Obama's record on small business; better than what the GOP would like you to think

My column in the Sky Hi News today:

Mitt Romney is positioning himself as the white knight riding to the defense of small business. 

His campaign and His GOP cohorts cite polls that claim small business will not invest or grow because they are so uncertain about the future. It's more of a tribute to the GOP's successful twisting of facts and deceit than it is a reflection of reality. That President Obama is anti-small business is a great trick of propaganda speak. 

To make their point, they cite some statistics purporting to show that small business has suffered because of Obama's policies. However, those figures they cite are wacked. As the saying goes, “liars can figure and figures can lie.” Glenn Kessler, fact checker for the Washington Post, awarded three Pinocchios out of four for their claim and wrote: “The bottom line is that experts at the agency that generated the data and the organization that analyzed it, as well as the person who used it in congressional testimony, all say Romney is starting with the wrong date. By using the 2008 numbers, Romney essentially is comparing pre-recession figures with post-recession figures, not data that reflects what happened under President Obama. Just as with job creation under this president, the results starting from 2009 are not great, showing a slight overall decline and then modest improvement once the recession ended. As the president well knows, that uncertain result has made for a challenging re-election campaign. But Romney has goosed his figure so much that it has little credibility.” 

The line trumpeted by the GOP and Romney is that Obamacare would create such a financial burden on small business and taxes would rise if he is re-elected. That is horse feathers. In either case of personal taxes and health care, only 2 to 3 percent of small business people in the highest brackets will see any impact. Here's the truth about Obamacare. If a small business has less than 50 employees, they do not have to provide insurance, but if they wish to do it anyway, they will get a large tax credit. So do not blame the provisions of Obamacare for causing the uncertainty, blame GOP's deceitful fear mongering. More horse feathers: Most small businesses have taxes levied as part of their personal income. Even if Bush tax cuts were restored and returned to the Clinton era, if a family's personal income is less than $250,000 per year, taxes would not increase. Neither Obama nor Romney have any plans to increase taxes to the middle class, anyway. What small businesses should fear is the Ryan budget/deficit reduction plans. If they were passed by a GOP Congress and signed by a President Romney on nearly day one, there is almost a unanimous opinion among economists we would slide back into recession, just like Europe did with their austerity programs. That would be a demand killer with a disastrous blow to small businesses, which depend on middle class customers having enough extra change in their pockets to buy their goods and services. In the past three and a half years, Republicans in Congress have talked a good game, but voted the other way. They are speaking with a forked tongue Before the Tea Party grabbed control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 elections, Obama was able to get his agenda passed to help small business and the Republicans in Congress voted against every single one of them, including a new tax credit for hiring unemployed workers, bonus depreciation tax incentives to support new investment, 75 percent exclusion of small business capital gains, expansion of limits on small business, and passed the small business jobs bill: Tax cuts, loans backed through the Small Business Administration (SBA) and loans backed by the Treasury Department through the newly credited Small Business Lending Fund ($30 billion fund for small community banks).

GOP is spreading fear and ignorance about "Obamacare"

Feigned ignorance and illiteracy is the GOP’s case against “Obamacare”.  They love to spread ignorance and then report polls that  claim small business is not spending because they will not hire because of the cost of Obamacare.  Their case is to throw out the health care reform law if the Supreme Court upholds its constitutionality because it just has too many words and is just too complex for the public to understand.  Even one of the Supreme Court  justices made some remark that “do you mean I have to read the whole thing?”

 On the other hand, the Obama administration has made sausage out of sausage, muddling their case and not bothering to counter the ignorance spread by the GOP trying either to scare the wits out of seniors with the bogus claims of death panels and a horrible burden on small business.  The death panel scare tactics have been somewhat diminished, but the ignorance they are spreading about  burden on small business is scaring the pants  off of them. No wonder small business opposes it, but ignorance is no excuse nor is illiteracy and the Obama administration should just not let these kinds of intentional  befuddlement go unchallenged.

Here is why. No matter how the Court rules, Obama loses.  If the court approves his health reform bill in toto, the 2/3 of American people who had hoped it would have been found unconstitutional and oppose the reform, will blame him for the monster bill they neither understand or they fear what they have been told by the GOP campaign of deceit  of the dire provisions that just might gore their oxen.  If it only strikes down the mandate, there will be repercussions which few understand and the GOP will continue to exploit  their ignorance. Romney will continue the debate with his swearing to repeal it in Congress if he is elected.  The war will not be over throughout the campaign..

 If the law is struck down by the Court , there will be egg all over the face of our constitutional law professor  President and frankly he will look incompetent.  He is going to have to sell Obamacare all over again as a good thing and then accuse Romney of wanting to cause our health system to be more expensive and sicker.  He could charge Romney with  wanting to deprive 30 million of the ability to afford health care, running up the cost of health care for those who already have it by having to pay for ER health for the uninsured in higher insurance premiums,  leaving  those laid off and losing employer’s insurance without any coverage after COBRA runs out, and making coverage of pre-existing conditions unaffordable for government or anyone else.

 Romney now  piously proclaims  says he  wants to cover pre-existing conditions.  Where’s the pay-for, Mitt? That is what the mandate is supposed to do…enlarge the pool, require healthy to pay into the system, which makes it economically feasible  for the private insurers  to  cover  the cost of covering pre-existing conditions. Without the mandate, how do you propose to pay for coverage of pre-exisitng conditions? You know  the problem. That is core to the Massachusetts system you set up and the rationale for the mandate.  Shame on promoting such ignorance when you know better..

The first chore for Pres. Obama to talk about the burden of supplying employee insurance now and how the burden will be taken off the shoulders of small business.  Has everyone forgotten that    small businesses are exempted from having to provide insurance for their employees?  That message has gotten lost in the Romney  campaign of fear and deception  and needs to be set  straight  by the Obama supporters ASAP.