CNN's Gergen forwarded small business falsehood
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SUMMARY: David Gergen forwarded the false Republican talking point that "a lot of small-business people, you know, pay taxes as high-income taxpayers. They're in the $250,000-plus. So, there are a number of them who felt like they're going to be facing crushing taxes." In fact, according to data from the Tax Policy Center, only about 2 percent of families reporting small-business income in their 2007 tax returns are in the top two income tax brackets, which include those expected to pay more in federal income taxes under president Obama's proposal
During the March 16 edition of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, political analyst David Gergen forwarded the false Republican talking point that President Obama's income tax proposals would increase taxes on a large percentage of small businesses. Gergen stated that "a lot of small-business people, you know, pay taxes as high-income taxpayers. They're in the $250,000-plus. So, there are a number of them who felt like they're going to be facing crushing taxes." In fact, as Media Matters for America has repeatedly documented, 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 by Obama's proposals to let portions of 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.
From the March 16 edition of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360:
COOPER: David, let's start with you. You say President Obama's announcement on small businesses was smart, but he's playing defense. How so?
GERGEN: Well, he's playing defense, Anderson, because a lot of small-business people, you know, pay taxes as high-income taxpayers. They're in the $250,000-plus. So, there are a number of them who felt like they're going to be facing crushing taxes. So, he, in effect, I think, had to respond to this sort of growing alienation in the business community.
I thought he did it smartly. But he got overwhelmed today on the AIG front. That's, by far and away, the biggest -- not only the biggest economic story, but the biggest political story, possibly a turning point in this whole effort for bailouts.
COOPER: A turning point how?
GERGEN: Well, in the sense that this is igniting so much public anger. Just -- your AC360 blog site tonight is filled with people who are expressing anger.
Ohh... my head hurts. Make them stop. Why can't the right wing tell the truth and have an honest discussion? (its a rhetorical question, I know the answer)
perhaps Gergen thinks that nearly 500,000 small businesses are alot. Just because mmfa doesn't seem to think so, it's no big deal. tell that to those who will pay more.
It all depends on how you look at it. 500,000 sounds like "a lot", but 2% does not.
The 9 billion that mysteriously disappeared in Iraq sounds like "a lot" to average folks, but I'm sure that Darth Cheney would gladly point out that it's probably less than 2% of the money we've wasted over there.
it's not a falsehood to say "alot".
As you made clear, it really depends on the definition of "a lot". If you can find a credible source that defines 2% as "a lot", then I'll concede your point.
WTF? YES, it CAN be, given the context. 2% is politically insignificant. The GREEN PARTY get that much of the vote!!! A policy that affects only 2% of the people should not get this level of attention without a constitutional issue being at stake. (And I'll get to THAT in a minute...)
You KNOW why they keep hammering this. It's stupid though, becasue it's BUSH that did this! The REPUBLICAN'S WROTE THIS LAW. Obama's lowering taxes on 98% of America, relative to the exsisting law, and somehow the other 2% is not only significant, but OBAMA'S fault? I'm sorry, but I don't see it. I must have forgotten to take my stupid pills this morning.
If your lot cared this much about the 2% of the population that wanted to marry someone, but is being told that they can't, but people who aren't affected by this decision AT ALL... Well, we'd have gay marriage by now! So you know where you stow your hypocritical "tell that those affected" nonsense.
and you talk about having an adult conversation, what with all your WTF's and the rest of your meandering nonsense. I would go step further and say 500,000 small businesses is a sizeable number, Gergen was being conservative in saying alot.
JamesB - don't sit here and lecture someone else. You are the last person to be lecturing about "adult conversations".
Let us start with how "adult" it is to say that 2% is "a lot".
Give me 1 other example if REAL LIFE where 2% = A LOT?
nerzog just did above about iraq.
Oh, SNAP! You nailed it again, James! Yup, comparing tax rates from the 1990s to the number of casualties in a war is SPOT ON.
Try again. How about something analogous?
you are an idiot. who brought iraq into this conversation, not me.
Such an adult response.
if you can't take it, don't throw it.
I really don't care about insults. I'm Just pointing out your thin skin, dishin' out the childish jabs while griping about childish jabs and all.
Anyway, on topic. 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.
what's ridiculously obvious is that when businesses have less capital in which to operate, they have less money to pay staff. anyone that refuses to accept that simple fact knows nothing about how a business operates. ask any business owner.
This is the conservative problem. They theorize and then stop. They never take the next step to check the theories against data.
How does your logic square with the massive drop in unemployment that followed Clinton's tax increases? How does your logic square with the anemic job growth numbers after Bush's tax cuts?
because I look beyond statistics to common sense. i will give you an anecdotal example, take it or leave it. My nephew got a job in a large surfing shop on the east coast of Florida about 6 months ago, doing the same thing as about 6 other high school/college guys. He made minimum wage, i guess Florida's min wage increased by about 50 cents on Jan 1. Even with good sales and plenty of work, he just got let go a couple weeks ago. His work is being absorbed by the other guys. The owner said it was less about the economy than the min wage hike. My nephew even offered to continue to work there for his old wage, of course the owner said he couldn't do that, against the law. I know this isn't about taxes, but it is about what business owners do when they have less capital to work with, the cut staff, first. that is no theory, that is reality.
If the same amount of work is being done by fewer employees it seems the problem isn't wages, it's that the owner overstaffed.
he was not overstaffed, do you think when someone is laid off it's because there isn't enough work?
What else? Workers create the products and services that a business sells. If a company has too few workers, it can't keep up with demand. If it has more workers than it needs to meet demand, it's not operating efficiently.
I do hope your nephew finds another job.
"do you think when someone is laid off it's because there isn't enough work?"
In a word... yes. It just happened where I work. We just lost two employees because we don't have enough work to keep them busy.
Like you said, that anecdote isn't about taxes. Firing employees does not improve a company's tax position. It might actually make them owe more in taxes.
They cut staff first? And you accept that? Sounds like a temper tantrum, not an astute, rational business decision. Their first intuition isn't to cut out other non-essential expanses? It comes down to getting rid of human beings first in order to preserve their profits?
Look, it's a question of morality from the start. If said business owner can't afford to pay living wages, that person has no right to be in business in the first place. The days of profit without conscience are receding into the past.
Let's talk about taxes, though. This nonsense that low taxes for the wealthy and corporations creates jobs is simply historically inaccurate. Trickle down is a farce, which is why you avoided it by talking about the minimum wage. You have no defense for the conservative tax policy of cutting taxes, strangling government and redistributing wealth upward.
Liberals have a better way. It's about rewarding the middle class for hard work with a strong social safety net at the expense of the wealthy who have profited wildly from sweetheart tax deals.
See, this is where your story falls apart. The amount of profit this customer loses by having a smaller workforce is always going to be much greater than the cost of an employee, unless he was employing too many people. And businesses don't do that normally, and you say that they had good sales and plenty of work. So why would this business owner cut down on his profit by losing manpower? That makes no sense.
Hate to break it to you, but the massive-scale national evidence of the Bush and Clinton years trashes your anecdote. You are against the facts and that makes you irrational and a perfect illustration of the problem with conservatism.
what does the minimum wage have to do with taxes/
It's all relative, but in statistical terms, 2% has never been considered "a lot", and probably never will.
I agree with James, 2% can be a lot depending on the context and one's perspective. In this case it would have been nice if there had been some balance, perhaps by citing the 2% figure.
Gergen's "growing alienation in the business community" line is pretty misleading given the small portion of the business community affected.
500,000 is 2% of 25,000,0000. Obama's tax policy lowers taxes on 24,500,000 small businesses. BUSH's tax law RAISES the taxes on the 500,000 in 2011. So there are multiple deceptions at work here:
1) It Bush law taht does this, not Obama's.
2) Obama's law lowers taxes. Period. It does nothing, relative to exsisting law, to the 500,000 businesses you mention.
3) 500K versus 25M. If 500K is a lot, then what's 25M? A [filtered]-load? It's 2%, and it's not "a lot."
4) If they're making that kind of money every year they should INCORPORATE. Then they don't have to worry about this nonsense. That WHY there's only 2% of "small businesses" that make that kind of money. Above that, they incorporate and are no longer considered "small businesses." So those in the 2% won't stay there for long anyway. Either it was just a REALLY GOOD YEAR and they won't keep meaking that kind of money, OR they WILL and so they'll INCORPORATE.
4 levels of lie. So... What your problem with this item exactly?
It's disingenuous to say "a lot," which I'm sure you realize.
Dude! lol
hey im the one who pulls the Star Wars References here!
how about telling those that are stupid enough not to incorporate their small business so that their taxes would be a bit lower. and not effected
Crushing taxes? GMAFB
Have any of these chowderheads even bothered to do the math? Back when Joe the F***ing Plumber was telling his lies, I took a few minutes to add up some numbers. I don't remember what it was exactly now, but if Joe made $280,000 a year as he led us to believe he might, his additional taxes under this "crushing" tax increase would be somewhere around a thousand dollars.
And furthermore, this nonsense about the "producers" just giving up and not working because they don't want to pay the extra tax is total BULLSH*T.
G.D. crybabies. I'd give my left gonad to make that kind of money.
I got an email from a relative who's on the far right side of the political spectrum who made this very argument about small biz owners closing shop in disgust. I put him in his place by explaining that if that small biz owner was successful, he would be stupid to not simply sell his business to another person if he wanted to get out of the field rather than just closing his doors. Even if the owner did just that, cut off his nose to spite his face, the need his business fulfills doesn't just go away because he closed the doors to his business, so either his competitors will become busier and hire more employees or someone else will fill the niche his departure left! The economy won't hardly even notice!
He tried to claim that the economy would do better with lots of tax rebates going to rich people over $13 a week going to poor and middle class people, but as I have said countless times before, we poor people will spend all of that $13 a week! Richer people won't spend the entire $13,000 extra they get, because they have enough to live on and live comfortably. A million people, each spending $13 a week, is $13 million dollars into the economy each week.
I'm sorry, but all this hand-wringing and rending of garments over the plight of those making over $250,000 makes me want to puke.
Our company just took an across-the-board pay cut to keep the doors open... I now face the choice of raiding my IRA or becoming one of those "losers" who gets behind on his mortgage. At least I have an IRA to raid... some people aren't so lucky.
I know...life sucks and then you die. Maybe if I'd been smarter I wouldn't find myself in this situation. I'll take my lumps, but these whiney bastards in the $250,000+ bracket can just cry me a river. They'll get no sympathy from me.
I would suggest those who make that 250K plus should dial back a little. the problem I see with that scenario is that suddenly the products they sell become limited supply, much the same as a monopoly model. And become victims of their own success. Darn, just pay the taxes to the US Treasury. You will get it back in services like parks, bridges, adequate police protection, road maintenance and other goodies.
because to a liberal taking somebody else's money and throwing it at government folly is perfectly fine and unworthy of any outrage. To the rest of us, it isn't.
So conservative politicans do not collect tax revenues to fund gov't? Interesting, I never knew ... Or they must just do it and not like it, right? Liberals, meanwhile LOV them some taxes!
You mean like throwing it down the Iraq rathole? Are you outraged that my tax dollars are being wasted over there? Or maybe you prefer those Pentagon follies that cost billions and never get used?
that would be another example, absolutely. Waste is waste, regardless.
So your claim that it's liberals who love to waste money isn't completely accurate. :>)
noted.
ok, so tell me why your defending the previous administrations incorrect policies.
you are factually wrong here. It is the government that prints the money and backs it with something of value, such as gold at Fort Knox. So your claim that liberals take money and throw it at govenment is sorta like a recycling program.
i thought we don't have the gold standard anymore....
Welcome to the party........what did people think was going to happen after 5 trillion in new debt from the last 8 years.
All these talking heads don't want to support America ?
These talking heads assumed Jan 20, 2009 was a new beginning....a new beginning with debt created by the Obama administration for this debt was present on day one, and believing the american electorate would fall for that claim. Obama one upped them by correctly adding to this debt the cost of the Iraq war, which the bush administration did not reconcile.
This is seriously their only talking point? This is the opposition party we've been warring with for 20 years?
We all know about republicans. This says a lot about democrats and democracy, none of it good.