I dunno. That’s one of the reasons I started the thread. I thought it was weird that the story didn’t reference the bill #, and my googling basically just kept turning up the AP story.
Maybe another thing we could discuss is, if this was important enough to merit mention in the press, why wasn’t the fucking bill # listed as well?
Myself, I figured we have enough people here who seem strident enough in their belief that Obama is anti-business, I figured at least one of them would know about this bill if only to be able to crow loudly about how shitty it was, etc.
I mean, how do they know he’s anti-business if they don’t know what he wants to do for businesses?
Gotcha. Lots of words there. I saw a lot of tax credits, grants, etc… with the only counterveiling revenue in Sec 533:
Not sure how this could be rev neutral (and to Shodan’s point, any spending when you are living on credit cards is by definition “not paid for” - that was the big lie behind the healthcare bill being ‘paid for’).
Well, he’s increasingly bad at it. But even lacking that, the Bill s written is rather pointless and won’t do much, except possible provide Democrats with more opportunities for graft.
What parts of the bill do you think will be ineffective at achieving the goals outlined for reasons for passage? Do you think these parts are poorly worded and so can’t be properly acted upon, or that the actions themselves will be unsuccessful? Or is there another direction that you think this bill should have taken?
What should be written differently to better accomplish the goals of the bill? Or do you think the reason for the bill itself is also spurious and think that no bill addressing these concerns should have been written?
Short: Making credit available to small businesses is nice, but this bill is indirect, insufficient for the purpose, and fails at the primary need. And at the cost of effectively increasing taxes, it may create a net decrease in economic activity.
Longer: The bill actually gives lines of credit to banks making loans. Aside from putting the government on the hook (and despite what it says, depending on other interest rates the Treasury could take a huge bath on this, not a gain), there’s little there to make sure it actually goes to small businesses. The banks could easily take the cash and lend it to, because the restrictions on portfolios are pretty light. Plus, it’s not entirely clear how the bill actually defines small business. I expect to see the money (very indirectly), go to big businesses. And it will be of great comfort to the bankers.
Further, it is an Utter Fail because small businesses, though facing tight creit, are much more worried about weak demand and uncertainty - the later msotly caused by the government. The tax and investment section could be nice, but capital gains taxes are not what real small businesses are mostly worried about. Most don’t have stock, and this just artificially makes them more attractive to investors without repairing the ground issues. The other subissues I don’t really have an opinion upon. The tax code needs a complete overhaul, not patches. Likewise, increasing business deductions is nice, I guess, but it’s a minor change either way. Smal business owners aren’t going to change their investments and strategies over this.
The tax increases are pretty pointless. I’m dubious about the tall oil clause because I’m not certain that any of it should qualify for the credit. This calls for a much more significant patch than is here, or it doesn’t need to be changed and is a stealth tax increase. The second item is praobably pointless because I really, really doubt it will actually change the tax gain. There are always other loopholes - and your Democratic friends use them all. I really, really doubt this will actually be revenue neutral, much less positive.
This kind of sounds like, “We found some more money, let’s go spend it!!!”
I’m all for encouraging access to capital for businesses, but shouldn’t government lending policy and revenue collection be completely separate decisions?
If the loan program is NPV positive for the country, the government should just sell bonds like it does for everything else. In business cash is fungible. You don’t explicitly pay for one project with the cash from another. If there’s a capital outlay that makes sense, you don’t increase your current prices (because they should already be optimally priced anyway). You just go raise new capital.
Or… are the “loopholes” not really loopholes, with closing them being an underhanded tax increase? Don’t know, just asking.
May favorite part of the narrative is this: “The Democrats have just about enough votes to prevent the Republicans from using outmoded, anti-democratic procedures to prevent a vote on bills that would pass by a simple majority. Therefore when virtually all Republicans prevent a bill from reaching the floor, and are joined by one or two Democrats (and whatever the fuck Lieberman is), it is the Democrats’ fault.”