basically kill small business.
Jenny Beth Martin (10:00):
Yeah, it did. It had the effect of killing many small businesses from at the end as we're dealing with the inflation issues. And at the beginning is we're dealing with the government overreach and lockdowns and COVID, just the tyranny that we experienced from COVID. So all of that combined really hurt businesses. Some of them will never are gone and they'll never be back.
Alfredo Ortiz (10:28):
Yeah, agreed.
Jenny Beth Martin (10:31):
So when you're talking about deregulation, what are some of the best things that have been deregulated? What do you like so far?
Alfredo Ortiz (10:41):
Well, energy, I mean, that's the one thing that, I mean, before Trump became president, I mean, that was the one thing we kept pushing for. We need to have an administration. We need to have policies that don't attack domestic energy, that don't thwart production of domestic energy. We got to go back to where we were in the first administration of Trump, which is really being a net exporter of energy, not an importer of energy importing from our adversaries, which is what the Biden administration was all about. And so bringing those energy prices down has been so important. Look at the price of gasoline where it is. I think it's in 28 states below $3, and it's maintaining that, and it's still dropping even further. But natural gas and stuff like that, I mean, all that's so important. And in terms of being able to be that domestic mega producer that we were during the first Trump administration, I think that is truthfully probably one of the most important deregulations and hats off to Lee Zelin, by the way. Amazing EPA administrator is in so much to really try to implement a lot of those beliefs that the Trump administration or that President Trump really had, implementing those throughout the country has been so important as well. And so that's the other thing too. I mean, if you think about his entire cabinet, also the Interior Secretary, if you think about the Energy secretary, I mean all of them working together really to try to help this impacting domestic energy production, I think again is one of the most important things that we've seen.
Jenny Beth Martin (12:14):
Yeah, I think that you're right about that. And the gas prices have such an enormous effect on the entire economy, but they also have an effect on individual lives. When I went through financial crisis, which I was going through as the Tea Party movement began, one of the things that I realized is that gas prices, when they go up and you're on the low end of the income scale, it affects you so much more because everyone has to have gas to fill up their cars to get their cars moving, and they need their cars to move so they can go to their job and earn money and go to the store and buy food. So if they don't do anything else, they at least need to be able to go to those basic things and get their kids to and from school.
Alfredo Ortiz (13:02):
And increasing energy prices, whether it's electricity and you're for your home or gas or petro to heat your home or gasoline for your car, increases in those are really effectively regressive taxes that impact the lower middle class the most.
Jenny Beth Martin (13:20):
That is exactly right. And so I'm glad to see that the gas prices are coming down. I know that in Biden's administration, about two years ago, a year and a half ago, a lot of people couldn't even afford to drive anywhere for vacations, and they just were staying home because gas prices were so high. So I hope that we're seeing some of that change just so people feel the freedom a little bit more when prices are so high, you just don't have that same kind of freedom that you do when they start coming back down.
Alfredo Ortiz (13:54):
Right.
Jenny Beth Martin (13:55):
One of the things that President Trump is really working on is getting companies to reinvest in America to bring manufacturing back to America and to have more things that are made in America. What are you seeing from that, and how do you think that's going to affect the economy, but especially job creators?
Alfredo Ortiz (14:14):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think the number is up to what 6 trillion is that about in terms of foreign investment back into this country, which is amazing. I always talked about the genius of President Trump. What he did day one is really kind of had this three-legged stool strategy where he attacked the tax us through our one big beautiful bill in tax cuts. So we got that done, basically realignment of our trade imbalances through tariffs, which a lot of people balked about at the beginning, but I think they're seeing the wisdom of that. And look, president Trump understands some of those were impacted people a little bit more so than others. So he's brought some of those tariffs back down where appropriate. But in the meantime, he's been able to really generate literally hundreds of billions of dollars that have helped our economy along through tariffs and really helped to provide that balance back.
(15:08):
I mean, the one thing that President Trump truly understands is leverage. And he understood that the American economy is the number one consumption economy in the world, and that no other economy across the world could survive without the American economies. And so using that as leverage to realign our trade to make it more fair, I think was a big win. And of course we just mentioned is deregulation. I mean, that three-legged stool strategy, I mean, there are a lot of other things as well in terms of safety or borders and stuff like that, but those three alone helped our economy tremendously. And so that's all flowing through right now. The one thing I would say about the investment that's coming back is that we have to also be very mindful. There's one other element that's kind of a confluence of two different things that are happening.
(15:57):
You have the whole advent of AI and a lot of the jobs that are being lost through ai. We've got to pretty much try to identify those people who are going to be basically losing these jobs and retrain them for these jobs of the future that are coming over the next few years through this five or 6 trillion of investment. Because unfortunately, I think there is a mismatch right now of labor to what's needed from a demand perspective versus a supply perspective. A lot of this labor force right now that's going to be let go isn't qualified enough to work in an environment where AI is really kind of the ruling theory basically, of what we're going to be doing. And so we need to make sure that we have the right trained labor force. And so I think there's an opportunity for a lot of small businesses out there in terms of labor retraining, but I think we as a government should also take that into account and put in some serious training programs to get our workforce realigned or retrained or retool for those jobs that are coming.
Jenny Beth Martin (17:02):
That's a really good point. Have you talked to any lawmakers who are looking at doing that, offering incentives for it?
Alfredo Ortiz (17:10):
I've talked to a few people in the education department about this, but I think this is something where you really need to have, excuse me, the Department of Labor by Department of Commerce, department of Education, and work together. We really need to identify that. Put a one 800 number out there basically, of all those workers that are going to be basically dislodged, let's get 'em focused. I mean, a lot of these people are actually going to be small business owners, by the way, Jenny Beth, I mean, which is great, but not all of 'em have that entrepreneurship. They're going to want jobs, but they're going to be different kinds of jobs than the ones that they're leaving. So again, for me, I think it's really, really important that we get ahead of this and start doing that training now, start identifying the tens of thousands of people that are being laid off by Amazon and other big companies. Now let's start retooling these people now, because I think AI is real. AI is not going to go away. We're going to see more automation. And a lot of this is going to be from those jobs that are easily replaced by ai. Quite frankly, if I were given advice to anybody in high school, I'd be like, go become a plumber. Go become an electrician. A lot harder to replace those jobs with AI than it is some of these jobs that are more clerk type positions in the office.
Jenny Beth Martin (18:32):
That is very true. The trade positions are very important and positions where human interaction is important. So they could, and companies, I'm sure will replace a lot of customer service with ai, but at some point, sometimes you need humans involved in talking to people because usually computers just make people who are upset even more angry. Oh yeah,
Alfredo Ortiz (19:00):
Yeah.
Jenny Beth Martin (19:02):
I'm guilty of that. I
Alfredo Ortiz (19:03):
Hate that. I'm like, I know. It says AI in the hangup.
Jenny Beth Martin (19:06):
Yeah, exactly. Alright, let's shift gears just slightly and talk about healthcare and Obamacare. And we are hearing a lot in the news about the COVID era subsidies for Obamacare. The healthcare is important to say this, healthcare and health insurance are not the same thing, and a lot of people equate health insurance with healthcare, but I think that healthcare truly comes between the relationship one has with their doctor as a patient. So it's a doctor patient relationship and health insurance helps pay for that, but it's very expensive right now. So what have you been thinking about and hearing about when it relates to the subsidies and to Obamacare?
Alfredo Ortiz (19:55):
Well, we have been working on this for years, actually, since the first Trump administration actually, and we developed something that's still out there on our website. It's called healthcare for you.com. So folks are interested in going, there's a lot of great ideas. It was actually the largest piece of research that actually has taken place was with our program. We spent literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of research looking and trying to come up with a program that we based on research is actually stronger and better than Obamacare in terms of coverage for all levels, for all ethnic mixes, et cetera. And so because Bernie Sanders wants Medicare for all, so our answer to that is healthcare for you because what do you want? Do you literally want Medicare? Which we all know where that is, right? It's not the greatest and it's not exactly the best coverage.
(20:44):
And frankly, it's something that I know I wouldn't necessarily want. I want my private insurance. So do you want that for all or do you want healthcare for you that's customized, portable. It's between you and your doctor relationship. You want to get the bureaucrats out of those exam rooms. And so we want to make sure that what we don't want is universal healthcare in the sense that it's a one size fits all. Bureaucrats are in the exam rooms. They decide what's best for you, what's not. They decide what's medicines are best for you and what's not. We want that relationship to exist between you and your doctor, period. And the only thing the Affordable Care Act did, the Obamacare is really nothing in terms of what it was supposed to do, which is the main part was actually keeping healthcare costs affordable. They just keep going up, going up, going up, going up.
(21:39):
And the reason why I actually was advocating get rid of the subsidies, don't keep kicking the can down because every year we keep kicking the can down. It's just a bandaid for an obvious problem, which is it was never set up originally to work. All it really has done has been probably one of the biggest transfers of tax wealth from taxpayers to health insurers. I mean, look at United Healthcare Group. I mean it's now I think number three or something in the Fortune 500. I mean, look at it where it was before Obamacare, honestly, all it's done is really was this massive payoff to insurance carriers. And unfortunately, I have to say Jane Beth on this one, Democrats and Republicans are responsible for this one. I mean, I have to tell you because insurance lobbyists pad the pockets of politicians on both sides, and that's just the reality.
(22:38):
So there is not this big incentive for them to really resolve this thing. And so we actually need, I would take this out of the hands of DC and put this in the hands of private individuals or institutions or think tanks or whatever, but there are solutions out there. We came up with it. We came up with a solution. Like I said, it's healthcare for you.com. We had some really, really smart people working on this, but guess what? The lobbyists didn't have anything to do with that. And so we got to keep the lobbyists far, far, far, far away from any kind of solution if we really, really want to solve this problem, because there's a lot of force mandates in there that are just so unnecessary and create so much cost. If you look at how many people actually have claims in the Affordable Care Act, about 40% have no claims. So that's just money that's going through insurance companies. I love this idea that Trump had come up with, give that money, actually give those subsidies, give that to the people, let them be consumers. Let the insurance companies actually fight for that business rather than just pad the pockets through the government.
Jenny Beth Martin (23:46):
And that would create competition and people would know what they're getting rather than
Alfredo Ortiz (23:50):
Full transparency.
Jenny Beth Martin (23:52):
And right now, they don't even really have a choice. I mean, maybe they have a choice within the plans, but there's not a choice between the providers. For a lot of people, it's just what they get. And even when they're getting it through employers, they don't have a choice in the providers. The employers are deciding
Alfredo Ortiz (24:12):
That as well. Yeah. The other thing too is that Secretary Acosta had actually come up with something. It was called the Association Health Plans. That was a game changer for our small businesses. We had a lot. We worked side by side with Acosta on that one. Huge game changer. Day one, what did the Democrats do? Lawsuit stop it because what was it doing? It was actually helping our small businesses actually be able to provide some kind of health insurance for its employees at a reasonable level. They were able to actually group together and act as a group just like big companies do, and give 'em that leverage. Well, they didn't like that, so they took it to court and it stalled out and it's sitting out there as an idea. I would bring that back in a
Jenny Beth Martin (24:53):
Heartbeat. Very good. Well, thank you for that, Alfredo, and thank you so much for joining me. Tell people where can they find your organization? What is your website and where are you on social media?
Alfredo Ortiz (25:05):
Yeah, so job creators network.com or join j cn.com. I always throw those two out because I love if people like what they hear and want to help us out, because we always need some help, whether it's just people, because some good old small businesses, we have something called the Small Business Advocate Program. We help media train them, help write opinion editorials and everything. But we need some brave small businesses that are willing to speak out and don't mind being a little bumped around sometimes by the press.
Jenny Beth Martin (25:33):
Very good. Well, thank you so much for joining me, and I hope you have a great Black Friday. Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas.
Alfredo Ortiz (25:39):
Yeah, same to you, Jay, be. Thank you.
Jenny Beth Martin (25:42):
If you enjoy today's conversation, go ahead and hit like and subscribe. It really helps us reach more people who care about Freedom and the Constitution. You can find this and other episodes@jennybestshow.com, as well as Facebook Rumble, YouTube, Instagram, X in your favorite podcast platform. The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin. The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots action. For more information, visit tea party patriots.org.