Sunday, September 05, 2010
Were you watching Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO president, and Todd McCracken, National Small Business Association president, on CNN’s State of the Union this morning? Katrina and I were keeping an eye on Candy Crowley.
The Nation’s Katrina vandenHeuvel tweeted, “AFL’s Richard Trumka a strong & welcome voice on CNN this am. Candy Crowley sure seemed skittish w/some of what he said.”
I paid most attention to the last question in the segment. Crowley may have been rushed, but I think she rushed to misjudge the very issue she was trying to straighten out.
- She played a clip of Joe Biden countering the Republican argument that raising taxes on the richest 2 percent of Americans would hurt small business. “Not 3 percent of the small businesses in America would benefit one single, solitary penny of extending that top 2 percent tax cut,” Biden said.
- Then she said to the small biz association guy, “Mr. McCracken, clear this up for us, because every time we start on this—start down this tax cut thing and the $250,000 mark, what we hear is this is going to hurt small businesses.”
- And he gave an answer conceding that only a fraction of small businesses would be affected (pundits on the Right will be ignoring that bit). ”...this is the wrong time to increase taxes on anybody, because the companies that do pay this tax—and it is a minority of small companies, for sure—but the ones that do are the more successful ones who are most likely to be growing jobs and the ones that we want to continue to be successful and we don’t want to put disincentives in place for them to do it. But the vice president is correct that it is only a fraction of small companies that pay taxes at…”
- And Candy interrupted, insisting “But those companies that tend to create most of the jobs?”
- Trumka, the union guy, inserts “It’s not fair to—it’s not fair to say most of the jobs. They create some of the jobs, not most of the jobs.
- And Candy again seeks to support the myth. “Well, most of the jobs within the small-business industry.”
- Trumka can’t let it stand, because it’s not true. “Not most of the jobs within the small businesses. They’re not created by the 3 percent. They’re created—the vast majority are created by the other 97 percent. So it’s not fair to say most jobs are created by that top 3 percent, because they are—are not.”
- Candy lets the small biz association guy have the last word.
Is she taking a side on this, or doesn’t she understand? Either way it didn’t work out so well (unless this was an audition for Fox News). Sure sounded to me as though she was advancing the conservative (and erroneous) side of the argument, even to the point of helping out the association spokesperson when he was conceding too much ground.
I would like to see Trumka on TV even more. He’s sharp, knows policy—and he looks like your plumber. Can’t hang an elitist label on that guy.
I will embed the video when or if it becomes available. This part of the interview was not included in the clips featured on the CNN site, but once the video podcast has been pushed out maybe you can see it in the whole-show video. Maybe not. They might just excerpt it; it’s a long show. Somebody must capture all of every show. Media Matters? Are you interested in this?
Here is the transcript.
CROWLEY: Let me ask you about one—one final policy, and that is about the Bush tax cuts. As you know, they are scheduled to be—to expire in January. This president wants to keep them for anyone who makes $250,000 per household or under. I want you to listen to Joe Biden a little bit ago on this subject.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: The only argument that our colleagues, our Republican colleagues make is, well, this is really going to hurt small business if you don’t extent the entire Bush tax cuts. Here are the facts: 3, not 3 percent of the small businesses in America would benefit one single, solitary penny of extending that top 2 percent tax cut. So this is just a bunch of malarkey. (END VIDEO CLIP)
CROWLEY: Mr. McCracken, clear this up for us, because every time we start on this—start down this tax cut thing and the $250,000 mark, what we hear is this is going to hurt small businesses. Is this overall a drain on small businesses? Should the tax rates expire on those making $250,000 and up?
MCCRACKEN: We think this is the wrong time to have taxes go up for—for small companies, because they do pay taxes at this rate, so we think Congress should at least temporarily extend…
(CROSSTALK)
CROWLEY: For everyone?
MCCRACKEN: Yes, these taxes, because this is the wrong time to increase taxes on anybody, because the companies that do pay this tax—and it is a minority of small companies, for sure—but the ones that do are the more successful ones who are most likely to be growing jobs and the ones that we want to continue to be successful and we don’t want to put disincentives in place for them to do it.
But the vice president is correct that it is only a fraction of small companies that pay taxes at…
(CROSSTALK)
CROWLEY: But those companies that tend to create most of the jobs?
MCCRACKEN: Exactly. The jobs aren’t spread across evenly across all small companies.
CROWLEY: OK. All right. And you’ve got the last…
TRUMKA: It’s not fair to—it’s not fair to say most of the jobs. They create some of the jobs, not most of the jobs.
CROWLEY: Well, most of the jobs within the small-business industry.
TRUMKA: Not most of the jobs within the small businesses. They’re not created by the 3 percent. They’re created—the vast majority are created by the other 97 percent. So it’s not fair to say most jobs are created by that top 3 percent, because they are—are not.
CROWLEY: I’ll give you the last word.
(CROSSTALK)
MCCRACKEN: Well, there’s the question of job creation versus jobs—jobs that exist. Most small businesses—most jobs exist in—in the other businesses, but I think the more successful, growing companies that pay the higher rates are creating most of the new jobs, so it depends on how you look at it.
CROWLEY: Todd McCracken, it always comes out (inaudible) Todd McCracken, Richard Trumka, thank you so much for joining us. Happy Labor Day to you both. TRUMKA: Happy Labor Day to you.
CROWLEY: Up next, what the numbers say about President Obama’s handling of the economy and why that could erase his Democratic majority in Congress.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Sydney is so pleased with this offhand phone camera portrait, believing she looks both thoughtful and knowing, that she is inspired to write a book, just so this can appear on the jacket.
Friday, August 20, 2010
I hope the president isn’t listening to criticism of his vacation. Favorable comparisons against Bush’s long weeks of brush clearing at Crawford can’t be admitted by the Right because, after all, the Cape Cod vacation fits the “Obama as elitist dilettante” narrative. Until tomorrow. Then he might be a Chicago thug if that description would fuel the conflagration better in the circumstance.
Determined critics simply will not be pleased. Not if Obama swore off leisure time for the balance of his term. Heck, I don’t think some people would be mollified if we passed a law that required him to stay in the Oval Office 24 hours a day in a 4’ x 4’ cage sitting at a school desk.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Last week I mused about the president’s problem with big business and suggested that the administration make a bigger deal of help for small businesses.
NPR aired a story about Obama and business today:
A Chamber of Commerce spokesman in the piece talks about a “tsunami of regulation emanating from the administration.” With the financial crisis and the oil spill so fresh in everybody’s memory it is hard to imagine there is much of a demand for easing up on regulation, but who knows what they will be able to get people riled up about. You wouldn’t have thought there would be a market for fretting about the deficit either.
Then there’s taxes. Regulation and taxes is always the conservative mantra. I don’t buy the argument that raising the tax rate by a couple of percentage points discourages investment and the entrepreneurial spirit. Say your business is looking at a terrific opportunity that will require a $100,000 investment and you anticipate a gross return of 20 percent, $13,000 after taxes. Would a looming tax increase of 2 percent, meaning you would only see $12,600, make you do a total 180 on the great idea and say “Nope, forget it then. My spirit is broken.”
The Chamber is holding a jobs summit tomorrow.
I still think talking more about small business would be a smart move. There’s even a small business jobs bill in play right now but you don’t hear a thing about it.
At the end of the NPR story the reporter opines that reaching out to the business world would alienate liberal voters. I don’t think you would find a lot of libs having a problem with the president reaching out to small business.
It was hard not to notice that my iPad is just the size of a composition book when I was carrying the two in a stack.
So I couldn’t help but think an iPad cover/case that looks like a comp book would be cute. You could scan a book, maybe cartoonize it a little, and have the fabric printed up by Spoonflower. Then probably pad it and wrap it around an actual comp book.
The fastening part, I don’t know. Maybe elastic at the corners, but it would have to be really tight. You wouldn’t want the device to slip out. I’m constantly afraid of dropping mine and cracking it. (I dropped an iPhone on a concrete patio once and it nearly broke my heart.) Thing is I don’t take mine out much. It seems to like staying at home with me.
Friday, July 09, 2010
I’m sorry to see the White House bending to the will of the Right and Center, and going on a campaign to insist that Obama is not anti-business. This PR initiative—along with his nod to the deficit hawks—seems like a form of Clinton’s famous triangulation strategy—observe and tally up opinion numbers to see which way the wind is blowing, then say you’re for that.
Afterthought: Or maybe, as Paul Krugman says, it’s not public polling that sways the strategy, it’s news reports.
Big business has run amok—big oil, big health, big banks, but he could make a distinction that might prove interesting. It would make sense to double down on efforts you don’t hear enough about to help smaller businesses and entrepreneurs, where the real innovation and job growth comes from. Pump that up and make a big deal of it because it’s fair and smart. As a bonus it takes an arrow out of the Republicans’ quiver because the GOP and the Chamber of Commerce like to trot out the plight of small business when they really are shilling for huge business. See where they stand if a tax incentive were rolled out that dramatically favored tiny businesses and phased it down to zero at the 25th percentile of annual revenues.
By the way, the beneficiaries of help for small businesses aren’t always the smiling mom and pop retail store owners you see pictured in GOP pollster PowerPoints. I think one definition of a small business is 500 employees or less, which could be represented by a slightly different photo: a sprawling three-story complex in your average office park.
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
My Mom turns 80 tomorrow. It’s a big number, but she doesn’t seem that old to me.
She must be the greatest little kid’s mom ever. She read to me constantly, probably starting when I was less than two years old, and I’m always grateful for that. We had a family custom that called for me (and my brother, too, I guess) to close a book hard enough to make a big whopping sound when we finished it. It meant “Hey, Mama, I made it through that whole book.” Then she would call out, from wherever she was in the house, “Very good!”
One summer when we missed the deadline to register for city rec swimming classes she drove my brother and me way out of town two or three times a week to a lake where classes were still available. She taught me to play to piano and encouraged us kids to take dancing lessons and tennis lessons and sing in the church choir.
She and my dad are great grandparents, too. They flew my kids to Florida every spring break for years and sported them about to every amusement park you’ve ever heard of, always letting them choose the parks, the rides, and the food.
Mom’s a wonderful decorator, with a load of taste. She like colors like I do, and sees ideas for combinations of colors everywhere. I’ve always thought that was proof that she’s really creative and wicked smart in the sense that she can bridge concepts from disparate realms. For example, she might get an idea for a color for throw pillows against the color of a sofa by spotting a woman on the street wearing a scarf that looks nice with the color of her coat. I can’t do that.
I love her. Many more, Mom.
Sunday, July 04, 2010
Updated 7/4/2010, because I’m getting more interested in this, and thinking about attending the Tri-Centennial celebrations.
My folks from Germany arrived at Governors Island 300 years ago in June. By October 1710 they were encamped at Germantown to manufacture ship stores for the British crown. The tar making didn’t work out at all and the clan moved twice, ultimately settling in what is now Herkimer County, NY. (The approximate period and location depicted in ”Drums Along the Mohawk.”)
I like the tradition, but don’t feel anything like pride of aristocracy—I’m just proud to have blood that’s been American for a long long time—since Isaac Newton’s time, think of that. It’s not hoity-toity in the least; they were farmers and carpenters, and militia members as early as the French and Indian war. They were scrappy and sort of assholes. One story about the Mohawk years from Philip Otterness’ Becoming German tells of a gang of Palatine women riding a tax collector out of town on a rail and peeing on him. Very early tea partiers. A namesake of my line’s patriarch had no use for Tories.
My Bellinger line, as far as my dad has been able to figure out: me > Richard > Vernon > Ellis > Adam > Phillip > Adam > Philip > Philip (Known as Lips!) > Johannes. My oldest son is called Adam and my last name is his middle name.
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