Straight Talk: Tax Truth

Statement

Dear Friends,

Tax rates affect behavior. If small businesses with tight budgets in a slow economy face higher taxes, they will be forced into making hard choices. Many of those decisions will affect jobs; in turn, that affects families. The decision should be clear: don't raise taxes on small businesses right now. The tax and regulatory burden is already asking too much of job creators.

An Ernst & Young study released this week by NFIB ran the numbers. They found that President Obama's proposed tax hike on 900,000 small businesses would cost 710,000 jobs. That hurts. Unemployment has been at least eight percent for 41 straight months. Any tax hike would be a new roadblock to the economic recovery we need, especially when those tax hikes are directly on the job creators.

The federal government should not expect small businesses to plan for next year without knowing what rate they will pay in taxes. Yet it's already late July, and they still don't know. That uncertainty is counterproductive to the businesses they've built and the jobs they've created.

Our Committee hearing on Wednesday with FCC Commissioner Genachowski regarding broadband deployment brought this need for stability into focus yet again. We pressed three federal agencies to bring broadband access to small businesses across rural America, by providing more regulatory predictability and stability for broadband carriers.

This week, the President showed again that he doesn't respect your ability to start and grow a company. Be assured we know who builds businesses, and the hard work it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur.

Sam Graves
Chairman

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