Letter: Benefit programs aid small business

I run a packing and shipping business in Baton Rouge. So when elected officials talk about helping small businesses, I’m all ears. Unfortunately, their claims about helping us often have too much packaging and not enough substance.

That’s the case in the debate about the Bush tax cuts. One of the staples in this debate is a claim about “protecting small business” being made by defenders of extra tax cuts at the top. Let’s unpack that claim.

The fact is that 97 percent of small businesses won’t be affected by ending the Bush tax cuts for income above $250,000 a year. For us, this isn’t an issue.

An average packing and shipping store grosses $300,000 to $500,000 a year. Hearing that, you’d think that business would be affected by ending the Bush tax cuts — but it won’t. That’s because small business owners don’t pay personal income taxes on our gross receipts; we pay taxes on net profits. Even with a nice profit margin, say 10 percent, that owner might take home $50,000 — far from the $250,000 threshold.

But the myth persists, and for two reasons: First, it’s politically convenient. Politicians would rather claim they’re protecting small businesses than admit they’re protecting millionaires. And second, some big business interests are perfectly happy to muddy the waters and disguise themselves as small businesses.

Political sound bites aside, here’s my vision for real help for small businesses: End the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2 percent and reinvest the $1 trillion in savings in our communities and local economies.

Here in Baton Rouge, we could use our share to renovate broken-down schools and restore lost funding for programs that educate our youth for the 21st century work force. We could rebuild crumbling roads and bridges. We could strengthen Medicare so people don’t have to spend their last dime on health care.

That last point is near and dear to me. My husband and I have Medicare, thank goodness. My husband has compromised lungs, and when he got pneumonia, followed by a blood clot and staph infection last year, he spent three weeks in the hospital. I understood for the first time how people can go bankrupt with medical bills. If Medicare hadn’t been there, we’d be broke.

Medicare is important to a whole lot of small business owners in the baby boomer generation. It’s important to our customers and local economies, too. Medicare and other programs like Medicaid and Social Security support jobs and keep money in seniors’ pockets, money they spend in local businesses.

So, enough cardboard claims and bubble-wrapped promises. If you’re serious about helping small businesses, protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — not more tax cuts for the rich.

Mary Black

business owner

Baton Rouge

Comments

1) Comment by postscript56 - 08/11/2012

Thank you , Mary, for your perspective. I echo DMJ - nice to hear from an actual small business owner instead of just the propaganda machine. Speaking of which...agagent and 8point6 are perfect examples of how the right becomes radical. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary (in this case an actual business owner) they can't/won't give up their ideological "facts." Recently at my workplace several of us were talking politics when I heard someone known to be conservative use as an argument some long since debunked welfare nonsense. I challenged her and cited all the evidence against it. Her response? "I don't believe that." And that's your modern radical right conservative - ideology over reality every time.

2) Comment by Old Man Kensey - 08/11/2012

I'm wondering if agagent even read the letter? He/she is always partisan, but these responses don't even come close to addressing the issue. Never mind the ignorance of assuming someone making over 250,000 a year not being able to afford her service if their taxes were raised to the Clinton era tax rate. That was a nonsense statement.

3) Comment by DMJ - 08/11/2012

Agagent, why not, instead of lecturing an actual small business owner on how she should feel about tax policy based on your own political inclinations, listen to what she's saying? "The fact is that 97 percent of small businesses won’t be affected by ending the Bush tax cuts for income above $250,000 a year. For us, this isn’t an issue." Or...."If you’re serious about helping small businesses, protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — not more tax cuts for the rich." Could it be that maybe, just maybe, that she has a different view about what might work best for her, as an individual and a small business owner, than you do? Where do you get off condescending to her?

4) Comment by 8point6 - 08/11/2012

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/what-end-of-bush-tax-cuts-means- for-you.html

5) Comment by agagent - 08/11/2012

If we keep heading in this direction the federal government will be spending 100% of the GDP on entitlements. That is when free enterprise dies in America. We could have recovered from the recession and have 4 or 5 % unemployment by now with the right leadership in Washington.

6) Comment by agagent - 08/11/2012

It is great that you want to pay more taxes, but don’t claim that sending more money to Washington will help the local economy. Some of your customers may not be able to afford your services after paying that higher tax rate or after they pay the $1 trillion in Obamacare taxes. Nancy Pelosi also claimed that government entitlement sending stimulates the economy. She forgot that government must take money from someone and a lot of taxpayer money is lost to the inefficiencies, bureaucracy, and the waste, fraud and abuse of a typical government program. And then taxpayers lose a lot of money to cronyism like when her husband benefited from a federal program backed by Pelosi.

7) Comment by agagent - 08/11/2012

If you want to pay higher taxes you could move your business to a place where they agree with your reasoning . . . Like Greece, California, or Chicago. They have higher tax rates, and you can experience what a bigger, more costly government does to the economy and to businesses like yours.

8) Comment by agagent - 08/11/2012

If you want to pay higher taxes you could move your business to a place where they agree with your reasoning . . . Like Greece, California, or Chicago. They have higher taxe rates and you can experience what a bigger, more costly government means to businesses like yours.

9) Comment by DMJ - 08/11/2012

Here, here! It's nice to hear from an actual small business owner for a change. Thanks for the letter, Mary.