The Small Business Debate Cont'd

Reader ZH:

Obama and Biden have stated, in various formulations, that "95% of
small businesses would not be affected" by the 250K+ rate changes.
Ellis states, "If you have a journalism school intern for a semester
and he gets $3000 as a stipend, he counts as a small business owner."
He's basically claiming that Obama's 95% number rests on the phony
assertion that the definition of "small business owner" is "someone
with non-W2 wages."  This is wrong.  As someone who reports stipend
income as a graduate student, I'm in the same situation as the student
in Ellis' example and it'd be absurd (and illegal) to claim the tax
benefits applicable to businesses.

But even if you accept Ellis' claim that the definition of "small
business" employed by Obama is overly broad, that's not Obama's fault.
 McCain's campaign was the first to employ this phony accounting to
attack Obama: "McCain has repeatedly claimed that Obama would raise
tax rates for 23 million small-business owners. It's a false and
preposterously inflated figure."


So, McCain says "Barack, you're going to raise taxes on 23 million
small businesses!" and Obama says, "No, 95% of those small businesses
won't see a tax increase."  It isn't Obama's fault that McCain
initiated this debate with such an absurd and alarmist definition of
"small business," and it speaks to the non-partisan bona fides of ATR
to blame Obama. ..."