A number of progressive political activists and small business owners in Concord gathered on Dec. 19, calling on Congress to raise taxes on the so-called richest 2 percent, individual wage earners at $200,000 and households above $250,000, while preserving lower taxes for everyone else and having the federal government spend more money on health care and job creation.
The Action NH, a joint project of New Hampshire Citizens Alliance for Action and Granite State Progress, gathered four business owners and managers at Capitol Craftsman and Romance Jewelers on Main Street, to talk about their concerns about the buying power of lower wage earning consumers, their own healthcare and overall business costs and earnings. It was one of a number of events the effort is hosting around the state to galvanize support for higher taxes on the wealthy as part of a fiscal cliff deal.
Sue McCoo, the owner of the store, who is also a nurse, commended the importance of spending more money on education via taxes and said she would like to have a ?good year so that I can pay taxes.?
?There?s nothing wrong with paying a little more,? she said. ?That means you?re doing well. Take care of your neighbors. It?s a good thing to do.?
Imagination Village, which has been in business for 12 years, is own by Laura Miller. She said her store ? what she called a ?micro-business? had seen better years. Miller said that fiscal cliff would bring on more conservative decisions and less consumer spending which would hurt her business.
Miller said she ?laughed? when she heard that $400,000 was a good threshold to raise higher taxes when the average household in Concord was around $75,000 and struggling. She said that the fiscal cliff would raise taxes on lower and middle-income workers who need the money to survive.
?We?re not there in this economy,? she said. ?We need people to have that money in their pockets.?
Don Brueggeman, a former state representative, and the manager of The Works, called the economy ?tenuous? and was not the time to have middle-class tax cuts expire. He said he would ?hate to see that held hostage? to preserve tax cuts for multi-millionaires.
?We need to make sure we balance our deficit reduction with reasonable cuts ? and also people who have done very well to contribute a little bit more,? he said. ?Really, taxes, is a privilege to be able to contribute.?
State Rep. Lorrie Carey, D-Boscawen, the owner of Marshall?s Flowers, said she was the third generation working in her shop and probably the last due to the difficulty running a small business.
?I pull no punches ? it?s hard,? she said.
Carey said her children were carrying large amounts of student debt and she too was heading back to school to take on another career. She felt as if she was ?slipping out of the middle-class? due to the difficult economy. At the same time, Carey said middle-class residents couldn?t afford to pay more in taxes, something that will be brought without a sequestration deal.
?We need them spending money at small businesses,? she said, of customers. ?We need the reassurance the government can give us by not pushing us over that fiscal cliff.?
During a question and answer period, the activists were asked if it was really fair to raise taxes on those families making $250,000 in a household who, depending on where they lived, weren?t really ?millionaires? or ?the rich.?
Sarah Chaisson-Warner, the executive director of New Hampshire Citizens Alliance, said the $250,000 was based on taxable incomes that would be much higher than base incomes. Most people in the service sector and other social circles, she noted, would consider people making more than $300,000 to be wealthy.
Miller said the difference were people making $400,000 or $1 million paying more versus everyone paying more. She added that it was about who could afford to pay more and keep their quality of life. Miller said it was difficult for small business owners to pay for increased health care costs while still shouldering higher taxes.
?There?s a sense of fairness that it is more equitable to have someone paying $300,000 to take a little hit whereas someone who makes $50,000 takes a gigantic hit,? she said.
McCoo saw the problem as more people slipping out of the middle-class, adding that historically, that was one of the things that made America different from other countries.
?The innovation in the United States was the middle-class,? she said. ?It?s getting thinner and thinner.?
Brueggeman said if there is a stronger economy, there would be more tax revenue. But taxing the middle-class more takes money away from people who will actually spend it.
?That?s what we need right now,? he said. ?We need to focus on growing the economy.?
miracle andy whitfield kennedy demi moore roy oswalt kevin martin 2012 senior bowl
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