I'm sure there are many moderate democrats out there, who still don't comprehend their party has been taken over by radicals and special interests. I'm sure you just want to be democrats as democrats were in the old days, representing the little guy, the working man. You had high hopes for Obama, here was a fine articulate man who spoke so beautifully, and it seemed as if he had a vision similar to your own, and could make a difference, so you voted for him. And as things have gone south with the economy, you've continued to find ways to excuse it, blame it on the previous administration, give Obama every benefit of the doubt, and remain loyal to your democrat philosophy.
Considering you have an emotional tie to your philosophy, it's important to understand how you became caught up in the middle of this Class War, being perpetrated by the radicals of your party. It begins with having you accept a few misnomers, and you eagerly do so, because you are desperately searching for a way to justify remaining a democrat loyalist. The first misnomer is, that people who happen to report a high income on their tax returns, are "rich" or "the wealthy." In some cases, this may be very true, but it is hardly the case all the time. You are asked to accept it is synonymous... high income reported = the rich.
In the US, to be considered a "small business" you have to do two things... 1) you have to employ less than 500 people. And 2) You must report all income on an individual or joint tax return. So, all of these small companies you see out and about, with 30-40 employees... 50-60 employees... 100-250 employees.... hell, 300...400... up to 500 employees... those are ALL small businesses, according to the Federal Government, and MUST file income on a single or joint US income tax return. When we speak of earned income over $200k, this includes all of the large-scale small businesses.
Now... Small business is responsible for most all the jobs created in the private sector. Each one of these jobs created, represents a certain amount of tax revenue, at the much lower middle class rates, of course, but multiplied by 10.. 150.. 499... how many ever employees are hired by the small business. So there is that money, which doesn't get generated if the small business doesn't hire or lays people off. Increasing the small businesses tax rates are not going to encourage them to hire, especially when you couple the tax increase with the uncertainty over cost of health care, which has yet to hit them fully. This can't even be estimated at this time, because the insurance carriers are still adjusting premiums to account for the provisions required. People don't know what it will cost to employ Worker X next year or the year after, a LOT depends on this Obamacare mess, and if it gets repealed.
I've kind of gotten away from the point a bit, but I wanted to clarify just where we are in terms of the actual argument, and now it's time to explain why this is foolish for Democrats. Obama and Company invested a lot of capital (read: stimulus) into a Keynesian approach to policy, and whether you believe in Keynesian policy or not, the results are dismal at best. In order to turn the economy around, you need capitalism from capitalists. There simply isn't another way, Government can't possibly find enough money to spend, to turn around the economic conditions, and the more they try, the further in debt we will go, with nothing to show for it. The ONLY way out of the hole we are in, is through the expansion, and ultimate prosperity, of capitalists! The "rich" have to get richer! That is the ONLY way out of this. As much as it may break your heart, there has to be more disparity between the haves and have nots, because the people with money can't be hobbled to make life fair for the poor, they need to spend that money on becoming prosperous. Rich Greedy Corporations... they need to get richer too... the more rich the better, because the more tax revenues we get. This notion that we can "punish" the rich or the corporations, is counter-intuitive to what you need to accomplish here. If you want to have more money coming in to the coffers, you have to encourage generation of wealth, (i.e. income earning) don't you? If you "punish" a corporation by taking away their profits, how much tax revenue can you gain? In order to increase revenues, they have to make MORE money, not LESS!
