There is a misconception that cutting the tax liability of businesses will create jobs. In my case: FALSE.
I am a small business owner, and cutting my taxes will not create a single job. As a matter of fact, if you cut my taxes, it may just eliminate a few. Why?
Like many small business owners, my family and I run a business in which we employ zero people. Let me say that again. I run a business in which I employ ZERO people. My wife and I handle the sales, web design, shipping, and bookkeeping, while my mother-in-law handles the inventory. We share all responsibilities and profits equally as a family and a corporation.
We make more than enough to support each of us, but we have no desire to expand beyond our current business capabilities to the point that it would require us to employ non-family members on payroll. Truth is, I know of 10 to 15 other small businesses in my small town who are in exactly the same boat, employing few if any non-family members.
So my question to Gov. Romney, how does lowering my tax burden create jobs? If I am given a tax cut of 20% as Romney proposes, that 20% will be taken out of the economy, and will go directly into our savings account. That 20% will gain interest from my bank, taking even more money out of the economy, and there it would sit, hopefully until I can pass it on to my children.
Giving myself, and the millions of other small businesses like mine a tax break will not create a single job. I would consider it a bonus, a corporate bonus, courtesy of the government, and in my pocket it would go.
Which makes me wonder, how will giving any major corporation a tax cut result in more jobs? Businesses only hire when they feel the need to expand, or to raise production. If a business is strong and sound and does not desire to expand, then there is no incentive, no matter how much money you throw at them to employ any additional people. Businesses do not hire people because they want too, they hire people because they NEED too.
So if I, as a corporation, would not increase hiring through a tax decrease, then I fail to see the reason a major corporation would increase hiring just because they have more profit on their books. Wouldn't they just pocket it through bonuses too? It is the goal of business to provide profit, not employment.
Would that money not be better being collected, providing public employment via state and local governments? Governments can always create jobs. There is always work that needs doing, whether this be clerical office work, or even providing funding to private firms to fix our highways and bridges.
That's what I would rather see. Give my neighbor a job, and let him spend money in my business, instead of just handing me the money like I'm on welfare. By doing this you not only provide my family with income and self worth, you also provide the worker, the wholesaler, the manufacturer, the delivery man bringing more goods, and yes even the oil companies to fuel those vehicles with profit. This is how economies should work. Through the exchange of funds for goods and services, not through corporate handouts.
Would I appreciate keeping more of the money that I earn? Sure, who wouldn't. But is it the most responsible and logical way for an economy to work? No freaking way.
6:37 PM PT: I just want to say thank you to everyone who has commented. This is my first diary that has received so much conversation, and I really appreciate it.