I saw a group of small businesspeople being interviewed on CNN. When one lady

[applegrove]

gave her reasons for not highering more employees she mentioned insecurity about taxes and regulations. Just like the good footsoldier she is.

If they have an army of small businesses sprouting the same bullshit how can we get our message through.

[pnwmom]

1. Insecurity could be a reason for not hiring more workers.

Who doesn't feel insecure these days? But the rest of her comment gives her away.

[OHdem10]

7. spouting Republican talking points, for sure

[madmax]

2. Bet she's a member of the Chamber of Commerce, too. nt

[applegrove]

6. I was going to say that.

[SwampG8r]

24. i am a member

most small business are
they have helped us a lot and never brought politics into it except to make sure all the elected people in my area were present at a grand opening
your LOCAL chamber is more reflective of the reality of the group
unfortunately the national chamber makes them look bad at the local level

[niceypoo]

35. Surely you jest

The chamber donated 32 million to republicans last election. Much of it from foreigners.

[SwampG8r]

41. the us chamber

your local chamber is not them
they may pay dues to them but their action in the community is very different
the us chamber is a lobbying organization primarily

[bluestateguy]

3. Then we can look forward to her stepping up hiring next year?

Since her taxes will not apparently be going up. CNN should follow up on that and check in early next year to see if she is hiring.

[BlueCaliDem]

8. CNN = Corporate News Network. No way are they going to follow up

on these small business people. The whole idea was to push the President and the Democrats into extending the Bush tax cuts. That's all. That's it.

Especially now when it appears that the President is starting to harden against GOP black mailing and demands.

[provis99]

4. the reason I gather that she is a small businesswoman

is that she is too stupid to be a big businesswoman.

[jenmito]

5. If she had the security of knowing her taxes would go up 3% if she made over $250,000, that should

help her then.

[geckosfeet]

9. So the next question should be ' how many people do you plan to hire after

the tax cuts are passed? '

But in reality, she should have been called out on that. What fucking difference do taxes make to a company that needs to hire? If they can survive by stockpiling cash from investments made from zero interest loans from the fed, and buying federal bonds and trading them at a profit (no capital gains taxes), what incentive do more tax cuts give them for hiring?

This is such total BS and if people thought about it for two seconds they would realize that they are being swindled. This is a huge transfer of wealth from the lower, middle and upper middle class to wealthy corporate interests.

[applegrove]

10. Exactly. You said it better than I could.

[tsuki]

11. The question should have been: How many employees do you

plan to hire with your personal tax cut because the Republicons filibustered the tax cuts for small business.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

20. Furthermore, hiring extra people REDUCES a company's taxes

Business taxes are on PROFITS (income minus legitimate business expenses, such as hiring people), not on total earnings.

[nxylas]

26. And the US media is so good at calling out bullshit

I think the likes of CNN only employ people who lack the critical thinking skills necessary for a job at Wal-Mart.

[Samantha]

12. I have always thought the Corporations are holding US workers hostage

They have the money and the need to hire more workers. They just want unemployment to remain high until they (the real people who run this Country) get what they want. They don't want every common man or woman having the resources to contribute to elections and impact the outcome, especially when that outcome is one most business people do not want. Loss of employment fixes that problem doesn't it?

And if enough people lose their work and the economy as a whole really appears to be a failure, President Obama looks like a loser for the condition the Country is in. That helps edge along Mitch McConnell's number one goal of making Obama a one-term President, doesn't it? Ruthless? Yes. Possible? Anything is entirely politically possible where Republicans are involved. They simply do not care about people; they care about winning. Remember their 2000 motto: win at all costs?

They couldn't steal the 2008 Presidential election because it was won by too big of a margin to do so. That won't happen next time, will it? And if they can't steal the next one, with their players now seated on the Supreme Court, they can always buy the next Presidential election thanks to the Citizens United ruling "their team players" issued.

Looks like the Republicans got all their bases covered, doesn't it?

[applegrove]

13. I agree it is possible business has just sat on their money and not hired because

they want total control of the environment they do business in. Everything has to go their way. I haven't seen an actual smoking gun but these small business people sprouting this 'new information' sure seems like one. I mean come on! No business person in the past has ever said "worried about the tax and regulation environment" before. I wonder if some group could do research and show that this is a new meme. That would prove it is bullshit.

And as to jobs...the baby boomers are going to start to retire en masse in 2014. It would have been an employees market at that point with so many fewer workers than jobs but with this extended unemployment it may not be the case. Again .... the climate suits business to a t and middle class be darned.

[Samantha]

19. And here is another thing

During the time of the slow recovery of this recession, a "jobless" recovery, many commentators voiced the opinion we would find a "reset" was necessary. One of the outcomes of this massive, extended unemployment will result in people jobless for an extended period of time being eventually forced, if they take a job, to work under terms with a greatly decreased rate of pay and an absence of benefits. Looking exactly at what they eventually will be forced to take compared to what they used to have in previous jobs paints a picture of the terms of employment Republicans have ALWAYS advocated. Why should big business pay sick leave and vacation time to people when they do not work? Why should corporations have to pay that pesky payroll tax, just abolish Social Security or make people independent contractors who have to pay the entire payroll tax themselves. Why should corporations support retired employees with a pension? That added expense restricts those corporations' ability to be competitive with foreign entities. Right.

When NAFTA was passed and Gore was asked why so many problems with employment were erupting, his response was that the biggest mistake the Clinton/Gore team made was not negotiating reasonable labor standards in other countries with which we trade. In other words, lift the standards around the world to be more like the standards in the United States. That failure to do so, it now appears to me, has resulted in this drive to force the American worker to settle for entirely substandard employment conditions compared to what existed in this Country pre-NAFTA. These conditions are not inadvertent but deliberately driven by the Republicans giving the corporations exactly what they want, cheap labor, no benefits resulting in higher profits enabling those at the top to rake in more money.

Sam

[marybourg]

14. "hiring" . (I had to look it up too )

[applegrove]

22. I figured out that mistake after a while. It was too late to edit it though. I don't know what I was

thinking.

[bertman]

15. I'm a small business person (eight employees including my partner and me)

and we're not hiring because we don't have the customers to buy our product. It has nothing to do with taxes or regulations, at least for us. It has everything to do with not enough customers.

I see and hear this mantra of 'small businesses would hire more workers if they could only get LOANS'. What sense does that make EXCEPT TO A BANKER?!

Why would any business person go out on a financial limb by borrowing more money at interest when he/she doesn't have the customers/workload/buyers to generate enough sales to cover the costs so she/he can pay the loan back?

Yes, part of the reason she is spouting the bullshit is because the Chamber of Commerce is pounding that message into every member's head. They know the REPUKES are going to be on a rampage, so the Chamber wants to get as much regulation done away with as they can. Ask the miners in W. Va. how that's working out for them.

[old mark]

16. Taxes have been the same for the last ten years. How many people did

she hire over all that time?

It's ALL bullshit, folks!


mark

[mstinamotorcity]

17. By making sure we don't patronize

those businesses!!!

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

18. I don't get it. Democrats passed several tax cut packages and jobs bills targeted at

small businesses. Of course there was no one there to call her out on her lies.

Bottom line: they want to destroy this president. They are deliberately sitting on capital so that unemployment continues to rise and the Democrats/Obama are blamed.

These people are absolutely disgusting!! Disgusting!!

[treestar]

21. That's always true

New laws or regulations could always happen. She should stay out of business then, if she can't handle that uncertainty.

[SwampG8r]

23. are you in business?

i am
a very small business with a very small profit margin
and she is speaking truth
i cannot hire anyone now no matter how badly i need them as i do not know at this time what the final cost to my business will be
sounds shitty to put a dollar before a person
but no one writes me a check for the 80+ hours i work each week unless there is a dollar left after everyone else gets a turn
and just like my workers,
who all will drop what they are doing elsewhere to run a gig with me because they know i dont put the money first when i deal with them,
i have bills to pay and a family to feed.
small business is not the enemy of the working man
they are the working man and most jobs in this country are from small business
if you want to help then push for support of small business

[Kweli4Real]

28. With All Due Respect ...

I would suggest you hire a competent tax advisor ... One who would explain to you that taxes are paid on profits (i.e., after expenses ... personnel costs being one such expense).

Secondly, even if that were not the case, the marginal increase with the bush taxes being extended would be ~$50K on a million ($1,000,000) in profits ... That is barely enough to support one (1) minimum-wage hire. Why do so called affected small-business owners continue with this line of B.S. that extending the tax cuts will result in all these jobs?

Finally, as others have stated, hiring is a function of demand - pure and simple - it is the exact reverse of supply-side economics.

But what do I know? I only read about this stuff in my Econ and Accounting classes ... I have no real world experience as a small-business owner to inform my opinion.

[SwampG8r]

30. i agree fully with your last line

[Kweli4Real]

31. I'm glad ...

Now prove anything that I have written incorrect, inaccurate or wrong ... AND you can use as much snark as you wish.

[applegrove]

32. With the GOP the empathy is saved for the corporation or business or the ceo's decision

making. They also teach a lack of empathy for the employee (look at all the talk about the lazy unemployed). That is what I object to. I would have alot more sympathy for the ceo or the business if they were starving or about to loose their home. In reality there is not pain with the ceo having to make decisions about who and if to hire. But the GOP and the teabaggers make out like something horrid has happened "oh gosh some ceo has to think!!!!".

[Mass]

25. Explain the GOP is creating the insecurity by refusing to vote the

middle class tax cuts and other SB tax cuts.

Of course, uncertainty matters, but people need to be pointed toward the real culprit. If the GOP had not blocked the extensions, the issue would be solved by now.

[slackmaster]

27. Insecurity about taxes affects my ability to plan and budget my personal finances

Why should it be any different for a business?

[Kweli4Real]

29. See Most of the above posts ...

that deflate the magical trickle-down myth ... or not.

[Abq_Sarah]

36. Well apparently

We small business owners live in a different reality where money grows on trees and we just reach up and pluck it off whenever we need it.

Taxation and regulation can have a huge impact on small businesses when you consider most regs are written for big business without any thought of the cost to small businesses. Other than that asinine new 1099 regulation, most of our "uncertainty" comes from state government, not the fed.

[hollowdweller]

33. No wonder she's insecure. No demand.

The working class is either unemployed or under paid.

[Dawson Leery]

34. Fox News Channel Jr. (CNN) is getting those right wing talking points out there.

[quaker bill]

37. Insecurity is the nature of small business

if one cannot get used to it and adapt, one should find another line of work. When I ran a small business, it was quite rare for me to feel secure that I was certain to make payroll each month. The only time I got comfortable was when we had landed a number of large long term government contracts. Sales in the private sector always varied from one month to the next and there were occasional spates of deadbeats who did not cover their invoices promptly. Government paid like clockwork. At no point did I ever give a flip about taxes, changes there were slow and announced well in advance, one could adapt. A client going bankrupt while owing you lots of money generally happened overnight with no time to adapt.

[PVnRT]

38. That's a bullshit excuse. There's always been insecurity about taxes and regulation

and there always will be. Really, aside from a few labor regulations, what "regulation" are they really worried about? Does a small business of five people need to worry about OSHA 1910? Or the Clean Air Act? Not normally.

As for taxes, every level of government trips all over themselves to offer tax breaks for new or expanding businesses. The real reason they don't want to hire anyone is that they don't want to pay more than shit wages for them.

[Honeycombe8]

39. Maybe she was telling the truth? Were you listening? Maybe she wasn't....but

just maybe she WAS telling her truth, from her vantage point. Which is what they were asking her about?

[HughBeaumont]

40. Well, awesome. They have absolutely NO excuse, then, for not hiring.

Never mind it's because of near-zero DEMAND that people aren't buying shit and hiring hasn't spiked. If companies are still firing, jobs are still scarce, the currently employed are getting waxed on the cost of living and aren't getting substantial raises to match it, then naturally there isn't going to be any DEMAND for products that aren't deemed a necessity.

But no, blame taxes and the Democrats. Oh, wait . . . you can't do that anymore, since he's given you your breaks!!!

You're on the clock, Chamber members. Gotta tell you, if hiring doesn't spike now and in the future, it's kind of going to ruin your Palin/Gingrich 2012 fantasy. Americans aren't going to be buying these excuses forever.

[formernaderite]

42. I've never understood why they don't just raise taxes on the very top

in many parts of the country, 250,000 doesn't make people rich.