The Hill News

Today is the 10th anniversary of the Bush tax cuts. Looking back over the last ten years, if I had a nickel for every time small business was invoked to push these tax cuts that benefit millionaires, I might actually be one.

I’m not a millionaire. Not a lot of small businesses are. I’ve been in business for 17 years. I started my custom screen printing business in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1994 with three employees, and over the years we’ve grown to employ 29 people. But we’ve never landed in the top tax brackets.

Like most small business owners, we plow what could be taken as profit back into building our business. We’re concerned with how to stay afloat in this tough economy, how to keep our business healthy, how to keep our people employed and create more jobs. It does me no good to buy a house in the Hamptons if my business back home falls behind the competition.

Despite the major role the Bush tax cuts have played in creating our curr! ent fiscal problems, politicians and lobbyists continue to claim that failing to extend the cuts for the wealthiest Americans would hurt small businesses, America’s job creators. It is clear to me that none of these people have ever run a small business. Repeating a bogus claim over and over doesn’t make it true. 

Read more...