Gothamist: Shocking: Business Leaders Don't Want More Taxes or Regulations!

jpeditor

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 01:59:21 -0500

PS: Even The New York Times now is saying that Barack Obama's unswerving call for tax increases -- to impose more "fairness" -- is the wrong prescription for the current crisis in the U.S. economy. "The big issue for each candidate is not spending, per se, but how the crisis will affect their promises on taxes," editorialized The Times last Tuesday.......With the U.S. in the midst of a financial meltdown, The Times recognized that Obama's proposed tax hikes would only push the U.S. economy into a deeper hole:...It's unlikely that Obama, still unwilling to say that he was wrong about the surge in Iraq, will be insightful and flexible enough to acknowledge that his program of increasing taxes on "the wealthy," corporations and small businesses is simply a formula for increasing unemployment in an economy that's already delivering rising levels of joblessness....In the small business sector, the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center reports that "several hundred thousand small business owners" have incomes high enough to be hit by Obama's proposed tax hikes on income, capital gains and dividends. Most of the entrepreneurial income in these more successful small businesses would be taxed away under Obama's plan, with the top federal grab of income rising to over 50 percent, totaling his proposed increase in the marginal income tax rate, Medicare and Social Security taxes, and the phase out of exemptions. Obama's economic plan also includes a "pay or play" mandate that requires companies to either pay for health insurance for 100 percent of their full-time employees or pay 6 percent of their total payroll into a federally designed fund. Small employers currently face an average cost of $7,600 per year for health insurance coverage for an employee with a family, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey. For a small business with thin margins that can afford to cover only 10 of its 50 employees, Obama's full-coverage mandate under the "play" option, at $7,600 per employee, comes with a job-killing price tag of $304,000 per year for the coverage of the other 40 employees." SUMMARY: If you like welfare and lining up at the unemployment office, YOU'LL LOVE OBAMA.

jpeditor

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 01:18:46 -0500

Some of you people are morons. The lack of regulation over bad mortgages was because of Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and Barack Obama, three of the LARGEST recipients of pac money from Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, headed by Franklin Raines who made MILLIONS and advised Obama. Barack wrote a letter - whoopie - at least McCain tried to get legislation through reining in the NINJA (no income, no job/ asset) LIAR loans that yes, mortgage brokers and banks worldwide were taking as debt, but they only took that debt because FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC, pushed by ACORN (represented in lawsuits against "redlining" by Obama...) were GUARANTEEING the garbage mortgages, mortgages given to people, BLACK AND WHITE, who had NO business borrowing money in the first place. If i came to you to borrow money and I could give you no income verification, would YOU loan it to me? Of course not, unless I turned to you and said "but my Uncle Freddie will guarantee the loan!" Look up the video "Burning down the house". Back to regs and taxes - we own a small business in NYC - we put 3-5 people to work almost every week, decent wages. We barely make our living expenses off it, we can save next to nothing, and we just barely pay our NYC, NY State and Fed taxes on it every year. And we eat hamburger, not steak. I can guarantee you if our taxes go up any further, we have only a few choices to keep from US losing money (i.e., working for less / nothing): a/ charge more (possibly lose business) b/ pay our people less (oh, maybe we should hire illegals?) c/ go out of business and lay off our staff. d/ leave town and find a less oppressive place to own a business. Wake up people; no one is saying NO REGULATION OR NO TAXES, just the RIGHT regulations and smart taxes that don't penalize the people who put OTHER people to work. PS - And where's my incentive to IMPROVE & grow my business - if I put 10-15 people to work and crack $250 K/year, BHO is going to take MORE of it from me.

JacqueMehoff

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 14:39:40 -0500

I'm willing to share, no not monetarily but if any ny'ers need Pb..

tingo

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 12:37:54 -0500

They may have to move - or they really should build a wall around wall street. Because when the brunt of this crisis actually hits NYC in the next 6 months, there are probably going to be some angry people and Wall Street has now become synonymous with pilfering. What is disquieting and almost uncanny is how seemingly unaffected NY'rs are by the crisis so far. Is it not real?

angry_pickle

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 01:01:58 -0500

There isn't any reason to place so many administrative and analyst jobs in NYC.Because of advanced telecommunications products it enables businesses to operate almost anywhere. You got to be kidding me. I live just across the river and telecommuting is a HUGE pain because the network and response time just isn't as fast as working at the office because you have to wrap your communication with security. Forget having video conference meetings with 20 people at the same time .. too slow and clumpsy and most likely someone is watching TV, surfing the web, etc and not paying attention. For a tiny company, yeah this might work but for a large company ... not yet.

Mr Mel

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 23:01:58 -0500

Businesses stay where the CEO wants to live.

blablanyc

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:56:31 -0500

You're missing the point about where they locate the jobs. There isn't any reason to place so many administrative and analyst jobs in NYC. Because of advanced telecommunications products it enables businesses to operate almost anywhere. They can relocate those jobs to another city and save lots of money and not lose an edge.

NannyState

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:39:18 -0500

If taxes and regulation were the only deciding factors for where businesses locate, then Wall Street would be in Las Vegas or Laramie Wyoming. The truth is that these jerks have to be in New York to be close to the action and to be relevant. But it is truly the height of chutzpah for these fat cat robber barons to insist on "no new taxes or regulation" while they ask for over a trillion dollars in corporate bailouts and welfare. Fuck 'em. Liberals didn't kill Capitalism, these Republican Free Market Fucks killed it. And now they're billing us for the pleasure.

JacqueMehoff

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:18:02 -0500

I will welcome deflation. sure salaries will go down but so will goods and services. won't hurt my wallet one bit. I'll adapt and will help whoever needs assistance. unlike these vultures.

ides_of_march

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:12:39 -0500

If you don't think corporate taxes don't eventually get passed along to the average person, you're a fool. Enjoy your class envy while you can but it WILL come back and bite you in the wallet, it always does.

ides_of_march

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:08:55 -0500

Regulations are like laws, they can be good or bad. Let's get rid of the stupid ones and enact good ones. Also, make sure they're enforced. Last time I checked, we have immigration laws but you can't swing a dead cat in this city without hitting an illegal alien. If you're wondering why all the capital is deserting the markets lately, maybe it's because the guy ahead in the polls keeps telling us how much he' plans to tax capital gains. You'd pull out of the market and hide your capital too.

REALITY CHECK

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 19:46:44 -0500

#4, seems like the engine has broken. We need to take a different approach. Unfettered money-making doesn't take care of 100% of life needs; this should be quite obvious by now. People need to wake up and realize that the force guiding the invisible hand of the free market is greed, not morality.

babyhitler

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 19:15:40 -0500

They are basically just saying "shut up and just give us money for the bailout but don't tell us what to do". and saying that they are not that evil basically means that after they are done raping your grandparents 401k they don't piss on their graves. how kind.

slappy

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 19:10:49 -0500

The government can protect the freedom of private investment (the engine of Capitalism) and at the same time regulate the market so that the economy actually works overall. The issue is the correct regulations, not no regulation vs. over-regulation. Economic justice is not inherently Socialism. The market place is not inherently political; you can't depend on the market to be concerned with the basic commonwealth of the nation. This is the flaw in the Repub (Reagan) attitude towards "free" market.

Shinobi Shaw

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:50:14 -0500

Oh please, these guys are now playing victim! They are responsible for this mess in the first place!

S.D.

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:50:00 -0500

'Cause a lack of regulation worked so well up to now...

Oxford

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:49:39 -0500

It should be common sense that raising taxes on businesses makes them less likely to locate in the city and more likely to relocate out of it (and the same goes for people). Furthermore, investors would be happy to pay capital gains and dividends taxes if they weren't additionally taxed on corporate earnings at the 2nd highest rate in the developed world. We've skewed the tax system to give unfair benefits to investment in real estate but unfair penalties to investment in business, and then we wonder why our country overinvested in real estate while businesses or going overseas. Wake up folks, businesses are not the enemy, they are the engine of this nation.

blablanyc

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:40:24 -0500

They're right. Taxes and overall operating costs are too high in NYC. There isn't any reason for these businesses to be operating in NYC anymore. They can and will most likely leave. Just like businesses started to leave NYC in the 1950s because of high taxes. A good example is Amalgamated Life Insurance. This year Amalgamated decided it didn't want to operate in NYC anymore. The city had persuaded them to stay by offering Amalgamated tax incentives and $750K cash. They didn't bite. So Amalgamated decided on moving to Westchester with 400+ jobs. When corporate governing bodies have their minds made up there isn't anything you the city or state can do.

Splicer

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:29:00 -0500

"Not as evil" does not mean not evil at all. If the choice is between Caligula and Ivan the Terrible - the lesser of those two evils still sucks.

REALITY CHECK

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:18:14 -0500

Are these guys joking? The free market invisible hand (a.k.a. "good-faith") method of endlessly trusting extremely rich people to not give in to basic human greed behavior has failed the entire planet. And on a related note, capital gains income should be taxed the same as income from actual work and sweat, not less. It's only fair.