The list of “rich” people making over $250K isn't a static number; it's dynamic. Why? Because most business owners can only pay themselves below minimum wage for 1-2-3 years before they can begin to reap the rewards of hard work. The top 1% changes year over year. When income averaging went away so did the entreprenuers protection from being hit with the already too high tax rate for individuals. Now, that same entreprenuer will get raped again because, the year he finally does make $250K, he'll get hit with Obama's class warfare tax as well as anyone an extra 7.65% matching contribution for FICA over $102K that Obama is sticking to him. To boot, he can expect to fall off of the over $250K “rich guy list” the very next tax year as he reinvests for growth over the next few years. Where's the reward for building a meaningful enterprise, community value and new jobs? It is all but gone.

The reason Obama is catering to the 40% or so of small business owners who make less than $250K is simple. Most in this category are owned by full time employees who operate part-time or seasonal businesses. Gee, who would those people be? Scope it out and you'll find many are teachers who supplement their emplyment income by operating after school or during summer break, government workers like him who buy into land deals or represent “special clients”, etc. No wonder he doesn't mind reducing taxes on this group of “small businesses”!

Interestingly, MaryL, you say you own a sole proprietorship and a corporation. Why two? Care to share how someone like you manifpulates their income with a sole proproprietorship to avoid paying the double taxation hit you'd end up paying if you ran it all through your corporation?

Alrighty. I own two businesses (a sole prop and a corporation). Does that make me twice as right as you by default? Um, no.

If you have an argument, with facts and links and stuff, it would be awfully nice of you to share. If you can't, I have no choice but to conclude that you're the one well overdue for a high colonic.

(3) TAX CREDITS FOR FAMILIES AND SMALL BUSINESSES. Barack Obama and Joe Biden understand that too many families that do not qualify for public health programs like Medicaid and SCHIP have trouble finding affordable health insurance. They know from talking to small business owners across the nation that the
skyrocketing cost of healthcare poses a serious competitive threat to America’s small businesses. The Obama-Biden health care plan will provide tax credits to all individuals who need it for their premiums. They will also create a new Small Business Health Tax Credit to provide small businesses with a refundable tax credit of up to 50 percent on premiums paid by small businesses on behalf of their employees. To be eligible for the credit, small businesses will have to offer a quality health plan to all of their employees and cover a meaningful share of the cost of employee health premiums.

(4) EMPLOYER CONTRIBUTION. Large employers that do not offer meaningful coverage or make a meaningful contribution to the cost of quality health coverage for their employees will be required to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the costs of the national plan. Small businesses will be exempt from this requirement.

So a “meaningful” contribution, while not defined in this plan, is bound to be less than 100%. A small business that doesn't meet this criteria fails to get a tax credit. And while large businesses who don't meet the criteria have to contribute to the national plan, small businesses don't.

I'd love to see where the writer got his figures and concepts. Viral email, perhaps?

Sixth, the increase in taxes on this small business owner from Obama's proposed hike in the income tax rate from 36% to 39.8% on incomes above $200,000 and the proposed increase in Social Security taxes comes to $32,000 per year. “That's another employee,” he said, referring to the termination of another installer in order to just stay even.

It's my understanding that this is “pass through” (assuming a non-C corp structure) income after business expenses, i.e. a personal tax increase for the owner(s). It is wrong to say that it is about “staying even” unless it means that the owner makes that much take home pay and wants to continue to make that much.

I'm going to play devil's advocate though and argue that even if the article was correct that it's not necessarily a bad thing.

This post and your union post are two sides of the same coin: a large chunk of the population is going under in slow motion because wages/benefits aren't enough. The median salary hasn't increased in “real” terms (i.e. CPI which isn't accurate because it doesn't weight food/energy/health care costs in the same proportion as middle/lower-middle class households have it) since the last recession and I recently saw that the minimum wage would need to be increased by about 50% to have the same purchasing power it did in the 70s.

Now I'm not going to pretend like raising the minimum wage or having universal health care is going to fix that problem, as it most assuredly will not and in fact without other efforts would just lead to massive inflation. The problem is far deeper and more pervasive and goes into not only corporate/worker relationships but also government largess, loose monetary policies and a culture of consumption…as well as food policies and such like Joe Windish has been pointing out. However, that said, maybe I am cold hearted but I don't see how “losing” jobs that should be solid middle class jobs but instead can barely afford to pay the bills is such a bad idea. It seems to me that a first step would be for the government to encourage salaries/benefits that lead to sustainable living conditions even if it means temporarily higher unemployment and/or lower profit margins, letting industries find their new price “equilibria” and then move forward on increasing efficiency and monetary/tax policies that would address the problem more fully.

In the short term it would create much more anguish due to the number of people that would be unemployed, but it would help get rid of the problem of the disinegration of the middle class and chronic underemployment. You can see the hidden problem in our unemployment statistics where the broadest category (that used to be closer to the official rate) is already over 11%.

Second, Obama states that employers will be required to pay 100 percent of the cost of health insurance premiums for 100 percent of their employees or face a tax penalty.

Where does it say this? I couldn't find it. Here is a link to Obama's plan. It seems that the article you read leaves things out and misrepresents others.

I swung around like a top, it seemed, for awhile — but we early voted here, and I was greatly relieved.

:>