'I Don't Think Obama Realizes How Much It's Going to Cut Back on Employment'

In a video today, House Republican leadership unveiled an accountant to explain how not extending the Bush-era tax cuts on the upper-income brackets would hurt small business.

“A small business that makes slightly over $250,000 is going to be taxed at 39.6 percent,” said Linda Lizanich, an accountant at the Kennedy Group in Willoughby, Ohio. “I don’t think [President Obama] realizes how much it’s going to cut back on employment, how much it’s going to cut back on investment. If you’re going to raise taxes you also need to cut costs, and I don’t know what they’ve decided to do about cutting costs yet if anything.”

The Kennedy Group is a sub chapter S corporation labeling and packing company established in 1974 and responsible for about 140 jobs.

“In the first two months alone, we’ve already seen the president increase spending by $87 billion,” Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said. “While Republicans have put new revenues on the table, the president remains silent about which costs he would cut. The only way to solve our fiscal and economic problems is through a balanced, cut and growth solution, slowing the rate of spending and closing tax loopholes in a small businesses and economic friendly way.”

The video is the latest salvo against Obama’s unwillingness to agree to any fiscal cliff deal that doesn’t raise taxes on higher incomes.

“Stories like Linda’s are why Republicans are fighting to cut spending and protect small businesses and middle-class families from tax rate hikes,” a McCarthy aide told PJM. “The president can make all the campaign stops he wants to but he can’t look at folks like Linda and promise them that the small businesses they work for won’t be affected.”