Entrepreneurs discuss key small business issues currently in national spotlight, including allowing tax breaks on high-income earners to expire and health care reform
Washington, D.C. –(ENEWSPF)–October 17, 2012. The Small Business Majority and the Center for American Progress today released a package of videos featuring small business owners from across the country discussing many of the issues impacting small business currently in the national spotlight, including the Bush tax cuts, health care reform, clean energy, and more.
Each small business owner discusses his or her views on a particular issue and what they think policymakers should do to help other small business owners in their state and across the country. The videos, created by the Small Business Majority and the Center, feature small business owners from Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, New York, Oregon, and Virginia.
“Small businesses are often used by lawmakers as pawns in a political chess game, but many times their real needs are neglected,” said John Arensmeyer, founder and CEO of Small Business Majority. “As our chief job creators, and those who will ultimately pull the economy out of the recession, it’s important small employers have a platform to make their voices heard so policymakers know what types of policies will help them succeed, and with them, our economy.”
Mike Brey, who owns a chain of hobby stores in Virginia and Maryland called Hobby Works, focused his video on the topic of taxes and budget—and specifically, on whether allowing tax cuts on those with income above $250,000 would hurt small businesses, as some have claimed.
“Letting cuts for high-income earners expire could help reduce the deficit without stunting small business job growth. Hobby Works is fortunate to have expanded quite a bit, but I’m still not in the upper-income bracket politicians keep pointing to when they talk about small business. The majority of the other small business owners I know aren’t in it, either,” Brey said. “It’s incredibly frustrating that we’ve become lodged at the center of a debate that doesn’t affect most of us.”
Small Business Majority’s polling has shown consistently that small business owners’ biggest problem is customer demand and weak sales. Brey and some of the other small business owners featured in the videos, including Oregon small business owner Mike Roach, believe allowing the tax rates to expire will bolster their customer base—the middle class—and boost sales. What’s more, Small Business Majority’s polling found the majority of small businesses agree the tax cuts should lapse, and that only three percent of respondents had annual household income above $250,000.
The videos are available online at http://www.smallbusinessmajority.org/blog/small-business-voices/.
Small Business Majority is a national small business advocacy organization founded and run by small business owners to support America’s 28 million small businesses. We conduct extensive opinion and economic research and work with our rapidly growing network of small business owners across the country to ensure their voices are an integral part of the public policy debate. Learn more about us on Wikipedia, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
The Center for American Progress is a nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to promoting a strong, just, and free America that ensures opportunity for all. We believe that Americans are bound together by a common commitment to these values, and we aspire to ensure that our national policies reflect these values. We work to find progressive and pragmatic solutions to significant domestic and international problems and develop policy proposals that foster a government that is “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
Source: americanprogress.org
