The typical Republican dodge to make it look like they don’t simply support handing out $100,000 checks to millionaires is that increases on the high-end marginal tax brackets would hurt “small businesses” at a sensitive time for the nation’s economy. I can give you multiple reasons why this just isn’t true. First off, Democrats and [...]

The Senate today passed their small business jobs bill, passing cloture again on the final bill with the same 61 votes as before, all the Democrats plus George Voinovich and George LeMieux. The bill would create a $30 billion dollar small business lending fund for community banks to dole out, and would add a series [...]

It’s a small point, and I’ve said it before, but it needs amplifying. The passage of the small business jobs bill in Congress will help on the margins with businesses who have seen their credit lines shrink for various reasons. But ultimately, that’s not the central issue in the problems of small business hiring. And [...]

The Senate will invoke cloture on the small business bill today, with the support of Republican George Voinovich of Ohio and George LeMieux of Florida. Right now it looks like they’re waiting on some final votes as Senators get to the chamber, but this will pass. I’ll update with final numbers in a bit. UPDATE: [...]

Around 11am et, the Senate will begin a complicated series of votes on the small business bill. First an amendment from Mike Johanns (R-NE), then from Bill Nelson (D-FL), then a substitute amendment on the whole bill from Max Baucus will get cloture votes. If the Johanns amendment clears cloture, there will be 30 hours [...]

Congress returns to session today with a long list of legislation to work out, but precious little time — 3-4 weeks — to do it. I’m going to take a look at the bills that Congress will tackle in this session, ranked from most likely to pass into law to least likely: • Small business [...]

I want to know who was the genius in the White House who thought it was a good idea to pass around a press release touting the “eight small business tax cuts” that the Administration has passed since being in office. 1. A New Small Business Health Care Tax Credit 2. A New Tax Credit [...]

I knew that Jack Reed and Jeff Merkley had to be confident about the small business lending bill for a reason. George Voinovich (R-OH) has announced his support for the bill. Retiring Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) said he plans to help push a package of small-business incentives through the Senate next week, a move that [...]

On a conference call about the small business bill today, Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) both strongly supported the Bush tax cut plan put forward by the President, and rejected any proposal for extending the tax cuts at the high end. They also said that the votes look to be there for [...]

Today’s announcement of a $200 billion dollar program to allow businesses to write off their capital expenditures up front in 2010 and 2011 at full cost (which would only cost $30 billion in the long run) hasn’t received the widest reception from the economic profession, as the NY Times’ Economix blog notes. I’ve already mentioned [...]

One of the major elements of the health care law which the Administration and its advocates have touted as an immediate measure is the small business tax credit to purchase health care for employees. (by law, every legislation in America must now include a “small business tax credit.” By the way, those claims that 195% [...]