Defining words has always been highly influenced by the mind of the user. Jabberwocky, the language appearing in Through the Looking Glass, scared the hell out of Alice while Lewis Carroll had some fun with words. "Small" was not one of them.
The word "small" is, well, small, but so is "is," a slender one tossed all over the place by former President William Jefferson Clinton during a 1998 grand jury testimony. Many people define the Clinton Presidency by employing the words "Monica Lewinsky" and "is" as in: "it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."
Small is hardly a word connected with Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot and a man never reluctant to offer advice. Marcus speaks in an unassailable manner doubtless acquired as a result of being the head honcho of Home Depot for so many years.
It was a week ago that Marcus was interviewed for 16 minutes on CNBC and the now-retired retailer had a lot to say. Much of it was tough talk aimed at President Obama and centered on possible repeal of the Bush tax cuts. Nothing happened for a week and during the interim it appeared further proof was being offered that journalism in this country is not doing the job it should be doing. Somehow, the sheer pace of 24/7 cable news is so fervid that far too much here today news is gone by tomorrow if not by the next news cycle.
Maybe Marcus' comments were simply those of a corporate gadfly in retirement while providing an NBC counter-punch given the network's lean to the left. Articulate right wingers with a sense of humor, after all, are not easy to come by and Marcus is an amusing guy whose comedic heroes, judging from his banter, likely include Henny Youngman, Sid Caesar, and George Burns. Marcus sure did bang away at the vicissitudes threatening small businesses.
The very voluble Marcus, interviewed by Joe Kernan and Carl Quintanilla, provided insight about the much-discussed two-percent of tax payers who will carry the tax load should the Obama Administration end tax breaks for those making more than $250,000 while extending help to the other 98 percent. It may be recalled that taxing the rich reached blood-sport proportions in 1953 when a record 94 percent was assessed during those carefree, go-to-hell Eisenhower years (1953-61); it seems rather remarkable these days to remember that Ike was a Republican as were the House and Senate. Relief, in the form of 91% taxation on earned income for the wealthy, was reached during the last seven years of the Ike years. Since then, retaliation by the rich has included highly creative tax dodges including shelters at home and abroad. Tax lawyers have been busy, busy, busy providing escape for the wealthy who, otherwise, would have felt as tossed about as lottery balls on Saturday night. Oh, yes. Capital gains, taxed the same as earned income from 1953-61, are now levied at 15%.
Bones of contention arrive in varying sizes of importance and Marcus produced one of mastodonic proportions by defining, in his own Lettermanish way, what is meant by a "small business." While financial people of repute generally suggest that a business is "small" if it employs less than 100, Marcus suggested otherwise. A self-made man, Marcus revealed he spends a lot of time with CEOs of small companies, apparently feeling more comfortable in their presence. Having referenced a small business CEO pal, Marcus was asked how many employees does the small business have? "Six hundred," replied Marcus. It may have been at this point that MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and his staff began wondering about small businesses and how they are defined.
Marcus' old firm, Home Depot, currently employs 320,000 an admitted distance from 600 and you can toss in 100 as further contrast. It may be that Marcus, born in 1929, is getting a bit forgetful about current aspects of his old company while inclined to seek out the company of those who rail about the problems of being "small" that include being snubbed by banks bailed out by the government because they were too big to fail.
But wait. Olbermann and crew were getting curiouser and curiouser and on Wednesday's (September 22) show produced an insightful segment titled "Small Business in Name Only." Bottom line of a series of charges is that some of our biggest companies are registered as small businesses for tax purposes. The loophole U.S. wonderland, according to Olbermann, has made it possible for such corporations as Koch Industries, Bechtel, and the firm I retired from, Tribune Company, to duck billions upon billions of taxes. It was a defining TV moment.
The reality of it all is quite simple. Major corporations qualify as small businesses by swapping the initials Inc. for LLC at the end of their names--something the tortoise never suggested to the hare. All such companies are thus considered pass-through structures and a hub company can have 100 of them with profits going directly to individual owners. Ah-ha! As Olbermann put it: "it"s not the income that"s small, it"s not the number of employees that"s small, it"s just the total number of owners that"s small.
The Republican Party that just can't say "yes" is in the midst of a boringly large campaign (a lot of the money supplied by the highly-protective Koch brothers) to link elimination of the Bush tax cuts to future small business failures. That was before Olbermann's disclosures when the math of it all was telling us 86 percent of the tax freight would be carried by those making $2 million or more. The Republicans were not counting on solid projections, merely shouts of fear that, like big lies, often gain public traction these days.
Thursday came with word the Democrats would wait until the November elections before pushing for a vote on what George Bush wrought. Watchdng the Obama Administration, so perfect in its execution of a highly creative and fluid campaign for the Presidency, fall asleep at the wheel of the Good Ship Lollipop is more than strange. Is Sen. Harry Reid's Senate seat, likely to be lost anyway, that important? The Democrats should somehow get beyond Harry Reid and a funereal demeanor right out of Dickens.
As something of an aside, it may help to recall an earlier tax outrage story involving this country's second wealthiest person, Warren Buffett, who revealed that his secretary paid more in taxes than did he. That must have been one strange conversation in the business digs of the Sage of Omaha whose wealth is now $45 billion. In terms of tax inequities, that should have signaled the tax game's end, but the story (and developments of it) disappeared--no doubt buried by more and more 24/7 news about such matters as Ron Blagojovich's search for a reality show and Paris Hilton's problems with cops.
One hopes that Buffett, having told us of his and his secretary's tax status, will make up the difference if the tax benefits for 98 percent of us are not extended. Should Buffett be such a high-flier that she makes $250,000, then she's on her own. Hey, maybe she owns an LLC?
Well beyond irony was Olbermann's acknowledgement that both he and Barrack Obama are LLC beneficiaries as "small business" now comes into much better focus through the looking glass while acquiring more accurate definition. The Prez and the TV host write books, you know.
Maybe cartoonist Walt Kelly got it spot on with: "We have met the enemy and it is us." Let's, for good measure, throw in a sage comment by Alice's cheshire cat: "We're all mad here."
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