HR 4849 won't help small business
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HR 4849 won’t help small business
Someone in the local business community asked me last week to name one thing that would help stimulate economic development. (Just one?!) For the record, this person does not – to the best of my knowledge – own or operate any independent business. Maybe that’s why I found the question a bit confounding.
My immediate answer was to take the Rob Portman approach (and accelerate it by a speed not even the Ohio Supreme Court or its newly empowered cops can accurately estimate).
Portman, as those of us who are aware of his recent visit (there’s a story on our website!) to Highland County know, has a proposal to suspend the payroll tax on business owners. The former Second District congressman and U.S. Senate candidate said that one short-term solution to the current economic problems is a yearlong suspension of the payroll tax. That would be a good start and it would encourage – rather than discourage – job creation.
Earlier this week, I spoke to almost half a dozen local business owners and asked each: Name one realistic thing that could bring immediate help to your business. To a person, they responded by saying cut the payroll tax.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the payroll tax, it’s one of those bureaucratic barriers that leaves little concern for common sense. Businesses, of course, must pay the tax (and file the mandatory paperwork), which is based not on the business profits, but on its number of employees and total payroll.
“Small businesses are the driving engines of our economy, but their recovery has been stalled by the burden and uncertainty of Washington’s tax-and-spend agenda and anti-jobs policies like the cap-and-trade national energy tax and health care reform that will raise costs and grow the deficit,” Portman said.
Portman fully understands the onerous and draconian overreaching arm of government taxation. So do most of the nation’s small business owners.
(We’ll exclude the nation’s mega-corporations from this discussion because they do enough of their own feeding at the taxpayer-funded trough.)
While many politicians in the two major parties are prone to saying the country needs small business to be the driving force to new job creation, most are clueless on how to start the damned engine. You could hand these guys a car key – and a set of jumper cables just for backup – and the only thing they could start would be another tax on small business
Ohio now finds itself in the same company as states like California and New York, as being among the nation’s “least-friendly” states for small business. Think about it. The country has double-digit unemployment, yet punishes small businesses for hiring workers and adding payroll. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
Just for the heck of it, I logged online, went to a popular search engine this week and typed in “cut taxes and create jobs.” On the first screen of results, was a Rasmussen Report from earlier this year which stated: The latest national telephone survey finds that 59 percent of voters nationwide believe cutting taxes is better than increasing government spending as a job-creation tool. (As my canine loving friend says, no shih tzu?)
From taxes and regulations, to a recent ridiculous Supreme Court ruling (see “guesswork” above), Ohio is fast becoming NO-hio for any potential small business.
Arthur Laffer, writing for Wall Street Journal online, noted this week: “It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the nine states without an income tax are growing far faster and attracting more people than are the nine states with the highest income tax rates.”
True that.
Laffer points out:
* In 2011, federal and state tax rates are scheduled to rise.
* President George W. Bush’s tax cuts expire on Jan. 1, 2011.
* Payroll taxes are scheduled to rise in 2013.
And you think today’s unemployment figures are bad? As Bachman-Turner Overdrive said years ago on their “Not Fragile” album, “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet.”
The trouble with most politicians who began their earthly existence with silver spoons and private schools is that they couldn’t figure out how to buy a clue without Daddy Warbucks signing the check.
But given enough money and an acceptable pedigree, they can play the part. Maybe that’s why since 1960 six of our presidents (including the last four) attended either Harvard or Yale (or, in some cases, both).
Meanwhile, small business – that one most reliable faction for creating jobs in a given community – has virtually no serious voice in the Ohio Statehouse or in Washington. If it did, perhaps the state and federal unemployment numbers would be far less dismal than they are.
Small businesses need a well-organized, well-informed local, state and national lobbying effort on their behalf. They don’t need more cheerleaders or cute slogans.
But instead, the Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi Congress gives us House Resolution 4849, the so-called Small Business and Infrastructure Jobs Tax Act of 2010.
While this bill – if passed by the Senate and signed by the president – does virtually nothing for the average small business owner, it does accomplish two things that this Congress and president are becoming well known for: It raises taxes and increases spending. A lot.
According to Joint Commission on Taxation and the Ways and Means Committee, H.R. 4849 would increase spending by $19.2 billion over 10 years and raise taxes by $19.4 billion over the same period.
Two southern Ohio lawmakers, Third District Rep. Mike Turner and Second District Rep. Jean Schmidt, had the good sense to vote against H.R. 4849. It will be interesting to see how Ohio’s two U.S. senators vote on the bill. Sherrod Brown’s a lock on the “aye” side. George Voinovich will most likely join him. That’s too bad.
***
On the bright side, though, White House “reporter” Helen Thomas has been deservedly dismissed from the Fourth Estate.
Goodbye, Helen, we hardly knew ye (all too well). Just be thankful you’re a liberal “journalist.” Your embarrassing departure from the nation’s capital was a lot less painful than it might have been.
As Jonah Goldberg said of Thomas a few years ago, she was a ...carbuncle...who could hang a question mark at the end of a diatribe.
Washington reporting isn’t likely to get better without Thomas, but maybe it will be just a little less jaundiced. Good riddance.
Rory Ryan is publisher and editor of The Highland County Press.
Someone in the local business community asked me last week to name one thing that would help stimulate economic development. (Just one?!) For the record, this person does not – to the best of my knowledge – own or operate any independent business. Maybe that’s why I found the question a bit confounding.
My immediate answer was to take the Rob Portman approach (and accelerate it by a speed not even the Ohio Supreme Court or its newly empowered cops can accurately estimate).
Portman, as those of us who are aware of his recent visit (there’s a story on our website!) to Highland County know, has a proposal to suspend the payroll tax on business owners. The former Second District congressman and U.S. Senate candidate said that one short-term solution to the current economic problems is a yearlong suspension of the payroll tax. That would be a good start and it would encourage – rather than discourage – job creation.
Earlier this week, I spoke to almost half a dozen local business owners and asked each: Name one realistic thing that could bring immediate help to your business. To a person, they responded by saying cut the payroll tax.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the payroll tax, it’s one of those bureaucratic barriers that leaves little concern for common sense. Businesses, of course, must pay the tax (and file the mandatory paperwork), which is based not on the business profits, but on its number of employees and total payroll.
“Small businesses are the driving engines of our economy, but their recovery has been stalled by the burden and uncertainty of Washington’s tax-and-spend agenda and anti-jobs policies like the cap-and-trade national energy tax and health care reform that will raise costs and grow the deficit,” Portman said.
Portman fully understands the onerous and draconian overreaching arm of government taxation. So do most of the nation’s small business owners.
(We’ll exclude the nation’s mega-corporations from this discussion because they do enough of their own feeding at the taxpayer-funded trough.)
While many politicians in the two major parties are prone to saying the country needs small business to be the driving force to new job creation, most are clueless on how to start the damned engine. You could hand these guys a car key – and a set of jumper cables just for backup – and the only thing they could start would be another tax on small business.
Ohio now finds itself in the same company as states like California and New York, as being among the nation’s “least-friendly” states for small business. Think about it. The country has double-digit unemployment, yet punishes small businesses for hiring workers and adding payroll. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
Just for the heck of it, I logged online, went to a popular search engine this week and typed in “cut taxes and create jobs.” On the first screen of results, was a Rasmussen Report from earlier this year which stated: The latest national telephone survey finds that 59 percent of voters nationwide believe cutting taxes is better than increasing government spending as a job-creation tool. (As my canine loving friend says, no shih tzu?)
From taxes and regulations, to a recent ridiculous Supreme Court ruling (see “guesswork” above), Ohio is fast becoming NO-hio for any potential small business.
Arthur Laffer, writing for Wall Street Journal online, noted this week: “It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the nine states without an income tax are growing far faster and attracting more people than are the nine states with the highest income tax rates.”
True that.
Laffer points out:
* In 2011, federal and state tax rates are scheduled to rise.
* President George W. Bush’s tax cuts expire on Jan. 1, 2011.
* Payroll taxes are scheduled to rise in 2013.
And you think today’s unemployment figures are bad? As Bachman-Turner Overdrive said years ago on their “Not Fragile” album, “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet.”
The trouble with most politicians who began their earthly existence with silver spoons and private schools is that they couldn’t figure out how to buy a clue without Daddy Warbucks signing the check.
But given enough money and an acceptable pedigree, they can play the part. Maybe that’s why since 1960 six of our presidents (including the last four) attended either Harvard or Yale (or, in some cases, both).
Meanwhile, small business – that one most reliable faction for creating jobs in a given community – has virtually no serious voice in the Ohio Statehouse or in Washington. If it did, perhaps the state and federal unemployment numbers would be far less dismal than they are.
Small businesses need a well-organized, well-informed local, state and national lobbying effort on their behalf. They don’t need more cheerleaders or cute slogans.
But instead, the Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi Congress gives us House Resolution 4849, the so-called Small Business and Infrastructure Jobs Tax Act of 2010.
While this bill – if passed by the Senate and signed by the president – does virtually nothing for the average small business owner, it does accomplish two things that this Congress and president are becoming well known for: It raises taxes and increases spending. A lot.
According to Joint Commission on Taxation and the Ways and Means Committee, H.R. 4849 would increase spending by $19.2 billion over 10 years and raise taxes by $19.4 billion over the same period.
Two southern Ohio lawmakers, Third District Rep. Mike Turner and Second District Rep. Jean Schmidt, had the good sense to vote against H.R. 4849. It will be interesting to see how Ohio’s two U.S. senators vote on the bill. Sherrod Brown’s a lock on the “aye” side. George Voinovich will most likely join him. That’s too bad.
***
On the bright side, though, White House “reporter” Helen Thomas has been deservedly dismissed from the Fourth Estate.
Goodbye, Helen, we hardly knew ye (all too well). Just be thankful you’re a liberal “journalist.” Your embarrassing departure from the nation’s capital was a lot less painful than it might have been.
As Jonah Goldberg said of Thomas a few years ago, she was a ...carbuncle...who could hang a question mark at the end of a diatribe.
Washington reporting isn’t likely to get better without Thomas, but maybe it will be just a little less jaundiced. Good riddance.
Rory Ryan is publisher and editor of The Highland County Press.
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