Serving The Interests Of An Imaginary Group

Posted by on . 14 comments.

There’s nothing more indicative of obstructionism than when a political party protects the interests of a group that doesn’t exist. NPR had an excellent segment on Morning Edition today where the delved into the Republicans claims that the millionaire surtax provision in the Payroll Taxcut Extension would hamper the ability of small business owners to hire new employees. When they attempted to find a single millionaire job creator who would be unfairly burdened by the surtax by asking Republicans to give them somebody to talk to, their search came up empty:

We wanted to talk to business owners who would be affected. So, NPR requested help from numerous Republican congressional offices, including House and Senate leadership. They were unable to produce a single millionaire job creator for us to interview.

So we went to the business groups that have been lobbying against the surtax. Again, three days after putting in a request, none of them was able to find someone for us to talk to. A group called the Tax Relief Coalition said the problem was finding someone willing to talk about their personal taxes on national radio.

So next we put a query on Facebook. And several business owners who said they would be affected by the “millionaires surtax” responded.

“It’s not in the top 20 things that we think about when we’re making a business hire,” said Ian Yankwitt, who owns Tortoise Investment Management.

What should be amazing is that NPR was able to find actual millionaire ‘job creators’ to speak with on Facebook, not the fact that the GOP’s justification for voting against a tax extension for over 160 American workers hinges on the interests of a non-existent group of small business ‘job creators’ who supposedly wouldn’t be able to hire new employees if the legislation passed.

Comments

  1. just pixels says:
    December 10, 2011 at 11:17 am

    It’s does strain credulity that a business will hire or not because of a change in income tax rates. Comparing tax and unemployment by state shows no such pattern. Furthermore, a business that is so sensitive to those costs, will almost certainly create their jobs in China or India whenever possible.

    But I take issue with the premise that wealthy people create jobs in the first place. As many have noted, jobs are created by increasing demand. That means people who spend money in their local economy are the real job creators.

  2. Bob Walker says:
    December 10, 2011 at 1:14 pm

    Thank you, thank you … thank you.
    The lie needs to be put to the test.
    Where is “politifact” when you need them?

  3. JimC146 says:
    December 13, 2011 at 12:13 am

    This is weird. For an imaginary group I must have lived in a fantasy world between 2002 and 2009 when I worked for one such person. A small business started by a millionaire to create local jobs in his hometown and to spur technology at the same time.

    He literally created companies in Findlay, Ohio for the purpose of keeping local high tech jobs and talent in the area. When Microsoft pulled out of Findlay, he created a new company to hire and keep most of the employees local as he could. The company I worked for was yet one of two more he had created.

    But since I can look these events up on the internet it must not be fantasy after all….

    BTW- demand doesn’t create jobs, opportunity does. That means when a potential small business owner see opportunity to create a business, that’s when jobs are created. Sometimes demand is the opportunity, sometimes it is a good idea, sometimes it is just out of living the dream…

  4. nathan says:
    December 13, 2011 at 10:23 am

    You must have misread this entire post, but I’ll clarify. Millionaire small business owners certainly exist, but the idea that there’s a group of them who won’t be able to create jobs because of a marginal surtax to their personal income is fiction. The Republicans in congress premised their stance against the payroll taxcut extension solely on the existence of this group of job creators who supposedly wouldn’t be able to job create if the bill passed. The Republicans said that the loss in job creation caused by this bill outweighed the benefits of a tax cut for over 160 million american workers. However, nobody can find a single millionaire ‘job creator’ who says that the surtax would negatively affect their ability to create jobs.

  5. JimC146 says:
    December 13, 2011 at 11:41 am

    I guess the point I meant to make but failed to include was that for each of his small businesses, he had a set operating budget and *any* cost of doing business affects the bottom line. So when that happens, there’s a few options:
    1. Pass those costs to the customer and thereby raising revenue.
    2. Cut spending.

    Often option 1 is not very attractive especially to small start up.

    So option 2 is usually the choice. So under option 2 there are clear *big rock* ways to cut spending.

    1. Put off new hires.
    This happened on numerous occasions while I worked for the company.

    2. Reduce staff.
    This also happened several times.

    Now you may say that increasing the tax burden of a small business owner is only one of many possible contributors to the over all cost of doing business but for small businesses, *any* increase in the cost of doing business could translate into a job cut or a delayed new hire and therefore, raising their taxes certainly falls into that scenario…

  6. nathan says:
    December 13, 2011 at 12:57 pm

    I dont think somebody who makes a million dollars a year in income and loses 2 percent of that to an increase in their personal taxes is really going to lay that minimal loss into their business. It’s just kind of common sense. You can say all you want, but the fact is that not a single millionaire small business owner has come out to say “this would limit my job creation.” It’s an imaginary group of economic victims that the GOP has created to veil their blatant obstructionism. It’s all bullshit.

  7. JimC146 says:
    December 13, 2011 at 2:08 pm

    Well I guess when it is someone else’s money it is easy to say it is bullsh*t.

    Fine take their money and when the next crisis arises they can work their way down the chain but eventually, you’re gonna run out of other people’s money…

  8. JimC146 says:
    December 26, 2011 at 12:08 pm

    Forbes finds your imaginary group…

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