Small Businesses Speak Out Against Donald Trump's Tax Plan

"Tax cuts skewed towards the wealthy elite starve our communities of much-needed resources while further tilting the scales towards large corporations and the rich."

- Stephen Rouzer at Main Street Alliance

If you cut taxes for the rich and giant corporations, what happens to the rest of us? Tax cuts mean budget cuts, so what suffers is education, infrastructure and all kinds of things government does to make our lives better and our local businesses stronger.

Republicans argue that pushing wealth and income to the top few has a "trickle down" effect. They say wealthy people (like Paris Hilton) are "makers" who "create jobs" and therefore deserve to have heaps of money pushed their way for their benefit. They say that government spending on things that make the lives of We the People better really just makes us into "takers."

But in reality, policies that push more and more of our country's resources into the largest hands put our smaller hands at even more of a disadvantage. The giant corporations have huge advantages over small, local businesses just due to their size; huge tax breaks on top of their size-given advantages just make it that much harder for smaller businesses to compete. So the "WalMart business model" of undercutting and bankrupting a community's small businesses and draining entire regions of wealth gains even more power. After decades of these "trickle down" policies, this is also known as "look around you."

Trump's Tax Plan Means Fewer Customers With Money To Spend At Local Businesses

The Main Street Alliance is a "is a national network of small business coalitions" that "works to provide small businesses a voice on the most pressing public policy issues across the nation." (Donate here.)

A Main Street Alliance blog post by Stephen Rouzer, "Donald Trump's Revised Tax Plan Won't Work for Main Street," begins,

The latest version of Donald Trump’s ever-changing tax plan is facing scrutiny from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and Main Street Alliance leaders. The plan, one that features across the board tax cuts, disproportionately benefits the highest-income earners, those grossing more than $1 million annually.

This description of Trump's plans as a huge benefit to the wealthiest is based on a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) post explaining a Tax Policy Center (TPC) analysis of Donald Trump's tax proposals. The CBPP post, "Revised Trump Tax Plan Heavily Tilted Toward Wealthiest, Tax Policy Center Analysis Shows" explains how the analysis shows that Trump's tax cut raise the after-tax income of the already-wealthy by another 14% or more, while hardly benefiting the rest of us – or even cutting the take-home incomes of the poorest.

This would seriously affect small, local businesses. Rouzer explains how passing so much to the top few while starving the rest of us means local businesses have fewer customers with money to spend:

A 2015 report released by the Main Street Alliance, “Voices of Main Street,” surveyed over 1000 small business owners and found that 52 percent of respondents cited “more customers” as the most important key to increasing small business success. Doubling the number of respondents that said “lower taxes” and more than quadrupling the number that responded “fewer regulations.” Tax cuts skewed towards the wealthy elite starve our communities of much-needed resources while further tilting the scales towards large corporations and the rich.

Rouzer concludes with some great comments from business owners:

“To level the playing field for Main Street businesses our tax code must no longer skew in favor of large corporations and their shareholders,” said Deborah Field, the owner of Paperjam Press in Portland, Oregon, and a former corporate tax accountant. “Without holding multinational corporations accountable to pay what they owe and first providing relief to low and middle-income earners we shouldn’t begin to consider tax cuts for the rich.” [...] “The vast majority of small business owners don’t support a tax system that augments their piece of the pie by cheating their fellow citizens out of theirs. When we contribute our fair share of taxes, those dollars get reinvested in our local communities,” said David Borris, the owner of Hel’s Kitchen Catering in Chicago and Main Street Alliance Executive Committee member. “Local communities that support tens of millions of small businesses nationally.”

Amanda Ballantyne, national director of the Main Street Alliance, says that "Mr. Trump's tax breaks would deprive the government of badly needed funds for investments in infrastructure, transportation, education, and social services. The resulting budget cuts hinder the types of investments that drive local economies and put small businesses in a better position to succeed."

The kind of tax policy that small businesses need is one that supports their customer base and their communities. "In that regard, Trump's plan falls flat," says Ballantyne.

Donald Trump wants to dramatically cut taxes for the already-wealthy and their giant corporations. This would starve local communities of resources like teachers and infrastructure, while stacking the deck further against smaller, local businesses.