Tonight’s State of the Union address will call for increased stock buyback taxes and a billionaire minimum tax, among other items.  Neither is going anywhere.

Business owners should focus instead on the pending debt limit debate, which has begun in earnest and has the potential to establish the tax and spending battlelines for the coming decade.

The simple fact is the federal government is entering into unprecedented territory when it comes to our deficits and debt, which should signal the end of the last decade’s laissez-faire approach to Federal deficits.  That in turn could force Congress to make big decisions about …

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If the Senate needs more reasons to drop the toxic Build Back Better Act, here’s a good one – job creation on Main Street has been negative over the past four months.  A recent piece in the Wall Street Journal detailed the struggles small employers face in the current job market:

Head counts at companies with fewer than 50 employees declined in three of the past four months, according to ADP payroll data, even as employment at larger firms continued to grow.

We highlighted this divergence several months ago, after the White House conveniently glossed over job losses at small …

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With Congress set to depart DC for the next two weeks, there’s been a notable increase in chatter regarding the status of BBB negotiations:

• On Friday, Politico reported that Schumer and Manchin met twice last week.  They’ve only met six times this whole Spring, so that suggests the pace of discussions is ramping up.
• Monday, Bloomberg published an article suggesting that talks were making progress, including a specific agreement on EV tax credits.
• Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that a new fee on methane emissions from oil and gas operations is going to be part of the package.
• And …
  
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With the odds of a recession rising, a common tool used to counter past slowdowns may no longer be available.  That’s bad news for private businesses and the workers they employ.  Congressional tax-writers need to start thinking about this issue now, while there’s still time to address it.

The tool in question is allowing businesses suffering losses to carry those losses back to previous years, reducing their tax liability in those years, and receiving refunds now while the economy is doing poorly.  The benefit itself is mostly one of timing.  Any refunds received while the economy is slow will be …

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