Presumably, with all the extended tax breaks and new investment, we can expect those new jobs to start trickling down any decade now....

Banks protected from prosecution for feloniously issued loans benefited nicely. They even get credits for loan interest reductions they were going to make anyway.


No argument there. The main problem with that law, as with so much of "Obamas" policy, is he contributed nothing to WRITING it; he only made speeches about it. It looks like a Frankensteins monster assembled by 535 legislators each pushing their own individual interests, plus the insurancy lobby, because that is exactly what it is. There are myriad obscure details as a result, but the short form is:

Private insurance gets $900 billion from taxpayers, plus whatever they charge people required to purchase insurance but ineligible for government subsidies, and EVERYONE is so required. It is as if the whole thing were written to the expressed demands of a senator representing Hartford, CT (insurance capital of America.)


No, no. You meant "tax hikes." Obama raised taxes, remember? Because he is a socialist. I cannot feel too bad about the odd demographics and expiration dates of tax breaks that never should have existed in the first place. I concede eliminating them would be simpler and clearer.


I will go one better: Clarity and simplicity are best for ALL policy, and thus America in general. The problem is that precludes all the tax breaks and shelters that let Warren Buffet pay a lower tax rate than his secretary. Clarity and simplicity? What kind of corporate lawyer are you?! Keep talking like that and your clients will start calling you a socialist. Hell, as long as you do not ACT accordingly you could even get elected president.

Businesses have done a good job structuring themselves to take advantage of tax breaks, so I do not think they need much help on that score. They frequently pay NO income tax (a 2008 GAO study found 55% of US corporations managed that feat at least once in a seven year period,) and paid just under $200 billion in 2011, while individuals paid nearly $1.1 trillion. As you may be aware, they routinely avoid US taxes by "selling" the home office goods through foreign subsidiaries at inflated prices, because the US does not tax overseas subsidiaries of US companies. According to the NYT, those targeted tax breaks and the other complexity you decry save corporate America about as much money in annual income taxes as they pay. You want to eliminate the complexity that lowered your clients tax burden from $330 billion to $181 billion last year? Do not let THEM hear you say that.

As far as the healthcare law, it should not be any employers problem. Ensuring peoples healthcare is not the responsibility of private business, but of the federal government, because it is vital (literally) to bare survival, whether or not ones employer (where applicable) can and will share the cost. Something like the payroll tax might be appropriate, but even that is debateable.