Obama and Small Business

In President Barrack Obama's 2010 State of the Union speech, many topics of great importance were discussed such as the cost of education and rampant unemployment in the US. But one of the topics that really took center stage was that of small business in the states.
I like many other students in our American Studies class, am the child of a small business owner. My parent's company was at it's peak 12 people, but because of the recession it has shrunk to 7. The company manufactures athletic clothing for small children, and then distributes it to megastores such as Wal-Mart, Kohl's and Target. My step-dad, the owner of the business, voted for Obama but has been feeling the repercussions of Obama's "just tax it" mentality. I sat down and we discussed exactly Obama has done to hurt small business.
The first thing he made clear is that all companies are divided into two main categories (each of which have several branches), S-corp (small business) and C-corp (larger business'). C-Corp companies are often publicly traded or belong to a group of investors, therefore they are liable for any collapse of the business. S-corp companies are often on a much smaller scale and are owned by five or fewer (in most cases) people. C-corp companies are directly taxed on their income, whereas S-corp companies do not encounter a corporate tax. Now here is where the twist comes. The income that comes from the business is absorbed by the owner(s) if the business, so it appears that the money belongs to the owners but in reality it stays in the business to pay the expenses of the operation and only a portion of that initial money is pocketed by owners. So in conclusion, small business owners appear to be much wealthier on paper than they actually are. Now most people that are aware of Obama's policies known of his plan to tax the nation's highest earners, 250,000 dollars and up. So this poses a problem for my small business owners. They appear to make more than that amount on paper, and are consequently taxed on money they don't have.
Obama is also proposing a new health care plan that he intends to have the top tax brackets to pay. So again, small business owner are going to get slammed by additional taxes if the health care plan gets passes.
The third thing Obama is doing to hurt small business, ironically enough, is to stop what Bush had started. Bush was infamous for lowering taxes on the nations highest earners, a policy that is set to expire this year, which Obama has the ability to renew. By doing this, small business owners that appear to be among the nation's wealthies people, will get taxed again.

Although Obama is attempting to appeal to the hearts of average Americans by trying to help small business, he is instead raising taxes three times over for small business' that employ more Americans than any other type of business. I was, as most were, mesmorized by Obama's incredible public speaking. It is often hard to think critically of his ideas when they are worded so eloquently, but Obama's new pledges to help small business are not going to compensate for the damages that have already been done.