Obama says his income tax plan will lower taxes for 95% of Americans. There is just one problem with this, 40% of Americans already pay no income tax. Obama’s response to this is that these people pay Social Security tax. Well, that’s not income tax, but a contribution to their retirement plan. So if he wins and implements his tax plan, for the first time in the history of Social Security, 40% of the people who will get retirement benefits will have paid nothing for them. Social Security will then loose all pretext of being a retirement plan, and will become a national welfare program.

This will cause Social Security to lose public support in a massive way. Leave Social Security contributions out of income tax plans. If you take some peoples income taxes to pay others Social Security taxes, Social Security will be destroyed forever.

http://strategicthought-charles77.blogspot.com/2008/10/obamas-tax-plan-will-destroy-social.html

Actually the bill that McCain co-sponsored was not until 2006, when it was clear it was going nowhere, and it only would have removed all SEC regulation and put in a private advisory board. S 190. The republicans controlled the Senate at that time, it passed committee and never got a vote, but at best it was rearranging chairs on the Titanic.

However, all of the bad mortgages did not cause this mess. A this is a huge mess, look up credit default swaps, http://www.opednews.com/articles/CREDIT-DEFAULT-SWAPS–THE-by-Chuck-Simpson-080924-49.html basically some banks became holding companies and decided to insure mortgages, sounds great, if the buyer doesn’t pay, the bank is covered with insurance, and it likely would have been fine, except anyone and everyone was allowed to pay the premium and collect if a mortgage failed, thousands of people betting against each mortgage. It is the insurance portions of these banks that have broken them, not the mortgage portions.

Make no mistake it was deregulation that started this fiasco, starting with the Gramm/Leach/Bliley Act in 1999
http://library.findlaw.com/1999/Nov/1/127845.html Which allowed banks back into the insurance business if they became holding companies, and was furthered by the Commodities Futures Modernization act of 2000, which allowed them to call insurance swaps, and not be regulated as insurance, thus allowing them to sell multiple policies on the same mortgage.

It is like the mortgages were a drip, and someone decided to go in and cut the faucet off of the pipe and walk away. Since you seem to be a fairly partisan fellow, I am going to point out here that from 2004 until 2006 republicans controlled the house, the senate, and the white house and we know that there were problems because they did hold hearings, and still nothing at all was done.

And knowing your revenue doesn’t give me any idea where you will stand under the Obama tax plan. Nothing is based on revenue, it is all based on net. What is left after expenses and deductions. You can check out the chart here if you are really interested: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/06/09/ST2008060900950.html

Also, the McCain plan will cut taxes for large corporations that often compete with and squash small businesses, no one is considering that, or that the McCain plan will tax health insurance premiums as income for the employee, so I assume that it would increase what both the employee and the employeer are paying in for social security, as that is based on the income of the employee, and you match what they pay.

What is Obama’s plan for businesses generating more than $600k in revenue (as my small business that employs 13 people does)?

The goal is to move the economy forward today

Obama

Increase the minimum wage and index the rate to inflation so that it goes up every year

This helps employees and costs small bussiness. – This is a negative to Small business

Wants to eliminate all capital gains taxes for new business start-ups

Great – But how does this help the economy today? 95% of small businesses fail in 3-5 years. We need to help the small businesses that exist today to grow. – This is good but not effective for results now.

Give a $500 credit to business owners to offset the self-employment tax

I’ll take the $500, but if you own a small business how is $500 going to help you really?

Proposes making the R&D tax credit system permanent.

While this is good, I dont know many small businesses wih R&D. This is not a change only to make permanent.

Give a 50% refundable credit for employee health insurance premiums that are paid by the employer

This is positive… for those that offer health benefits and motivates others to offer health benefits.

Suggests that entrepreneurship in rural America is critical – his solution? Create a small-business and microenterprise initiative where investors can get a 20 percent tax credit for $50,000 investments in small businesses.

Nice but for startups.

Require all employers to automatically enroll workers in 401(k)s or IRAs

Nice but how does this HELP a small business? If anything it is additional administration and expense.

Keep the estate tax rate at 45% and increase the exemption limit to $3.5 million

Love it, but how does it help the small business today?

McCain

Lower the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25%

Immediate benefit. This is a positive

Wants to reduce the chances of taxes going up by requiring a three-fifths majority vote in Congress necessary to raise taxes

Love it, keep the taxes from going up at a whim.

Allow small business owners to expense new equipment and technology purchases in their first year

Good but again startup related.

Proposes creating a permanent ban on Internet taxes (states like New York and Texas are trying to push forward an Internet sales tax initiative)

Ban on taxes good for reducing business adminstration.

Make the R&D tax credit system permanent, but change the formula

Same as above. No benefits keeping the same thing going.

Wants to ban cellphone taxes (federal tax code states business people can only write off the portion of their cell phone bill that applies to business and not personal use)

Helps small business save money.

Create a tax credit system to allow people to buy personal health insurance that they can take with them from job to job

Great but more for the employee than employer.

Reduce the estate tax rate to 15% and increase the exemption limit to $5-10 million

Great, but doesn’t help the business today.

Compare both:…..
And looking at items that actually benefit the employer not employee.

It’s really a 10% tax break against 50% credit on health benefits.

If I look at last years taxes it is a tight race.

As a small business owner I’ll take the guaranteed 10%.

Also, kamullis got it right about the recent bailouts… But I would like to add that both the public and private sectors have the same risk of failure and potential for harm. Becuase both sectors are subject to the same potential risks, the people themselves. If we don’t want to see these things happen again, it is up to us as individuals to do the right thing and think about the ethical social and economic implications of our actions.