Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Another Reason We Need Health Care Reform

By every measure of small business employment, the United States has among the world’s smallest small-business sectors (as a proportion of total national employment). The lower taxes, less stringent regulations, and freer labor markets in the United States, it appears, have not yielded greater small-business employment here than elsewhere.
An International Comparison of Small Business Employment by John Schmitt and Nathan Lane from The Center for Economic and Policy Research.

2 comments:

  1. "The lower taxes, less stringent regulations, and freer labor markets"

    Compared to who? We have the highest corporate tax rate in the world and a hefty tax at the upper end of the income scale -- such that in some parts of the country "the rich" and small businesses are paying 50%+ in taxes.

    Less regulation? Not convinced there either.

    From Wikipedia:
    "The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) is a progressive economic policy think-tank ... [that] works on ..."gaps in the social policy fabric of the U.S. economy."

    That hardly sounds like an unbiased source.

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  2. I find it hard to believe that I even have to spend time on this. Don't you ever read any of the scare stories on your right-wing websites about how Obama is intent on ushering in European socialism with its high tax rates and regulatory burdens? Why do you think that Europe is such a bogeyman to the conservatives?

    You cannot make comparisons based on a single tax rate. You have to look at the overall tax burden. The average ratio of tax to GDP for the EU is around 40%. In the United States it is about 30%. We may have a higher corporate tax rate, but they have other taxes that more than offset that.

    This isn't controversial stuff Chris.

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