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Don’t Overtax the American Dream
Government Alone Should Take Responsibility for its Spending

The President made quite a splash with his comments concerning who made what in the private sector. In light of such disconnect, it is no wonder he is proposing tax increases that will hit nearly 1 million small businesses this next year.

The takeaway from his July remarks may be boiled down to this:  It’s not your “smarts,” it’s not your hard work. Luck and government share credit for your success.

Ask the entrepreneur who has taken real risk if that rings true.

Ask the small business owner who took out a second mortgage to get his company off the ground.

Ask anyone who’s ever risen before dawn to tend to the needs on their farm.

Was Washington a co-laborer in their work? Should Washington claim credit for their success?

Job creators stake their own money and security on their ventures and most do so without the safety net of a government grant or bailout.

In America, not everyone chooses to take those risks and join the ranks of job creators, and among those who do, not everyone succeeds, but that is a symptom of the choice-driven free market that so defines our country.

Inherent in the American psyche is the belief that hard work can change the course of a person’s life.  I know that to be true in my own life, and 63% of Americans share that belief, as opposed to 37% of French, 45% of Dutch, and 46% of Norwegians.

That hope in hard work is among our country’s greatest assets and it is a tragedy the principle was so diminished by our White House.

I have a background as a small businesswoman. Together, my husband Tom and I built an independent nursery and landscaping company in North Carolina more than thirty years ago, and it’s still in our family today.

I’ve seen what it takes to keep a small business afloat. The hours are long, the strain on the family can be significant, and you live with the knowledge that one major economic downturn could spell the end of your life’s work. 

Small businesses like ours operate in a world of bottom lines Washington knows very little about. Unlike Washington, they don’t have the luxury to deficit spend, print more money, or demand their neighbors to chip in to cover expenses.

Government already takes a great deal from small businesses and costs them $10,000 per employee each year to comply with regulations.  That is money businesses are not directing toward hiring new employees. But even with that knowledge, Washington’s regulatory tsunami continues.

So do the taxes.

In a faltering economy job creation is of paramount importance. And when you raise taxes in a struggling economy, jobs are thwarted.  The President acknowledged as much in 2009, but his policies run to the contrary.

Today, he is proposing to raise taxes on 940,000 small business filers, which Ernst & Young predicts will tax 710,000 American jobs out of existence. 

We who know the private sector want to spare the President that lesson. 

Taxes will devastate our economy, increase cost of living, and depress wages for working Americans.  Tax relief for everyone, which a bipartisan majority of the House of Representatives supports, can accomplish the opposite.

Washington didn’t buy the American dream for the small businesses that comprise the backbone of our economy. Nor did Washington show up sick when a shift needed to be covered, miss soccer games because a shipment had to be received, or work graveyard because someone had to do it.

Hard-working Americans did that.

Too quickly we forget that everything the government has it takes from taxpayers.

Washington must remain mindful of this and begin to take responsibility for spending beyond its means. Taxpayers, job creators among them, are not at fault for Washington’s money problems. And if the policies government imposes make it harder for small businesses to create jobs, and strain their ability to invest, it is Washington that will find itself in crisis.