(Radio Iowa) -Forty-eight Iowa small business owners are in Washington, D.C. to speak with lawmakers as part of the Goldman Sachs Small Business Summit. Brandon Dahms is co-owner and partner of Innovative Manufacturing and Engineering in Des Moines.

“You know, there’s a lot of businesses that are pretty excited about 2026. We have a lot of growth opportunity. But there’s a lot of challenges that are coming our way with the uncertainty with government shutdown, with tariffs,” he says. Dahms says they hope by talking with their lawmakers they can get them to address that uncertainty.

“We’re just looking for overall clarity and stability moving forward on knowing that 2026 can’t have the growth opportunity that we’re having and our customers need to see the stability as well,” he says. Dahms says they can also talk with lawmakers about other issues that impact small businesses. He says being able to match benefits to get good employees is one issue.

“I’ve lost employees due to not being able to compete against large corporations through their benefits package,” he says, “and is there something that can be done for small business owners to be able to get a more affordable healthcare package and benefits to compete against the yeah, larger businesses that have a larger buying pool?”

The Iowans are part of a group of two-thousand nationwide business owners attending the event.