Story of Business, part three

Mike Fredrich runs MCM Composites, a Manitowoc, Wisconsin small business. The company build things, Fredrich finds ways to build them cheaper. But Chinese competition and uncertainty about taxes has him worried.

His company faces a tax increase--unless the Bush tax cuts are extended.

Part three of the Story of Business series.



Related posts:

"Little boxes" hurt by big ObamaCare
Video: Green Bay business struggles with ObamaCare, uncertainty

Technorati tags: politics economy business bush tax cuts small business taxes unemployment jobs wisconsin politics wisconsin

Senate GOP: Extend the Bush tax cuts for everyone

The  Senate Republicans caucus is defiant. They want to extend the Bush tax cuts for everyone.

From a Senate Republican Communication Center press release:

SENATE GOP LETTER TO MAJORITY LEADER REID ON CONGRESSIONAL PRIORITIES

“We Cannot Agree To Prioritize Any Matters Above The Critical Issues Of Funding The Government And Preventing A Job-Killing Tax Hike”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The following is a letter signed by all 42 members of the Republican Caucus that was delivered to Senator Harry Reid earlier today. The letter states “we write to inform you that we will not agree to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to any legislative item until the Senate has acted to fund the government and we have prevented the tax increase that is currently awaiting all American taxpayers. With little time left in this Congressional session, legislative scheduling should be focused on these critical priorities.”

Full letter to Senator Reid:

Dear Leader Reid,

The nation’s unemployment level, stuck near 10 percent, is unacceptable to Americans.  Senate Republicans have been urging Congress to make private-sector job creation a priority all year.  President Obama in his first speech after the November election said “we owe” it to the American people to “focus on those issues that affect their jobs.”  He went on to say that Americans “want jobs to come back faster.”  Our constituents have repeatedly asked us to focus on creating an environment for private-sector job growth; it is time that our constituents’ priorities become the Senate’s priorities.

For that reason, we write to inform you that we will not agree to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to any legislative item until the Senate has acted to fund the government and we have prevented the tax increase that is currently awaiting all American taxpayers.  With little time left in this Congressional session, legislative scheduling should be focused on these critical priorities.  While there are other items that might ultimately be worthy of the Senate's attention, we cannot agree to prioritize any matters above the critical issues of funding the government and preventing a job-killing tax hike.

Given our struggling economy, preventing the tax increase and providing economic certainty should be our top priority.  Without Congressional action by December 31, all American taxpayers will be hit by an increase in their individual income-tax rates and investment income through the capital gains and dividend rates.  If Congress were to adopt the President’s tax proposal to prevent the tax increase for only some Americans, small businesses would be targeted with a job-killing tax increase at the worst possible time.  Specifically, more than 750,000 small businesses will see a tax increase, which will affect 50 percent of small-business income and nearly 25 percent of the entire workforce.  The death tax rate will also climb from zero percent to 55 percent, which makes it the top concern for America’s small businesses.  Republicans and Democrats agree that small businesses create most new jobs, so we ought to be able to agree that raising taxes on small businesses is the wrong remedy in this economy.  Finally, Congress still needs to act on the “tax extenders” and the alternative minimum tax “patch,” all of which expired on December 31, 2009.

We look forward to continuing to work with you in a constructive manner to keep the government operating and provide the nation’s small businesses with economic certainty that the job-killing tax hike will be prevented.

Technorati tags: Politics gop congress

EPA overreach: Using regulation to harm the economy

The Obama administration failed to ram through its unpopular cap and trade legislation through the 111th Congress. It won't get the opportunity in the 112th--because Republicans will control the House of Representatives.

But the Democrats won't be stymied. Last month, while politicos were analysing the GOP win--and others were planning for Thanksgiving--the Environmental Protection Agency sneaked in a new regulatory “guidance” that gives us "cap" without the "trade."

The Heartland Institute's senior fellow for legal affairs, Maureen Martin, explains the stealth power grab:

On November 15, Obama's EPA issued a 100-page, highly technical "guidance" document proposing that as of January 2, 2011, large sources of greenhouse gas emissions—such as power plants, steel operations, and petroleum refineries—be required to obtain preconstruction and operating permits limiting their greenhouse gas emissions and to install the “best available” technology to do so.

Comments on these new rules are due on or before December 1, 2010, a 14-day period interrupted by the four-day Thanksgiving holiday. And EPA says it will review only comments on technical aspects of the new rule.

James M. Taylor, Heartland's senior fellow for environmental policy, has also weighed in:

Forcing power plants to purchase and implement the "best available" technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions every time a plant is built or any kind of significant maintenance or renovations occur, however, means by definition that electricity prices are going to start rising in a manner that will make the economy-shocking energy price spikes during the summer of 2008 seem downright wimpy by comparison.

The Obama administration won't be able to use legislative overreach anymore, but it still has the ability to do so on the regulatory level.

The Heartland Institute's Somewhat Reasonable blog is covering this issue. To find more Heartland Institute coverage, click here.

Technorati tags: politics energy Democrats economy Obama Barack Obama environment economy unemployment jobs cap and trade

Book review of Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime

Although President Obama isn't quite half-way into his first term, I think it's safe to declare that the 2008 presidential election will end up, like the 1800, 1860, 1912, and 1980 contests, to be a transformational election. But it may not be transformational in the manner Obama wants it--the seeds of the Tea Party movement germinated in the fall of '08. On the flipside, the election of our first African-American president was an historic event. I'm the same age as Obama, while we were toddlers, Jim Crow laws were in force throughout the South. And if the president succeeds in his effort to shove America to the left, well, we will all point to November, 2008.

I'm a fortunate blogger who has been asked to review the paperback edition of  Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime as part of a virtual book tour. The hardcover version was published in January; it is authored by Mark Halperin, the senior political analyst for Time, and John Heilemann, who covers politics for New York magazine.

Halperin and Heilemann's Game Change revelations were widely reported upon its  initial release, including the angst of the McCain campaign over Sarah Palin's glaring knowledge gaps, including her belief that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks and her inability to explain why North and South Korea were separate nations. She is said to have remarked, "I wish I had paid more attention to this stuff." On the other hand, the duo use a "deep background" approach to the book: no sources for quotes such as that one are identified, and Palin is a critic of the book.

Majority Leader Harry Reid is identified as an early Obama presidential backer--in 2006--telling the freshman that he wasn't a good fit for the Senate. I find that quite ironic--Obama couldn't handle being a senator--so therefore he should run for president? Huh? As I've noted many times in this blog in 2008, Obama's lack of executive experience was a good reason why he shouldn't be elected to our nation's top office. Now we learn that he wasn't even a very good senator.

Mark Halperin

Reid's boneheaded comment about Obama, that he was was "light-skinned" and had "no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one" caused a big headache for the Nevadan, but one that was largely forgotten last month when he defeated Republican Sharron Angle.

As for other Democrats, Game Change also zooms in on the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. It's hard to believe, but the former North Carolina senator and vice presidential nominee was seen as a top contender to win his party's nomination three winters ago. Both Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, come across as horrible people here. Yes, I'm aware that the volatile Ms. Edwards is suffering from terminal cancer. John's reckless affair with New Age filmmaker with Rielle Hunter may not have sunk his campaign, but it certainly destroyed his reputation. Still, the end of the Edwards' marriage is a sad tale. Like The Great Gatsby's Tom and Daisy Buchanan, perhaps they do really belong together.

John Heilemann

We learn that Obama was a reluctant candidate at first--Michelle had reservations about the run. Hillary Clinton was not reluctant, in fact she considered challenging President Bush in 2004--but her daughter Chelsea talked her out of it. Ironically, despite my conservatism and my participation in several conference calls with John McCain and my attendance at the Republican National Convention, I identified mostly with Hillary while reading the book. I, too, was frustrated by the mainstream media's half-hearted coverage of the soft-underbelly of Obama--his ties to political fixer Tony Rezko and unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. Late in the Democratic primary season, the Hillary camp was hoping for a devastating Obama revelation that would sink the Hope and Change juggernaut. I had the same longings in the fall as the McCain campaign floundered after his biggest blunder--his shoot-from-the-hip decision to suspend his campaign after the September financial collapse.

In a way, McCain improvised much of his effort--which aided his cause after his campaign nearly collapsed over the immigration bill debacle in 2007. But he was no match for Team Obama the following autumn.

The authors add an afterword for the paperback edition. They speculate about the political future of Hillary, Biden, and Palin, noting that in 2016 the two Democrats will be roughly the same age McCain was when he was his party's nominee--will they make one last attempt to win the job they've been aspiring to for decades? If so, I believe problems await them. Gaffe-prone Biden, although valued by Obama as vice president (according to the authors), is on his way to Dan Quayle punch-line purgatory, that is, if he isn't there already. The most recent WikiLeaks revelations have damaged Clinton's reputation. Besides, barring a change in the primary and caucus itinerary in 2016, Hillary will have to campaign in Iowa, a place she doesn't like, as Heilemann and Halperin tell us:

She found Iowans diffident and presumptuous; she felt they were making her grovel. Hillary detested pleading for anything, from money to endorsements, and in Iowa it was no different.

And later:

She bitched about Iowa's scruffy hotels and looked for excuses to avoid staying overnight.

Then there is Palin. Even if she really was oblivious to many foreign policy issues after her vice presidential nomination and unaware, as the authors state, of what the Federal Reserve did, she's certainly more up to speed now. She has relative youth on her side as well, should she choose to run in 2012 or sometime later.

Oh, does anyone think a septuagenarian Biden will make fewer gaffes?

This is an important book. Not just as a look back--but as a look forward.

Technorati tags: Republican Palin Hillary Clinton Hillary Obama news Joe Biden democrats Politics Biden McCain John McCain Barack Obama iowa caucuses iowa politics books elections 2012 iowa John Edwards current affairs