The 99% need help

Yesterday the Senate failed to move forward the President’s plan to invest $35 billion in the states to help keep teachers, law enforcement personnel and firefighters from being fired due to budget shortfalls.  The 60 votes were needed to keep the measure alive but all 50 of the GOP Senators voted against it.

So what was the reason for voting against keeping more of these essential workers on the job and thus keeping more money on Main Street for our small businesses? 

The plan would have been funded by a 0.5% increase in taxes on income over $1 million.  That’s not five percent; it’s one half of one percent.   But in spite of 64% of the public agreeing that asking millionaires to pay just a little more to help with jobs, the Senate Republicans said no.  Not only did they say no, they said that they were just protecting 300,000 small business owners having a hard time with cash flow and credit. 

Now, I don’t know if that 300,000 figure is accurate or not.  The real number of taxpayers with some business income and making over $1 million is only 1% according to the Tax Policy Center.  I’ll let someone else do the math.

But using any small business owner making over $1 million a year as an excuse not to help our nation’s economy is a ridiculous and illogical argument.

Any small business owner taking home this kind of massive income is not struggling with cash flow and credit problems.  Period. 

If a small business can afford to pay its owner over $1 million in compensation, that owner can afford to pay a half a penny more in taxes on every dollar over a million to help keep teachers and first responders on the job and more customer demand for the other 99% of small businesses.

Millionaire defenders club

A procedural vote this week, possibly even today, in the US Senate will determine if President Obama’s American Jobs Act even gets to be debated on the Senate floor.  The bill doesn’t have a chance of passing the Senate because it, as most legislation now, can’t get the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP filibuster.

The bill is projected to create 1.9 million jobs.  Like it or hate it, it’s still a concrete proposal to do something about the lack of new jobs.  The American public deserves a legislative debate and vote. 

The Senate Democrats changed the funding for the jobs bill to a surtax of 5.6% of any income over $1 million to attract more votes.  As an example, that would be an extra $5,600 in taxes for someone making $1.1 million.  

I predicted this move a while ago simply because it will resonate with most voters regardless of political persuasion.

But not so for the defenders of millionaires.  There is actually a new organization called The Tax Relief Coalition that apparently thinks that people making over a million a year pay too much tax.   The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) are members of the millionaire defender club.

The Coalition claims that 80% of the 2007 taxpayers reporting more than a million dollars in income were “business owners”. 

I’ve talked about this sleight of hand statistics before when the issue was people making more than $250,000 a year.  With a million dollar income benchmark, it is even more true that the vast, vast, vast majority of these folks are only claiming some income from a business investment (they don’t run the business) or are hedge fund managers, K Street lobbyists, or some other very successful professionals.  They’re not Main Street business owners.

In South Carolina there are 4500 taxpayers reporting over a million dollars in income.  If the Coalition is correct, then there should be 3600 “business owners” in this income category. 

I challenge just one of these “business owners” making over a million a year to contact me to discuss this issue.  Just one.   Please!!!!