The Wall Street Journal reports today, “Some manufacturers have delayed hiring while they wait to see whether they will face sharply higher U.S. taxes and deep cuts in government spending in 2013, a new survey shows. Uncertainty over U.S. tax and spending plans has prompted about a third of 60 large and small manufacturing companies—two-thirds of them with annual sales of more than $1 billion—to defer hiring. That is according to Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation, an Arlington, Va., research group that polled executives at those firms in September. The survey said 17% had reduced or shelved capital investments because of the same worries. . . . The worries most often cited by the companies were the fiscal cliff and the potential spread of Europe’s banking crisis to the U.S.”
And yet Senate Democrats like Chuck Schumer continue to insist on raising taxes in January. Earlier this week, Schumer said that “lawmakers should use the lame-duck session to raise tax rates on top earners, end some deductions, [and] increase taxes on investments . . . .” Democrats are pushing tax hikes that could hit nearly a million small business owners.
As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said, “Senior Democrats are now openly acknowledging their plan to hold the economy hostage to massive, job-killing tax hikes, and espousing the fiscally irresponsible view that says the country should be driven off the fiscal cliff rather than Congress working toward bipartisan solutions to reform and strengthen entitlements without killing jobs. . . . The Speaker and I have called for extending all the income tax rates for a year, ensuring that no one sees an income tax hike in January and preventing the economic harm and massive job loss that will come if Sen. Schumer and Washington Democrats follow through on their threats to drive us off the fiscal cliff.”
