In taxing issue, it's a battle of statistics

A Fuller Picture in the Small-Business Tug of War

By TRIP GABRIEL, NYT

Is it only right that wealthy Americans chip in more to help the government meet its obligations? Or does raising taxes on the rich hobble the country’s “job creators”?

When President Obama proposed this week to let the Bush-era tax cuts expire for high earners, polar-opposite reactions from Republicans and Democrats were as swift as they were consistent.

Mitt Romney repeated an argument he makes in almost every stump speech: that a tax increase on upper earners will slow hiring because most Americans work for small businesses, whose owners report earnings on their individual returns.

“Fifty-four percent of American workers work in businesses taxed as individuals,” Mr. Romney said at a fund-raising event in Montana on Wednesday, repeating a figure he uses often. “So when the president wants to raise taxes on individuals — as he’s proposed from 35 percent to 40 percent — he kills jobs.”

(More here.)