Joe calls 2% small business truth from Frank Rich a 'red herring,' but likes Schumer's $1M threshold

[flpoljunkie]

Mika read Joe this (part in bold below) from Frank Rich's column yesterday, 'Who will stand up to the super rich?' Apparently, and unbelievably, she was unaware of this fact. Joe called this a 'red herring' and said that small businesses would not hire anyone knowing they had to pay 5% more (in income taxes). Or course, it's not 5%, it's a 4.6% increase at the margin--and it's on income after all expenses are deducted! Not unsurprising, Joe liked Chuck Schumer's idea of raising the $250,000 threshold to $1 million.

The G.O.P.’s arguments for extending the Bush tax cuts to this crowd, usually wrapped in laughably hypocritical whining about “class warfare,” are easily batted down. The most constant refrain is that small-business owners who file in this bracket would be hit so hard they could no longer hire new employees. But the Tax Policy Center found in 2008, when checking out similar campaign claims by “Joe the Plumber,” that only 2 percent of all Americans reporting small-business income, regardless of tax bracket, would see tax increases if Obama fulfilled his pledge to let the Bush tax cuts lapse for the top earners. The economist Dean Baker calculated that the yearly tax increase at the lower end of that bracket, for those with earnings between $200,000 and $500,000, would amount to $700 — which “isn’t enough to hire anyone.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/opinion/14rich.html?ref=frankrich

[karynnj]

1. My take - his annual income is between $250,000 and $1M

His use of the word "red herring" is weird there. The fact is that - as has been shown - there are very few real small businesses that are hit by this. The businesses that are - are businesses that make you wonder why they ever qualified to file this way - ie the Chicago Tribune is NOT a small business.

[grumgrum]

2. Yup that is what i got out of it.

[flpoljunkie]

3. I would guess it's closer to $1 million than $250,000.

[beac]

4. It's infuriating how long the Repukes have been getting away with this

"small business" nonsense. It's an easily proven lie. Wish Obama and all the Dems would start pointing this out at EVERY opportunity.

Then again, there are thousands of ignoramuses who got a tax cut but actually think that they paid more and are "Taxed Enough Already!" Idjits.

[flpoljunkie]

7. Too often the Dems let them get away with this lie, and you have to wonder why.

Could it be they want the corporate special interest money to fill their campaign coffers, as well?

[karynnj]

9. I'm with you - but suspect that many might be just unprepared or too set on making another point

that they really aren't listening.

In the case of the former, being unprepared, this is inexcusable because this has been a key Republican talking point - in fact, their main reason to justify retaining all the tax cuts. The Republicans, over the last several years, have developed the practice where all of them - elected officials to their talking heads all use the same talking points. This COULD make things easy for Democrats by having a list of things (with possible responses) that they need to counter.

The second is harder to deal with and many think they are doing the right thing - staying on message. However, when the Republican key point on this is mentioned and not refuted - it is more important than almost anything to go after it. (Think of the leaders on talk shows that really seem to listen when their opposite is speaking instead of mentally preparing their response. They are the ones that can call out the lies and they make far better surrogates. - I may be biased, but I've seen no one better at this than a Senator who was the Yale debate star for his 4 years in college. )

[tsuki]

5. Joe's a lying, fucking Tool that know better. If my income levels were

to approach the levels I had in 2005, 2006, 2007, I would hire tomorrow if my taxes were 10% higher. Because DEMAND creates jobs, not tax cuts, you lying bunch of millionaire elites.

[flpoljunkie]

6. They know demand creates jobs, but their corporate campaign coffer fillers have spoken.

[butterfly77]

8. Then Schuler responded by sayin..

he and the cons need to do more redistricting..