Small Business Or Business As Usual

by Stuart Shapiro

The Republican argument against ending the tax cuts for the richest two percent of Americans is essentially that small businesses would get a tax increase if we didn’t do so.  But which small businesses would be affected?  Steve Benen has some examples.

Under the Republican definition of “small business,” the GOP is fighting to protect companies like Wall Street buyout firm Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts, “which recently reported more than $54 billion in assets managed by 14 offices around the world.” PricewaterhouseCoopers, a massive international auditing firm, qualifies for the label, too. So does Tribune Corp., which owns the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and the Baltimore Sun.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, when politicians say they care about small businesses, what they really mean is that they care about big businesses.  But nobody gets any votes saying “I want to help PricewaterhouseCoopers.”

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.