(10-24-2017 05:38 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(10-24-2017 05:06 PM)JustAnotherAustinOwl Wrote:  

(10-23-2017 03:00 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  While not everybody is a right winger and not everybody, right or left, likes Trump, I cannot think of a single person as far left as you seem think is the norm. Maybe they are there and they just keep their opinions to themselves, exactly as I would do if I lived in Austin.

My point wasn't that it was the norm for small business people and entrepreneurs to be on the left, but to refute your assertion that "the left" has contempt for small business people and entrepreneurs. I simply don't think that's the case.

The guy who owns Fred's Tire Center may be a true blue liberal, but when the big guys in Austin and Washington want to tax the "rich" and stop "tax breaks for the rich", it is the guys in the middle, red and blue, who get hurt. The guys in the middle include a lot of small businesses and entrepreneurs. Then they use the excuse that didn't build that. Just adding insult to injury.

The left loves the rich, if they contribute to Democrat candidates. The really rich can avoid the taxes to a large extent, the middle cannot. But who cares?

What about you, JAAO? Do you own your business? If you do, how would you use the tax savings from tax reform?

If you're in the top income tax bracket, you are not in the middle. That's $444,550+ per year (approximately 1% of all couples and 0.1% of singles [https://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2016/07/20/what-tax-brackets-are-americans-in/]. So if the owner of Fred's Tires is making almost $500,000 per year, he is doing quite well and is distinctly in the "rich" category and not the middle class category. Good for him, he has earned that income, likely through hard work, but let's not suggest he is middle class when that is closer to a $50,000 combined income per year.

Or maybe I'm confused by your definition of the middle?

If you're talking about corporate tax rates, I'm not 100% sure where the democratic party stands on changes to those rates and small businesses, but I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted to explicitly avoid raising taxes on small businesses.