One of President Donald Trump’s cabinet members and a Missouri congressman visited a beloved family restaurant in Kansas City Monday to talk about how recent tax cuts have impacted small businesses.
Small Business Administration Administrator Kelly Loeffler and Republican Congressman Mark Alford, who represents Missouri’s 4th district, visited Cupini’s – a family-owned Italian restaurant – just ahead of Tax Day.
“We have 34 million small businesses in America,” Alford said. “It’s the fabric of America.”
Loeffler and Alford wanted to spotlight shop owner Chef Franco Cupini because of the hard work and faith he and his family put in to develop the business. Cupini and his son Eddie opened the restaurant in 2003 and spent three “horrible” years working 14-hour days, seven days a week.
Now, their shop is famous for its historic lasagna and was rated as one of Missouri’s top restaurants this year by Mashed. The restaurant’s walls serve as a scrapbook of memories, covered in family photos and mementos of the shop’s history.
“He’s a testament of what hard work, dedication, and sacrifice means,” Alford explained, noting how Congress and the Trump administration have advanced tax policies that help small businesses like the Cupinis’.
President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law last July, providing the “largest middle and working-class tax cut in U.S. history.” The law helps small businesses by removing tax withholdings on overtime pay and tips. It also allows growing companies to deduct 100% of the costs for new facilities, improvements, equipment and more within the first year instead of being forced to spread it out over several years.
“It’s not taxed!” Cupini exclaimed, pointing to the tip jar.
“President Trump has been fighting for this for years,” Loeffler said. “He passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, created the blue-collar boom, the greatest economy we’ve ever seen, and now this is going to restore the economic engine to even better heights.”
Loeffler says over 120 million Americans have filed their taxes so far and 80 million have received a tax refund. On average, small businesses are getting $7,000 back, she says.
“Thanks to President Trump and professional Republicans, Americans on Tax Day are seeing relief,” she said.
“Nothing is more frustrating to a small business owner than to pay hard-earned taxes and to know it’s not being well spent in Washington, so President Trump wanted to send it back to the hardest working Americans among us.”
Alford chimed in to say one family in his district hadn’t seen a tax refund in years but this year received $12,000.
Questioned about affordability concerns in general, Loeffler said Trump’s biggest agenda items – tax cuts, deregulation, fair trade and energy dominance – all work together to make America better in the long term. And Alford explained lingering inflation as a result of bad economic policy from the Biden administration.
“It all works together because now we can re-shore and re-industrialize American manufacturing,” Loeffler added. “This is going to restore America’s industrial dominance, but in order to do that, we have to have abundant energy supply.”
Cupini gushed with thankfulness for the visit from Loeffler and Alford, as well as the tax cuts and the general success he’s experienced.
“This is a once in a lifetime blessing coming through, and I know I’ve been blessed so many times,” he explained. “God made me old, but he gave me a lot of wisdom. And now I can see how all of this happened.”
