Senator Bond says President Obama’s plan to let the Bush tax cuts expire is a job killer.
President Obama is asking Congress to let tax cuts put in place by the Bush administration expire, but only for those making $200,000 dollars or more or couples earning $250,000 or more.
Bond says the cuts need to stay in place across the board.
Bond says $200,000 is a threshold of earnings many small businesses claim, and if small business owners and farmers have to pay more taxes, they’ll hire fewer people.
Bond says four democrats and one independent voted against the measure on the Senate floor. The White House says 3 percent of Americans would be impacted … Bond says it’s closer to 25 percent.
Jessica Machetta reports [Listen Mp3, 1:16 min.]
Bond’s plea to fellow Senators in Washinton:
This morning, all across America families are struggling to make ends meet. Their incomes are stagnant but the cost of living keeps rising, and the tax burden they face at the federal, state, and local level keeps getting worse.
Just as troubling, today’s ongoing economic uncertainty is crippling job creation and hurting small businesses, the real engines of growth in our economy.
Yet what is the answer from Washington? More job-killing tax hikes.
Let’s be very clear: the last thing we should do in this difficult economy is raise taxes on American families and small businesses. It’s a recipe for economic disaster.
I don’t think anyone actually believes that raising taxes on anyone during a recession is a good idea, particularly on the very small businesses we need to hire more workers and get our economy back on track.
But unless Congress acts before the end of the year, that’s exactly what will happen.
This is not a Republican or Democrat issue – which is why 31 House Democrats recently wrote Speaker of the House Pelosi urging her to act now to stop the coming tax increases on the American people.
As these 31 Democrats said, defying their leadership, raising taxes now could “negatively impact economic growth.”
Instead of listening to the American people, and even these members of his own party, President Obama is trying to convince the nation that the largest tax increase in our history won’t hurt them.
Whether it’s justifying their failed nearly trillion-dollar stimulus bill or government takeover of health care, and now their historic tax increases, the Administration is guilty of using some fuzzy math.
Last week, the President took to the airwaves and claimed that he “opposes tax cuts for millionaires” – a statement he repeated in Ohio as well.
But the President’s plan to increase taxes is on any individual earning $200,000 dollars or more or any couple earning together $250,000 or more.
I don’t know who the President is talking to, but, I don’t know any Missouri families who are making $250,000 dollars a year who consider themselves millionaires!
In fact, these Missouri families would be surprised that the President lumps them in the same category as George Soros, Warren Buffet, and Bill Gates.
In fact, a tax on these “rich” as the President calls them, is really a tax increase on small businesses.
But under the President’s tax increase plan, half of all small business income would be affected Under the President’s tax increase plan, up to 25 percent of American workers will be affected.
According to the Wall Street Journal’s September 9th article entitled ‘The Small Business Tax Hike and the 3% Fallacy’, IRS data shows that 48% of the net income of sole proprietorships, partnerships, and S corporations reported on tax returns went to households with incomes above $200,000 dollars in 2007.
It’s very clear that we’re talking about small businesses that have a much broader impact than just the 3% of all taxpayers spin we are hearing from the White House.
This plan to increase taxes defies common sense. At a time when we need small businesses to expand their businesses and to create jobs, President Obama plans on raising their taxes.
Imagine that, when jobs should be our top priority, with unemployment near 10%, this Congress and the President are proposing an historic job-killing tax increase.
Bear in mind, according to the Small Business Administration (SBA), small businesses:
Employ half of all private sector employees
Generated 65%, or 9.8 million of the 15 million net new jobs over the past 17 years
Produce 13 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms
The President has actually been very clear about his intentions for any additional revenue raised by tax increases. As a matter of fact, on September 8th in Parma, Ohio he said repeatedly, “I’ve got a whole bunch of better ways to spend the money”.
Mr. President, I strongly disagree.
As Milton Friedman famously said, “Nobody spends somebody else’s money as wisely as they spend their own”.
I think we have already seen proof of this over the past 21 months and it is not working. The nearly trillion- dollar stimulus plan that was supposed to create jobs immediately and keep unemployment below 8% failed and now our children’s children are stuck with the bill.
Now, the Administration is pushing for even more tax increases in order to finance their massive spending spree.
Each time I return home I am reminded of the anger and distrust that my constituents have for Washington today.
The people of my state are angry and they have every right to be.
The people in my state know that any additional tax revenue generated from their hard work will not be used to pay down our national debt, but instead it will be used for more spending that they do not want.
The people in my state know that they cannot afford these tax increases – they want to keep more of their hard earned paychecks so they can support their families.
Dividends/Capital Gains
The Administration believes capital gains and dividends taxes should go up. They also believe that these two types of taxes on investment should be treated differently, with dividends being taxed as high as nearly 40%.
Higher taxes on investment income will halt new investment and force those investors with much needed capital onto the sidelines.
Since Congress passed the 2,000+ page regulatory bill this year, we have seen a drop in capital formation – and tax increases will only continue to discourage productive capital formation in the private sector.
The looming tax increases will raise the price of capital and make lending much more expensive then it would be if we had properly reigned in the bad actors and allowed the lending system to revert to practices based on credit worthiness.
This means it will be even harder for our small businesses to get the lending they need to continue to meet their payrolls, continue to employ workers, and keep their lights on.
Dividends are the payments made to shareholders by a profitable firm. Many of the folks who receive dividend income are not multi-million dollar investors, but rather are seniors who rely on this as a supplement to their retirement benefits.
We should not raise taxes on seniors who rely on this income.
Recently, I heard from Kansas City Power and Light about their concerns for an increased dividends tax. Many of their investors are senior citizens who are by no stretch of the imagination rich, and who live off of this income each day.
They cannot afford to have the government reach into their pockets and take their money.
Estate Tax
Death should not be a taxable event.
The death tax hurts small family-owned business especially our family farmers. According to the Farm Bureau, individuals, family partnerships, or family corporations own 98% of our nation’s 2 million farms and ranches.
When faced with the death tax, farmers and ranchers are in an especially tough spot with most of their assets tied up in land and buildings, livestock and equipment. This gives them little flexibility when settling estates. Unlike an investor with a stock portfolio, they can’t simply sell off a block of stocks and move on.
The death tax punishes the American dream – making it virtually impossible for the average American family to build wealth across generations.
The death tax is anti-savings, anti-family, and anti-investment. It is quite simply un-American, and it should be eliminated entirely.
Sadly, the Senate has failed to repeal this tax. I have signed on to the next best alternative, a bipartisan bill offered by Senators Kyl and Lincoln which would increase the exemption for families to $5 million dollars from $3.5 million dollars in previous law.
Under the President’s plan, when you die, your estate will be taxed at a whopping 55% for assets above $1 million dollars.
The Kyl and Lincoln bill I’m cosponsoring would reduce this rate to 35% for assets above the $5 million dollar exemption.
Why is this important? Anyone from farm country knows that a successful family-owned grain, corn or soybean farm would likely have more than a $1 million dollars worth of land and farm equipment.
The President’s plan could force these family farms to close when they pass from generation to generation.
My friends, unless Congress acts now, in less than 100 days Americans will be hit with the largest tax cut in our nation’s history.
I’ve joined with Senators McConnell, Grassley, and others to stop these coming tax hikes by cosponsoring the Tax Hike Prevention Act. This bill prevents the tax hikes scheduled for next year, permanently “patches” the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), and protects families from an increased death tax.
For most Americans across the nation, recovery is desperately in need. Small businesses are not hiring new workers or expanding. Unemployment has been hovering at almost 10 percent and more than three million Americans have lost their jobs since February 2009.
One of the best ways to help our economy and end the uncertainty that is crippling job creation is to stop the coming tax hikes.
In addition to helping small businesses, stopping the coming tax hikes would let Americans keep more of their paychecks so they can save and invest – our citizens know how to spend their money better than any government bureaucrat.
