RNC Women

With just weeks to go until the November elections, President Obama and congressional Democrats are hitting the campaign trail in a last ditch effort to save their majority in Congress and with it the fate of the Obama agenda.  With their poll numbers in free fall, and more and more pundits predicting a Republican takeover, Democrats are trying to convince the voters that they have been concerned about job creation this whole time, despite unemployment numbers that have lingered at nearly 10 percent for 17 consecutive months. 

The reason Democrat hopes are fading is that the economic policies of the Obama Administration and the Pelosi Congress are helping to keep small businesses small.  The refusal of the Democrats to renew the Bush tax cuts for every American has led to uncertainty by investors and small businesses, and the hundreds of billions of dollars in borrowed stimulus spending has helped grow the government’s debt but largely bypassed America’s working families.  Even worse, the ObamaCare health reform bill enacted into law this year actually provides disincentives that prevent small business – the engine of job growth – from creating jobs. 

According to a study from the National Center for Policy Analysis, ObamaCare provides a 50 percent tax credit to companies who provide health benefits and have fewer than 10 employees.  The tax credit falls as small businesses hire employees.  And once a company hires its 26^th employee, the tax credit is lost entirely. 

But ObamaCare doesn’t stop there.  According to a Heritage Foundation study, “Beginning in 2014, Obamacare will begin imposing taxes—to help offset the cost of individual employees receiving premium subsidies through the to-be-established state health insurance exchanges—on companies with 50 ‘full-time equivalents’ that do not offer an ‘acceptable’ level of health insurance coverage.”  This provision is leading many companies to wait to grow beyond 50 employees until the impact of the impending taxes in 2014 is clear. 

At a time when the average job seeker has been unemployed for more than 33 weeks, and with more than 2.6 million net jobs lost since the Democrat stimulus was signed into law, the American people are tired of waiting for action.  They don’t want a health reform bill that penalizes job creation, or a Congress that refuses to grant tax relief to get the economy moving again.  They want a majority in Congress that will help small businesses become bigger businesses, not the other way around.