Well, if you cut taxes low enough, they can afford a third home and they will need to hire a part-time landscaper and a part-time house cleaner.  Serfish industry job growth.

The problem is, when most voters hear "small business", they think of the local pest control service, the "Mom & Pop" store (if there are any anymore), or even the little indie pizza place or sandwich shop. When this term was being bandied about several years ago by Republicans, they capitalized on the large scale ignorance of the fact that a "small business" was something on the range of a $5 million operation in those days, and it would probably be $10 million today, or more.

When Bush the elder made a show of visiting a "small business" in Texas, the choice was semiconductor operation that "Mom & Pop" wouldn't know what their product was even for, or who would buy it -- nor could they begin to show the investment needed to establish it. The assets of this "small business" were clearly the stuff of the well-to-do.

Of course, the people who run these types of businesses are not only shrewd and financially nimble, but they have crack professional help in planning their financial strategies. They are going to get the most of any tax credits or other benefits with a minimum of investment in the society -- workers.

We need a public works and job training program that that cuts out the money making, debt driven middle man.

if there's little or no demand for your product or service, your marginal tax rate is pretty much irrelevant, because you're not going to be paying it anyway.

And if demand came roaring back the other issues, to a degree, would fade.

But everyone I know is expecting the Bush tax cuts to NOT be extended for ANYONE. That means everyone who pays FIT expects their taxes to increase. And the numbers who do not pay simply cannot increase demand because they do not have enough money.

Tax credits don't work as we have seen in the new home purchaser program and the cash for clunkers fiasco. All that does is rearrange the deck chairs on the Obama Recession.

Why not make the tax cuts permanent? And, when the economy recovers, then increase taxes on the "rich."

Why not take cap and trade off the table? Why not say we are going to quit borrowing and remove the fear of government induced inflation?

Why not put Obamacare on hold and start over, eliminating the fear that premiums won't be going out of sight for both businesses and individuals?

And the answer is.....

Because high taxes and command and control economics is the bedrock of the modern progressive Democrats. And they have control of the Executive and the Congress.

So what we have here is a double edge sword. First we have the lack of demand.

And secondly we see a great deal of uncertainty over taxes, both corporate and personal, followed by uncertainty over the cost of benefits (health care) and capped off with a fear that a cap and trade program will drastically increase the cost of energy and other raw materials at all levels.

And there is another, let me call it a dagger, that business people feel aimed at their hearts.

Inflation. More and more people are starting to be concerned that we will not be able to pay back the trillion or so that we have borrowed. A historic solution to that problem by governments is to inflate the currency.

Best way to put cash in broked*ck hands?  Tax rebate checks like G-Dub's 6 hundo would help I think...or an income tax holiday for those under 50k or something like that.