Politico, AP forward GOP small business falsehood
SUMMARY: The Politico and the AP forwarded the false Republican talking point that President Obama's proposals to let the Bush tax cuts for wealthy taxpayers expire and reduce the tax rate at which wealthy taxpayers could take itemized deductions would increase taxes on a large percentage of small businesses. In fact, according to the Tax Policy Center, just 2 percent of tax returns that reported small business income in 2007 are in the top two income tax brackets, which include all filers with taxable incomes that would be affected.
In March 15 articles, the Politico and the Associated Press forwarded the false Republican talking point that President Obama's proposals to let the Bush tax cuts for wealthy taxpayers expire and reduce the tax rate at which families making more than $250,000 could take itemized deductions to 28 percent would increase taxes on a large percentage of small businesses. Politico staff writer Carrie Budoff Brown reported, "Whenever Republican criticize [sic] Obama's tax-hike plans, the group they push front-and-center as bearing the brunt is small-business owners." She later wrote: "Republicans, in turn, say that it's Obama's tax-plan that is providing a double-whammy to these businesspeople, not just the recession but policies that would roll back the Bush tax cuts in 2011 and fall heavily on business owners who earn more than $250,000 a year." Likewise, the AP's Hope Yen reported, "Republicans say Obama's budget proposal to raise taxes, starting in 2011, on individuals earning more than $200,000 and on households earning more than $250,000 will hurt small businesses which face higher dividend taxes and limits on itemized deductions."
Neither Brown nor Yen pointed out, as Media Matters for America has repeatedly documented, that according to the Tax Policy Center's table of 2007 tax returns that reported small business income, 481,000 of those returns -- about 2 percent -- are in the top two income tax brackets, which include all filers with taxable incomes that would be affected.
From the March 15 Politico article:
President Barack Obama is looking for some sector of the economy to lead the nation out of recession, and he's putting down a $730 million dollar bet Monday on small businesses.
Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will announce a plan Monday to make it easier for these entrepreneurs to tap into billions of dollars in federal lending aid to fight a credit crunch that has brought business borrowing to a standstill.
The plan includes $730 million from the economic stimulus bill to cut small-business lending fees. They'll also raise the government guarantee on some Small Business Administration loans to 90 percent, which they hope is enough to get reluctant banks back in the lending business.
[...]
There's a political component too. Whenever Republican criticize Obama's tax-hike plans, the group they push front-and-center as bearing the brunt is small-business owners.
So between Obama and the Republicans, it's a tussle for the hearts and minds of everyone from the Mom-and-Pop store owner to the entrepreneurs with dozens of employees struggling through the economic recession.
But right now, they're suffering from the same credit crunch as consumers and homeowners. As credit has dried up, so has businesses' ability to seek capital, leading to layoffs, scuttled expansion plans and downsizing.
"The market for credit to small businesses is completely frozen in an already terrible credit crisis," Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee said on Fox News Sunday.
"This has been one of the most devastating aspects for job growth -- is that small businesses, which previous to this crisis had the funding they needed to grow jobs, have completely lost that. And so we're trying to reignite through direct intervention the small business credit market so that they can -- so that they can expand."
Republicans, in turn, say that it's Obama's tax-plan that is providing a double-whammy to these businesspeople, not just the recession but policies that would roll back the Bush tax cuts in 2011 and fall heavily on business owners who earn more than $250,000 a year.
In addition, Obama's budget proposal would limit itemized deductions for wealthier taxpayers and raise dividend taxes -- also two things that Republicans say hit small-business owners, one of the GOP's more reliable constituencies.
From the March 15 AP article:
Amid misgivings over his spending blueprint, President Barack Obama has decided to provide billions of dollars in federal lending aid aimed at struggling small business owners.
The broad package of measures to be announced Monday includes portions of the $730 million from the stimulus plan that will be used to immediately reduce small-business lending fees and increase the government guarantee on some Small Business Administration loans to 90 percent. The government also will take aggressive steps to boost bank liquidity with more than $10 billion aimed at unfreezing the secondary credit market, according to officials briefed on the plan who demanded anonymity to avoid pre-empting the president's announcement.
[...]
Obama will announce the new measures with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner at the White House.
They come as Republicans have sought to build on some bipartisan misgivings over Obama's ambitious spending blueprint. In particular, Republicans say Obama's budget proposal to raise taxes, starting in 2011, on individuals earning more than $200,000 and on households earning more than $250,000 will hurt small businesses which face higher dividend taxes and limits on itemized deductions.
The administration's proposals to improve worker access to health care and address climate change also could add higher health and energy costs to small businesses. The Obama administration maintains that revenue from auctioning off carbon emission allowances would offset much of the higher energy costs for many Americans."
Repugs won't stop with the lie about tax cuts. Our own miserable lying governor Pawlenty can't bring himself to realize that taxes need to go up on his rich cronies.
This lie will never go away because it works so well. The people who believe this crap... the "Joe the Plumbers" out there who dream of being millionaires, think that $250,000 is "middle class", or that anybody in business just has to be pulling down that kind of dough.
It's a popular Republican delusion. Any "small business" that is clearing $250,000 is quite successful, thank you, and should incorporate anyway. I work for one of these small businesses, and we would be popping out the champagne if we showed a profit that large.
You're right, Nerz, this is an accepted myth by so many people. The truth isn't very complicated or tough to get at, but the media has done such a good job with their "Democrats? Hang onto your wallet!" theme that simple facts don't stand a chance.
i recall a WPITW where Keith said this very thing about Joe himself.
Repeating and repeating lies does not make them true. The ONLY thing that will get us out of the Bush/Republican ressession is government spending.
Who got deleted, and what did they say to earn MMFA's "you violated the terms and conditions" award?
First, this is so "off-topic", it's ridiculous and should be flagged. But, demands a response to all the lies.
The new administration has gone from one failure to the next, revealing to the world that President Obama does not know how to lead. With new foreign policy crises appearing regularly and with the nation embroiled in the economic crisis, the Obama Administration has been stricken with paralysis.
Please identify the failures. Stock market is on it's 5th consecutive day of an upswing. Amazing how you expect Obama to turn around 8 years of failure in just 50 days of office. Is supposed to wave a magic wand and make the last 8 years disappear?
Obama wrongly blames “deregulation” for the current economic crisis — ignoring the 54,000 pages of regulations on the financial sector added to the books under President Bush — and has followed the path that will lead to further economic difficulties by adding trillions to the national debt. The $787 billion stimulus package is following the Hoover-Roosevelt example in attempting to spend our way out of the recession. Unfortunately, this has never worked.
Deregulation is what allowed the banks to sell these derivatives that caused the crash of Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, bailout of AIG, etc... If you cannot comprehend that, then you're beyond help. It's the Repo Congress that demanded everything be deregulated.
False, spending and stimulus is exactly what we need. Bernacke, last night on 60 Minutes, clearly stated that one of the colossal mistakes at the beginning of the Depression was the failure of the Federal Reserve to bail out the banks. Banks collapsed, therefore, there was no money to lend to anybody or anywhere and the country imploded. Keeping our banks solvent will keep the country afloat.
The nascent approach in domestic policy is mirrored in international affairs where Obama has weakened our nation greatly. We have been kicked out of a key base in Kyrgyzstan, undermining our efforts in Afghanistan. We have allowed Russia to regain hegemony in central Asia, threatening the survival of regimes amicable to American interests. We have conceded a major victory to Russia by halting construction of a ballistic missile shield in Eastern Europe.
Kyrgyzstan is a sovereign nation. We have no say in whether they allow us to maintain a base there or not. We don't own them. Bush was the one clearly out of his league and an embarrassment to this country. Why would our allies rejoice in the election of Obama? The world looks up to the US and can now do so again with a resolute leader.On one hand, the Troglodytes claim that Obama hasn't accomplished anything, then one of their trolls insists that he has single-handedly destroyed the country in two months.
Incredible!
Well, if they play both sides of the deck then at least they'll double their chances of being right. Of course, if Obama gets our economy back on track then they'll just have egg on their faces and become an even greater minority after the '10 elections. Here's hoping for the latter.
Their clock is soo broken it's only right twice a century.
Absolutely!
And Obama's responsible for the plunge in the economy from last September until early March '09 but according to Lord Cheney and his minions, Bush is responsible for last week's rally.
Yeah, I saw that. You have to give them one thing, years of lying and getting away with it have dramatically increased the size of their cojones.
Funny the market lost more under Bush than under any other President in history.
Limbaugh says Obama is responsible for the trillions lost in world markets since the day he was nominated.
I think you can safely assume that everything Rush says is a big fat lie, until proven otherwise.
The TRUTH is that it's GEORGE W. BUSH and his REPUBLICAN CONGRESS that is responsible for raising even these people's (the 2%'ers) taxes. THEY WROTE THE LAW THAT DOES IT! W. SIGNED IT. They were the one's who dictated that the taxes would go back up in 2011. That's the EXSISTING LAW, created and signed entirley by REPUBLICANS!
The only thing Obama does to change their law is to LOWER taxes (relative to what the Republican's law dictates) for 98% of the country. The REAL STORY here is that the Democrats are dong more to lower taxes from 2011 onward than the republicans. And it's a STORY only becasue it challenges the conventional wisdom (read: MYTH) that our "liberal" media has been propagating.
I'm afraid that you're making entirely too much sense and will therefore be completely disregarded by Republican apologists.
a point ive noticed that had never been raised....
but a counter to your argument. W had the law written that way because he believed in Rove's "permenant" majority and was delusional enough to think that no matter what there would be a republican in the white house from now until the end of time
Sort of... but I have an even more cynical take on it.
I think they wrote it that way so that they could artificially force an income tax debate evey 8-10 years, and rather than EVER write a permanent tax deduction, they'll do another 8-10 year extension so it looks like they're compromising with the Democrats (those darn tax-and spenders just won't let us make these tax cuts permanent!) when what they're realing doing is seting up another tax debate 8-10 years later and doing so in a way that makes it look like the DEMOCRATS want to raise taxes - when it's, in fact, REPUBLICAN legislation that doing so. But in framing the debate this way they keep painting the Democrats like they're the bad guys.
The sunset provision was necessary to avoid PAYGO rules. If Bush and the Republicans had made the tax cuts permanent, they would have been forced to actually pay for them.
Oh yeah, absolutely. But they've obscurred that reality, and have twisted it into it being somehow the DEMOCRATS that are doing it. The lie is bold and brazen, and too much of America is just stupid enough to be buying it. Some liberal media we've got, huh?
I think you've nailed it. Just listen to their rhetoric... since the Democrats are allowing the law to run it's course as written, thus retiring the tax cuts... the Republicans get to accuse them of RAISING TAXES!
Sounds like a Rovian tactic to me.
And no one (other than the occasional MMFA and HuffPo) is calling them out on their BS!
WHAT LIBERAL MEDIA?
What the Republicans did not count on was the sea change in the perception people have of government. The old conservative gripes about taxes limiting job creation are obviously, ridiculously flawed.
People seem to be catching on that every time a Republican talks about tax cuts, he's talking about crushing the capacity of government to serve the public and redistributing as much income as possible to the wealthy.
Let's have a debate with the Republicans on taxes. They will lose.
Let's have a debate with the Republicans on taxes. They will lose.
Agreed, assuming the moderator is remotely unbiased and reasonably intelligent.
That debate's over. Raise taxes in 1993 -- win. Cut taxes in 2003 -- lose.
Why are people surprise about the GOP lying? Just listen to Dick on CNN this past Sunday and FoxNews. They are all crazy.
It seems to me that increasing personal income taxes (to some extent) will or could actually aid in creating jobs and generally as an economic stimulus.
As the owner of a small company, I make a lot of discissions as to how to allocate the business's income.
Should I pay myself more? As an employee or as an owner? If paying myself more increases my taxes, I might well leave the money in the company and use it to hirre another employee or do some R&D or marketing or some other action designed to increase my company's economic activity.
As many have already figured out, Politico is a very slick version of a media Trojan horse. I would LOVE to know where their primary funding comes from, because it is major. They sprang, fully funded and fully developed, with all the buzzers and bells just in time for the election cycle - and at a time when so many other journals and newspapers were struggling. I have repeatedly emailed the "contact" address asking where their funding comes from (it is not mentioned anywhere on their page). No response. And have you watched their TV ads?!! Talk about someone having some deep pockets! The funding mystery aside, the ads are so full of smoke and mirrors it makes me laugh! "POLITICO IS NUMBER ONE!" it screams in red letters across the screen. Number one in what way?...and with whom? They never actually specify. Could be number one with Rush Limbaugh or the owner's mamma, for all anyone knows. But it just ads to the whole feeling of pure fabrication the site exudes! Btw- they did an ad blitz during the past 10 days on TV - no doubt to insure a wave of new readers would be pulled in in time to receive well-targeted disinformation on Obama's policies. Their strategy is fairly advanced in that they try to maintain a vague impression of balance - but mostly as as background matrix for planting the stories that represent their real agenda.
Well, not every website has the benefit of being financed by Geogre Soros and run by Hillary Clinton.
(kidding, obviously)
Look forward to more Republican money being poured into Republican websites that feature actual journalists digging up stories (a la HuffPo) instead of critics submitting commentary (a la freeperville.)
Cons are relentless and will not stop in their effort to control the message. In the future, in order to capture young voters, they will attempt to rewrite history in such a way to convince people that they were the real internet pioneers. Cons are relentless, ridiculously well funded and will stop at nothing to control the message.
When your main talking point is a lie, you have surrendered. Republicans have unconditionally surrendered on Obama's tax policy and his budget.
I don't want to hear one more statement from a republican. I don't want to ever see one on TV. They have waived their right to have any say in this.
The only debate we should have is whether Obama is raising taxes on the rich high enough. I say no.
Obama isn't raising taxaes on the rich AT ALL. He is leaving the law the way it was written by the Republican Congress and signed by George W. Bush. The "tax "increase" on the upper 2%in 2011 comes from REPUBLICAN LEGISLATION. All Obama is changing, relative to exsisting law, is that he's lowering the taxes on the bottom 98% of earners.
I agree with your overall point, but we CANNOT let the Right get away with turning the "tax increase" into something Obama is doing. He's not. The Republicans did that.
What you say is true but should not be important.
Anyone with eyes and an ounce of history should see that tax increases on the rich work wonders with no downside. So it should be a winner whether people understand your point or not.
Anyone with eyes and an ounce of history should see that tax increases on the rich work wonders with no downside.
I think this is rather a bit of an exageration. HOWEVER we're not currently (meaning in 2011) asking so much of our wealthy that there should be any 'downside.'