Obama Tries to Protect Small Business from Senate Republicans' Political Agenda
For years, Republicans have been selling themselves as the party of business, using Small Business as the banner from which to launch their tax cuts for huge corporations. In Joe the Plumber, they epitomized this tactic; Using the sometimes less than accurate “Joe the Plumber” — who wasn’t a licensed plumber and didn’t, in fact, pay all of those taxes he moaned about on TV — to prop up the agenda for Big Business.
And for years, the American public has bought the costly mistaken guise of the Republican Party as being good for small business. In fact, many moderate Main Streeters were only nudged into Obama territory over Palin outrage, but their hard-working fiscal hearts remained with the Republican Party. Yes, the Republican Party, the party of hard work, fiscal accountability, balanced budgets, personal responsibility and meritocracy.
Only that party is no longer recognizable. While the actions of the Republican Party are those of a Party whose ideology has been bastardized beyond recognition until it is being used to justify some sort of social Darwinistic “Christian” jihad on humanity justified by the “Jesus-blessed” “free market” “winners”, this reality has been slow to dim on the heartland. We were, after all, used to believing what they tell us they stand for. We might not have agreed, but we took them at their word regarding their ideology.
We can no longer afford to take Republicans at their word.
Yesterday, President Obama urged Senate Republicans to stand by their own ideology by backing a bill designed to cut taxes for small businesses. The President spoke at a New Jersey sandwich shop, and called this bill “as American as apple pie”. Obama also noted its provisions were “things the Republican Party has said it supported for years,” and today Senate Republicans responded by blocking the small business jobs bill 58-42. As Sen. Patty Murray said on the Senate floor, according to Bloomberg, “Once again a common-sense bill that would help Americans is being held hostage by political calculation.”
On paper, it seemed a non-issue. CNN reported:
“The small-business bill before the Senate would set up a $30 billion lending fund to help community banks offer small businesses credit. It also would provide tax breaks to small businesses that invest in new equipment and hire unemployed workers. The House passed a similar bill in June.”
Lower taxes for small business? Isn’t that what the Republicans are always nattering on about? Don’t they say that creates jobs? And isn’t this bill designed to give tax cuts precisely for hiring new workers and buying equipment? And aren’t economists all in agreement about the necessity to get money moving in this economy, something a small business loan does quite effectively?
Hmmm. What’s the problem?
Well, this bill would also eliminate capital gains taxes for key investments and allow small businesses to write off appreciation on new equipment. Um, yeah. I dunno know about you, but when I hear “eliminate capital gains taxes”, I think “capitalism”, “free market” and maybe on a bad day of too much Right Wing Radio, “liberty”. But I sure as heck don’t think that Republicans will be voting NO on eliminating capital gains taxes.
Unless, of course, said bill would actually help our economy……seeing as a boost in our economy would not help the Republicans this fall.
Yes, in that case, I can sure imagine the Republicans voting no on their own ideas. And of course, they’ll need to take cover for their desperate politics.
Cut to: Republicans claim to be worried about the “Cost” of the measure.
Yes, that’s right ladies and gentlemen. The Republican Party has found their Fiscal Political Savior and her name is “Cost”. You heard a lot about “Cost” during the healthcare debates, during the unemployment extension debates, and now you’re hearing it as an excuse to not cut taxes for small businesses. Cost.
Cost, as in, the cost of the Iraq War. Cost, as in the Bush unpaid for tax cuts. Cost, as in the Medicare prescription drug bill. Cost.
So, suddenly the Republicans don’t want to give small businesses a tax break because of “Cost”. And yet, they are still campaigning on cutting taxes for small businesses. Yes, in fact, I’m watching one of their ads right now on my TV. It’s really tough to vote against your own platform and claim you stand for anything. Tough, if not impossible, in fact.
Maybe someone should tell the Republicans that even when they leave something off of the budget all together, it still has to be paid for. I mean, heck, that’s how it runs in my small business. Maybe it’s different when you’re running the country, eh? Maybe “cost” doesn’t matter when you’re in charge. Maybe it only matters when you’ve been trounced/whooped/clobbered in an election and the guy who won just keeps on passing liberal legislation that will change the role government will play in American lives for a very long time. Yeah. That has to hurt.
And they have nothing to run on. Their ideology failed when implemented and their politicians turned out to be the opposite of everything the party claims to stand for. All they can do at this point is hope that America, still struggling to overcome their last dangerously drunken turn at the wheel, will fail. And that Americans are too stupid to remember who caused this problem.
So, when Obama wants to give a tax cut to the small business owners, the Republicans call that a “hand out” but when they give tax cuts to big business, they call it “stimulating job growth” (and hush, not a word about those jobs they “incentivized” right out of the country). And still, when they campaign, they wave their American flags and stand next to Joe the Plumber, touting themselves as the Only Choice for Small Business owners.
I don’t know about you, but where I come from, we call that talkin’ outta both sides of your mouth. Now that Senate Republicans have voted ‘No’ on tax cuts for small businesses, they have definitively jumped their ideological shark.
Show-Me-The-Money Joe the Plumber turned out to be the perfect poster child for the modern day Republican Party: One embarrassing fib after another, piled onto a dung heap of hypocrisy and sketchy ethics, all topped off with a healthy dose of misinformation and not a drop of shame after being exposed.
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Rule of thumb: if they’re against it it must be good. End of story.
Oh well, just more ammo for Fall.
I hope that the Democrats grow a pair of gonads and broadcast this from one into the country to the other. I know they want but every single small business needs to know about this. The Republicans just took away one of their chances for success.
Did you ever notice that the Republicans primarily take money from large corporations whose primary function is to rid itself of competition? Competition equals small business. So here they are talking about and been supported by large corporations who want to do away with the very thing they talk about.
I got this in an e-mail from Joe Biden today, I’m sure others of you got it as well:
“$200 million.
That’s what Republican-aligned special interests have pledged to spend on the 2010 election. Just to put that in context, that’s nearly $40 million more than every interest group spent on the 2008 presidential election — combined.
When our administration and this movement decided to take on the special interests, we knew we were making a choice. And the consequences are clear. These groups have fought us at every turn in our struggle for change, and now they’re trying to drown out our voices — and our accomplishments — with their campaign cash this fall.”
we are about to be taken to the bank politically. I have been wondering why the Republicans just sat back and don’t do anything. Now I know. This November in 2012 they will have massive quantities of money
I sincerely hope that this will be used as one more nail in the coffin of their hopes of taking back either the House or the Senate. Does anyone need any more proof that they don’t care about the “little people?” I WILL say that up to this point, they’ve been very effective in inducing people to vote against their own best interests, but they are so bold about their intentions that there is no way to pretend otherwise.
It’s difficult to think of a party less in touch with the concerns of a whole society… oh wait! The Potato Famine – read this and see if the policies and propaganda don’t sound familiar.
Six months after the failure of the potato crop people were beginning to starve. Meanwhile, in England, the Liberals were suggesting that the Famine was a sign from God – they saw it as an opportunity for the Irish to ‘better themselves’, that it was a ‘lesson’, that Ireland was a country with huge economic potential (plentiful fish, good land and terrific harbors) and that with the ‘right instruction’ (from the British government of course), Ireland could ‘get itself out of this disaster’. The object now was to bring Ireland totally under English law.
The Penal Laws (passed initially in 1695) were now strictly enforced, making it illegal for Catholics (most of the Irish) to own land, illegal for them to have an education, illegal for the Irish language (Gaelic) to be spoken or taught, illegal to enter the professions, hold office, vote, deal in trade, join the army, or practice their religion.
Lewis Perry Curtis Jr., an historian, believes the English treated Ireland in a superior, arrogant way, and that this attitude influenced policy at the time and made the disaster much worse than it needed to be. Famine relief for the starving and homeless in Ireland was slow in coming. Eventually, the then British Prime Minister, Robert Peel, ordered 100,000 pounds to be spent on American corn and shipped to Ireland. The amount was pitifully inadequate.
Other ministers in the British government took an even harder line – they believed the Irish should be ‘left alone’ to deal with the problems themselves. They also sent more military personnel to Ireland to ensure the exports of grain out of Ireland would not be tampered with. The irony is that at the height of the Famine, Ireland was producing food, but the vast majority of it was exported, landlords seeking a better market price, and the native Irish were too poor to buy the food they themselves were farming. Money was clearly more important to the British government than human lives.
The following year (1846) there was a second potato failure, the Irish were pawning everything they had to buy food and the winter of 1846-’47 was very severe. Soup kitchens, workhouses, jails and run-down hospitals were overcrowded, disease-ridden and people were beginning to die in their thousands. At the height of the Famine exported goods worth $25-30 million annually left Irish shores bound for England and the Continent. Many of the Irish were emigrating – to the US, Australia and Britain, believing the land to be cursed. Unfortunately, they took the diseases with them and, on overcrowded, ancient ships (referred to as ‘coffin ships’) many more died. They were not even guaranteed passage to the destination country when the ships finally arrived – many were turned away.
By 1847 too, English opinion was changing, fueled by the tabloids of the day. The English public had stopped donating to Famine relief, many questioned why they had to feed the Irish, there were stories abounding that the Irish were buying guns with the relief money and the new English Prime Minister, John Russell, cut off all aid. Racism abounded; Irish emigrants to Britain were faced with fear and violence. By 1850 many racist books and literature began to appear depicting the Irish as ‘biologically inferior’.
The failure of Britain to substantially help the Irish during the Famine while at the same time systematically profiting from her crops, has been perceived by many to be evidence of Genocide; and recently the Irish government demanded an apology from the English government.
If you make less than $150,000 a year… you are Irish. And no Irishman is worth a third of that, or so your lords and masters will tell you.
Excellent comment, Bob. Thanks for sharing that.
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