Civil War II?

I don’t pay a much attention to politics, however, I do have some firsthand input about the economy / small business / taxes in support of Romney. I’m part of a family “small business” that normally employs around 45 people, however, quite a bit lower in the last year or so… Take it for what it is…

Since Obama’s “initiatives” in the past few years the small business employer has been taxed tremendously (both literally and figuratively; taxes, healthcare, disability insurance, various other insurance, insurance on insurance…). So much so that the employer can no longer afford to employ the same amount of people. The people who get laid off tend to reap the benefits of unenjoyment at least for a little while. The “laid off” used to contribute to the tax base. Now they take from it. They look for another job, but hold out because employers can no longer pay them what they feel they “deserve”. Meanwhile they receive a check in the mail, and many times make due with other under-the-table sources of income; NOT contributing to the man. It’s a vicious circle.

Now reverse that cycle. Make it easier for small business owners to keep the doors open. Yes, tax them, but don’t strangle them. Allow them to make a profit and employ more people. More people employed, more people paying taxes, less people sucking the well dry. It’s pretty basic 101 stuff here.

A MAJORITY of this stems from Obama’s belief that the “wealthy” are doing just fine and must provide for the “less fortunate”. Fuck that, not only is that a major contributor to the economic downfall, if many of these “less fortunate” individuals want the fruits of wealth, they should get off their asses and grind just as the wealthy did in the first place. There’s just too many people waiting for their check in the mail every week. I’m not saying there should be NO assistance because there are deserving people that fall on tough times, no doubt. The “flow” is very poorly regulated, though.

So outside of Healthcare what taxes have gone up?

And that isn’t even a direct tax this is health insurance companies sucking at life since some how they managed to raise prices 100%+ from 1999-2009

I will humbly say I do not have an educated answer for that, other than having conversations with the man who pays them, along with other small business owners and their experiences with the economy since Obama has taken office.

Like I said, I’m really not into politics so I don’t have a lot of educated input. I just feel the frustrations from top levels of small business on a daily basis.

Most of the provisions of the ACA only affect businesses that employ 50 or more people, so it shouldn’t have affected your family business much at all.

As far as the whole, lazy less fortunate people being a huge part of the economic downturn; that just isn’t true, and anyone with basic economic knowledge will tell you that.

I didn’t say that, you misinterpreted what i wrote. The inability of employers to employ, and therefore individuals that are not employed and not contributing to the tax base as being detrimental was my point. I was just going off on a rant on that last part. I don’t have a degree in macroeconomics and I don’t pretend to have one. I have a degree in management which I will be the first to say was a joke, and I learn more in a week in my business. I’m well aware of what money comes through the door, and what is left over at the end of the day… that’s the experience I speak from. I may be right, I may be wrong; it’s just my viewpoint.

I’m wondering the same thing.

I see lots of rants/descriptions like Turbo’s, but when I asked what taxes increased, no one ever has a straight answer.

Other Insurance (not health insurance) is nothing the government has responsibility for or control over.

Well yeah, I can definitely agree that that’s detrimental. But that’s in large part to the economic downturn caused by the deregulation of wall street. I agree it sucks that lazy people are sucking up money that others(myself included) work hard to earn, but the amount they consume is a drop in the bucket compared to most of our expenditures. And the idea that cutting social safety net programs to lower taxes will boost the economy is incredibly misguided; fiscal austerity during a depression will only prolong it and slow the recovery.

i really liked this from Aaron today on FB:

Like I have said before, the criminals have taken over. Anyone who thinks sending money to these criminals will help is incredibly misguided. Your dreamy social programs may work great in your naive little mind but the real world is just a wee bit different.

Prove it.

Tons of businesses are just using the ACA and Obama, along with the economy, as an excuse to screw their employees by crying poor. It’s the whole “It’s definitely not MY decision to give you a pay cut, or cut you to part-time working 39 hours so I don’t have to pay for your benefits, or lay you off, I did everything I could, blame the government” mentality.
Fact: It has been shown time and time again that businesses as a whole will screw their employees as much as they can collectively get away with. Going back to the industrial revolution and before. If they can cut benefits or wages or employees by blaming an outside bogeyman, they do it. As long as their competitors follow suit, it ends up with more money in all of their collective pockets, and less in the workforce’s. As long as there is an oversupply of people looking for work, and unions are getting weaker by the second, they get forced to suck it up and take it.

Yet the govt continues to give us tons of excuses. Seems pretty dumb to keep doing that knowing what the consequences will be. I have always said don’t piss off the people with money because they can always just take their ball and go home.

Companies are sitting on billions of dollars right now because they are living in fear not knowing what is next. If you think you may have some rough financial times ahead do you go out and spend lots of money?

My wife does.

---------- Post added at 08:26 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:15 AM ----------

So turbo is blaming the struggles of business on Democrat party policies without knowing what those policies are, but rather based on right wing rhetoric about how people who don’t contribute are bad mmkay? I wish that was unique.

If people would tell the rhetoric parrots like Limbaugh and John Stewart to STFU, learn the policies, and see that there’s no difference between right and left behind the rhetoric curtain then a wholesale rejection of the system at large could begin and we could actually make some progress towards small government change.

Right after me shit turns purple and smells like rainbow sherbert.

And I’m guessing that in your mind, the flipside to that is that if we had a president who the companies trusted with the direction of this country, then they’d stop hoarding that money and start spending it on expanding their businesses, correct?

i find it amusing that people put so much blame on obama and how everyone is so divided between democrats/republicans. many of the issues in this country arose way before obama, way before bush. however obama did make things worse. it would not be any better if romney was elected, however there is “hope” that maybe things would not be as painful long term with a different president for the next 4 years.

[COLOR=black]“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.” - thomas jefferson[/COLOR]
[COLOR=black][/COLOR]

policies put in place, even those such as welfare are contributing to this country leading towards socialism. we need major reform.

for the record, i am independant and i still feel that ron paul would have been the best hope for this country to turn around and head towards the right path.

Unfortunately the people didn’t want to take the bad tasting medicine from Dr. Paul so now the sickness will continue. He said it would take a few years of pain back in 2008, we could have been through this mess and been out of the recovery room by now but instead we are still in ICU.

Can someone explain to me what is so wrong with socialism? Every first world country besides America is far more “socialist” than we are. People always trash the idea of socialism but have no clue what it is. If you’re against socialism then we should throw out medicare, medicaid and social security, because those are all “socialist” programs.

While I do like the fact that Ron Paul stands strong by what he believes in and isn’t like most other flip-flopping politicians, many of his positions are incredibly misguided. You can’t slash spending when you’re in a recession without making it worse and prolonging it. You ramp up spending during a recession to jump start the economy, and cut back spending to reduce the nations debt during economic booms. That’s a fact agreed upon by all major economists, fiscal austerity will only make things worse.

Don’t be selfish and lazy, move to one those countries. We don’t have a choice, this country is unique. We just want to follow our “rule book” (The Constitution).
You should try to open a ski resort in Florida and then try to figure out what the problem was when it fails.

These economic experts you are talking about are the same ones who laughed at people like Paul and Schiff when they warned of the housing bubble, stock market crash, gold prices rising, etc, etc, etc. Sorry I will listen to them over you and your so called “experts”.

it scares me that you dont understand the problems with socialism. thats not even worth responding to. go read a book.

also, you contradicted yourself one sentence after on economics and cutting spending. how do you expect an economy to grow if you produce money out of thin air to give bailouts? youre simply slapping a bandaid on the issue, both prolonging and increasing the severity of the meltdown. we havent seen nearly how bad it will get. giving bailouts to “those too large to fail” is one of the biggest mistakes anyone could do to grow an economy. the country needs to be willing to take the hit now to see prosperity again or it will eventually fail. ron paul had his entire plan for fixing the economy laid out in detail showing that it works, and many economists have agreed with him.

It’s not a question of what I want the country to be like, it’s a question of what works. If we’re supposed to be “the greatest country in the world” then why are we ranked #49 in the world for infant mortality rate? I mean for fucks sake our health care system is worse than that of many third world countries, having it controlled by the private sector clearly doesn’t work.

As far as the constitution being our rule book, which part of what I said are you referring to? There are countless things that the constitution never had provisions for that have been enacted since it was written. Do you really think that the founding fathers could have ever begun to imagine what this country would eventually become, or what kind of world we would live in 225 years later? If you take verbatim what was written 225 years ago with little to no room for change, you’re going to have an economy and a society trapped in the stone age.

---------- Post added at 12:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:05 PM ----------

I never said, nor implied that we should bail out those that are too big to fail, don’t put words in my mouth. Bailing out wall street was a huge mistake in my opinion. Government spending during a recession that can produce results would be things like updating our aging infrastructure, things that give money to lower and middle class workers which stimulate consumer spending and economic growth.

I understand that there are problems with socialism, but people’s criticism of it is blown way out of proportion, due to this ridiculous assertion that socialism is the same thing as communism, and the same thing as facism. All I’m saying is that there are plenty of “socialist” policies that can, and do work.