President Obama Supports Small Business Saturday
President Barack Obama showed support for small businesses Saturday when he took his daughters on an early Christmas shopping trip. The retail sector in the United States has already anticipating the rush this holiday season.
The president promoted Small Business Saturday, which encourages consumers to support independently-owned local shops. He took his daughters Malia and Sasha to One More Page Books in Arlington, Virginia, which is a suburb of Washington, DC.
In the past two decades, small businesses have made two of every three jobs in the United States. The Obama administration said that it wants to cut taxes for small businesses and expand entrepreneurs’ access to financial solutions. It is the administration’s way to boost job growth of the nation.
Both small businesses and larger retailers will find out whether the looming fiscal cliff that threatens to increase taxes and automatically cut spending in January will affect the consumers and hold back their spending this holiday season. President Obama and Congress have ongoing talks to reach a compromise to avoid the $600 billion in spending cuts and tax increases that will affect the economy at the start of 2013.
The White House said that President Obama purchased 15 children’s books that will be given as Christmas gifts to family members. The president declined to comment on the upcoming fiscal cliff and said that he’s doing Christmas shopping with his daughters.
Last year, more than 100 million American consumers shopped locally on Small Business Saturday. This was according to an estimate made by American Express. Small businesses that took part in the initiative used social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to promote their deals and attract customers.
Small Businesses Saturday urged consumers to go to local businesses after Black Friday, which is the nation’s busiest shopping day at major retailers that is the day after Thanksgiving.
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Are you kidding me??? This is the same person who is KILLING small businesses! What people don’t realize is that his “little” tax increase of 5% for small businesses hurts their ability to employ people to work for them by 18%!! He HATES small business and he’s not afraid to show it, simple as that. Don’t let the charisma fool you, Americans; that man is destroying every principle upon which this country was founded.
Sheryl.
The tax cuts for the rich have been in place for 10 years. Where are the jobs. oh check your facts. Republicans have blocked tax cuts for small bussiness’s throughout the last 4 years. And the definition of small bussiness as it stands includes multi millionnares like Trump, Romney and even Obama. These people earn millions of dollars every year. Let’s talk small family bussiness’s that earn btwn 250k and 750k. And this group of individuals would benefit from the blocked initiative’s, blocked by republicans. Your beef with the president is about something else. Skin Colo maybe?
That’s nice, but I’m definitely not a racist. His color is actually the one thing I don’t hate about him; we’ve overcome racism a lot in certain ways in this country. Nice guess, though.
“Supports Small Business ” and who do these small bussinesses support? Do they hire 5-10 workers and pay them benefits? How do they make it better? what about other people who are looking to be employed…are these samll businesses gonna hire them?…
Sheryl, we cannot repair this country if people like you are shooting off utter nonsense. For you to declare with such fluffy “outrage” that Obama “HATES” small business is inane, if not insane. Obama lowered middle-class taxes in his first four years, and that includes 97% of all true small businesses.
Grandstanding!
While I won’t claim that Obama hates small businesses, he surely doesn’t understand what they need to be successful. Many of Obama’s actions over the last four years have been decimating to the growth potential of small businesses. The Affordable Healthcare act being the worst. A small business of 51 employees, now has to make the decisions to either downsize to >50 or pay the extortion fee (sorry tax). In the last 4 years, the amount of regulations added to the books has grown exponentially. If you really want to spur growth in the small business sector, stop grandstanding and get the governments noses out of it.
There were numerous “tax cuts” to small businesses in the last 4 years, but mostly, they were incentives for small business investment. Here is a list:
From the 2009 stimulus, the Affordable Care Act, and other legislation:
• A new small-business health care tax credit.
• A tax credit for hiring unemployed workers in 2010.
• Temporary extension of bonus depreciation tax incentives to support new investment.
• 75 percent exclusion of small-business capital gains, for stock acquired in 2009 and 2010.
• Temporary expansion of limits on small-business expensing.
• Five-year carryback of net operating losses, available through fall 2009.
• Reduction of the built-in gains holding period for small businesses to seven years, from 10, in 2009 and 2010.
• Temporary small-business estimated tax payment relief.
Tax provisions in the 2010 Small Business Jobs Act (both The Agenda and the I.R.S. have published summaries):
• 100 percent exclusion of small-business capital gains, for stock acquired in late 2010 and 2011.
• A further increase to the expensing limit to $500,000 for 2011 (in 2012, the limit falls to $139,000).
• A further extension of 50 percent bonus depreciation through 2010.
• A new deduction for health care expenses for the self-employed in 2010.
• Tax relief and simplification for cellphone deductions.
• An increase in the deduction for entrepreneurs’ start-up expenses in 2010.
• A five-year carry-back of general business credits in 2010.
• Lower penalties for failing to report listed (that is, abusive) tax shelters.
Since then, the president has added two more tax cuts to the list, according to a Small Business Administration spokeswoman, who supplied an update:
• Increasing bonus depreciation to 100 percent for 2011 (from the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010, the compromise law that keeps the Bush income tax cuts in place through this year; for 2012, bonus depreciation falls to 50 percent and then expires).
• Tax credits for hiring veterans, ranging from $2,400 to $9,600 (from the Veterans Opportunity to Work to Hire Heroes Act of 2011).
When the economy is in the tank, why would simply cutting tax rates be the answer? Do you think that these business men would just miraculously hire more and reinvest the extra cash? I am personally proud of this president’s record on taxes and small business.
As a small businessman, I think it’s fine that the President came out and made a public purchase at a small business on Saturday. Whether you like him or not, he is the President, and when he does something, especially something outside his normal day, it gets noticed.
I do wish he would have used the $50/3 rule, spreading $50 over 3 businesses, rather than just spending at one. It would have said a little more about the “breadth” of small business, where this could be interpreted as a statement just about bookstores.
Heh… small businesses… incompetent crooks. Large corporations… smart crooks.
Hell, I might as well save a buck and deal with the pro’s.
Terrible article…OMGZ Obama helps small business by shopping at it!!!
What about all the rest?