Tag Archives: Tax Cut

Did Obamacare really provide a tax cut for small businesses?

Check out this AP article. (H/T Michele Bachmann)

Excerpt:

When the administration unveiled the small business tax credit earlier this week, officials touted its “broad eligibility” for companies with fewer than 25 workers and average annual wages under $50,000 that provide health coverage.

[…]Lost in the fine print: The credit drops off sharply once a company gets above 10 workers and $25,000 average annual wages.

[…]Consider small businesses: “The idea here is to target the credits to a relatively low number of firms, those who are low-wage and really quite small,” said economist Linda Blumberg of the Urban Institute public policy center.

On paper, the credit seems to be available to companies with fewer than 25 workers and average wages of $50,000. But in practice, a complicated formula that combines the two numbers works against companies that have more than 10 workers and $25,000 in average wages, Blumberg said.

“You can get zero even if you are not hitting the max on both pieces,” Blumberg said.

[…]Hoffman, the furniture store owner whose business missed out on the credit, says he understands that lawmakers writing the health care legislation had a limited amount of money to work with. But his company’s premiums rose 15 percent this year, and it’s a struggle to keep paying.

To get the most out of the new federal credit, Hoffman said he’d have to cut his work force to 10 employees and slash their wages.

“That seems like a strange outcome, given we’ve got 10 percent unemployment,” he said.

So, the government is actually paying businesses to NOT HIRE EMPLOYEES and to NOT RAISE SALARIES. That’s the only way small businesses can get the tax credit.

Michele writes:

Unfortunately, this bill will only discourage small businesses from raising wages and/or hiring more employees.  The business owners and employers in Minnesota I’ve met with all have said one thing: the uncertainty of the newly passed Health Care bill is keeping them from hiring and expanding.

Businesses are run by people who put their own skin in the game by risking capital to try to make a profit. That capital is often borrowed from family, friends or banks. And when business owners see that government is passing laws that take away the decision making power of the business owner and give it to government bureaucrats with no skin in the game, business owners get frightened – they are taking all the risks but the government is making the decisions. And government isn’t as good at making decisions for a business to avoid losses as the business owner is.

So even though Obama spends trillions of dollars, bankrupting the next generation of taxpayers, it can still be the case that unemployment increases. He’s killing the economy with his meddling – just the same way as interventionists like Hoover and FDR did during the Great Depression. When business owners see that the rules are changing under them because of state intervention into the economy, they just don’t have the confidence needed to expand their businesses, hire employees, or raise salaries.

And don’t forget that the money for the “tax credit” is being taken from your children, who will eventually have to pay for all of Obama’s spending.

Feds give $888,000 to Chicago public schools to teach Arabic language

Story here from the Chicago Sun-Times. (H/T Verum Serum)

Excerpt:

The Chicago public schools will expand its Arabic-language program to three more high schools, thanks to a three-year, $888,000 federal grant announced this morning.

[…]Already, Arabic is offered at three Chicago high schools — Lincoln Park, Roosevelt and Lindblom.

It’s also offered at seven Chicago elementary schools — Durkin Park, Agassiz, Belding, LaSalle Language Academy II, Marquette Tech and Volta.

In all, about 2,000 students take Arabic in Chicago’s schools.

The new federal grant, on top of $1.6 million in state and federal funds the schools already have gotten, will fund the expansion to three additional high schools that have yet to be identified.

Wasteful government spending is the reason why we have 10.2% unemployment. Democrats think that massive federal grants to public schools stimulate the economy. On the other hand, George W. Bush cut taxes by 2.2 trillion, and unemployment dipped down below 5%.

MUST-READ: Michele Bachmann open to running for President in 2012!

Representative Michele Bachmann
Representative Michele Bachmann

I normally never link to WND, because they are out on the fringe, but this story seems ok.(H/T Commenter MC)

Let’s learn a bit about Michele!

Excerpt:

She began her political career simply, as a Christian mom concerned about the content of school papers her children brought home in their backpacks, but today she has become one of the leading defenders of liberty and conservative principles on Capitol Hill.

[…]Bachmann, a federal tax litigation attorney before serving in elected office, told WND that she is “first and foremost a mother.” In the late 90s, the mother of five and foster mom to another 23 children through the years, grew concerned about what her foster kids were bringing home from the public school.

“Through the Goals 2000 program, the federal government was pushing knowledge, facts and information out of classroom study, substituting them with a study of attitudes, values and beliefs,” she said, “but not necessarily the values that moms and dads would like.”

[…]”I started my career in politics believing the federal government should not have a role in the classroom,” Bachmann told WND. “Going forward, we have to pare back dramatically the size, scope and reach of the federal government. It’s extending its hand over almost every area and aspect of people’s lives, and that needs to come back if we are to remain free and prosperous. We can’t be free and prosperous if we go in the direction we’re heading.”

[…]”I believe in equality of opportunity, not equality of result, and that’s the big dividing line between liberals and conservatives,” she said. “Conservatives believe that each individual is important and deserves protection of their inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

“These rights come from our creator,” she continued, “Government neither gives them nor does government have the power to take them away. … I believe my job as a member of Congress is to secure those inalienable rights.

“The heart and soul of who we are as a nation is in the Declaration of Independence; the Constitution is the framework for how we uphold those rights; and the Bill of Rights goes on to secure those rights to the individual, protecting individual rights from big government,” she said.

[…]”Over the weekend, I read a 1986 book – ‘Destroying Democracy’ by James T. Bennett and Thomas J. Dilorenzo – that talked about ACORN’s agenda, and it was as fresh as everything President Obama has been advancing since he took office,” she said. “Complete nationalization of health care, energy tax, government taking over the economy – now that we have ‘bailout nation,’ the U.S. government owns or controls 30 percent of the American economy. If Obama gets his way and effectively nationalizes 18 percent of the nation’s wealth in healthcare, that will put 48 percent of our economy controlled or owned by the federal [government]. That’s outlandish.

“Americans gave got to melt the phone lines of the Democrats on the health care bill,” she continued. “If the president gets his way with nationalized health care, it will be almost impossible to ever turn it back and restore to us our freedom.”

[…]Bachmann explained much of the ridicule she endures is because powerful women with conservative views don’t fit liberals’ desired image.

“I’m not afraid to be a social or fiscal conservative, and that doesn’t fit their template,” she told WND. “Democrats see women as yet one more dependency group, but I defy that. I don’t need government programs to succeed. I worked my way through college, my husband and I started our own business, and we didn’t need the government to be the answer.

“I also think they’re upset that I’m willing to go on radio and TV shows and call them out on their policies,” she continued. “They’ve thrown just about everything they can throw at me and they haven’t prevailed yet, and I think that infuriates them.”

And would she run for President?

“If I felt that’s what the Lord was calling me to do, I would do it,” she answered. “When I have sensed that the Lord is calling me to do something, I’ve said yes to it. But I will not seek a higher office if God is not calling me to do it. That’s really my standard.

“If I am called to serve in that realm I would serve,” she concluded, “but if I am not called, I wouldn’t do it.”

She is probably the politician who best reflects my views across the board. She understands what policies men want. And she loves Christian apologetics.

Now consider a little more about her revealed by the extremely left-wing Minneapolis Star-Tribune – (probably the worst newspaper on the planet behind the New York Times and Los Angeles Times).

Excerpt:

Michele Marie Amble was born in 1956 into a family of Norwegian Lutheran Democrats. When she was young, they moved from Iowa to Minnesota, where she was an A student and a cheerleader and had hair to her waist. She was named Miss Congeniality in the Miss Anoka competition.

In 1970, her parents divorced, and her father moved to California.

Her mother, Jean, got a job at the First National Bank in Anoka, earning $4,800 a year — not enough to keep up the payments on their home in Brooklyn Park. She sold the house and moved the family to a small apartment in Anoka.

So when sixth-grader Michele wanted contact lenses, she knew she had to tackle the expense herself.

She began babysitting at 50 cents an hour, stuffing dollar bills and quarters into a small bank in her room for two years until, in the summer before ninth grade, she’d earned enough.

Then, one afternoon as she bicycled along West River Road, a contact lens flew out of her eye.

She and her mother got down on their hands and knees, peering at every glint in the gravel, hoping that they wouldn’t have to start pawing through the brush that hemmed the highway. Finally, they rose, empty-handed, to a loss that felt enormous. Somehow, Jean found the money to buy a replacement, recalling that she could hardly let her daughter’s determination go unrewarded.

Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs interviewed her, and so did World Magazine.

She is accepting contributions for her Senate race here.

You can view some videos of her passionate, articulate speeches here if you need convincing.