Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Obamacare And Small Businesses

Small businesses make up something like 70% of the jobs in America. As such, we would be foolish not to consider what Obamacare will do to them.

As with most things, Obamacare will kill and destroy:
Here are some bullet point facts:
  • More than 50% of filers who will pay the Democrat surtax have small business income.
  • The Democrat small business surtax has an automatic revenue grab when it doubles itself in 2013.
  • The Democrat plan, according to a study by the Tax Foundation, would raise the top tax rate in 24 states to more than 50%.
  • According the National Association of Manufactures, an industry hit hard by the economy, 68% of manufactures file as S-corporations with an average income of $570,000, well above the $350,000 base the Democrats have set for the surtax.
  • In addition to taxing small business income, the Democratic bill also institutes a payroll tax on small business payrolls. The Democratic bill requires small businesses who do not currently offer health insurance to pay a payroll fine of up to 8% of the their total payroll.
  • According to 2006 data from NFIB, businesses with between five and nine workers, representing about one million employers, had an average payroll of around $375,000 a year. A report from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that only about half of firms with three to nine workers offered health benefits in 2008.
  • Even if a small business does offer insurance, they are still required to pay a payroll tax if an employee chooses to opt out and enter the government plan.

Now, these are exactly the sort of punishing requirements, regulations and taxes that prevent small business from hiring new workers, expanding when they can, and prevents them from thriving.

Here's the biggest irony:

The most insidious part of Obamacare is the backdoor taxes, and defacto control of our healthcare by the nanny state that President Obama’s plan is loaded with. And here is another one that is not getting much play. Employers would be socked with requirements to pay for 72.5 percent of the cost of insurance premiums for their full-time employees under the plan being considered in the House.

They would also be required to pick up an as yet undetermined percentage of the insurance plans for part-time employees, as well. This alone will insure that part-time jobs across the nation are terminated for the destructive cost involved in having them.

Or, conversely, many full-time jobs will be eliminated if the costs of insurance is so steep and that of part-timers less so. Either way, jobs will be lost because of these new, never before seen expenses.

Who will be the hardest hit by these new expenses? Those same mom-and-pop stores that liberals always seem to support.

Hope-n-change!

There's my two cents.

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