Home Truths from Small Business

Mr. President are you listening? Caroline Baum, Bloomberg,"Small Business Has Some News for Big Government":

Small- business owners list “poor sales” as the numero uno problem. And the jobs tax credit for hiring new workers, proposed by President Obama and embraced by Congress, won’t do much to help. Employers aren’t about to pay a new worker $40,000 to earn a $5,000 credit unless that worker generates $35,000 of revenue, Dunkelberg explains. That’s Econ 101 (see “marginal revenue product” or “profit maximization”), a course most of our elected representatives seem to have missed.

The tax credit for hiring “has absolutely no impact on our decision-making,” says Phil Kenny, president of Trucks Unique, an Albuquerque, New Mexico, company that customizes pick-up trucks for commercial and individual purposes. “We have no tax liability to take a credit against.”

In contrast, we have the hoggish and thuggish unions, an Obama administration favored group, and most Americans have nothing to show for it after a year. Latest disgrace: Union Bosses Target 86-Yr Old Volunteer Crossing Guard

More. STOSSEL: Private Entrepreneurs Forced Into Unions