Couls, I am not going to try to diminish what you do for your employees or how hard you work. I don't know enough about it. However, you need to look at the bigger picture here. Your products, like most of the products in this highly industrialized country are ultimately destined for consumption by the general population. By people like Stretch. The economy is very dependent on mass consumption and government spending. At this point it would be naive to think that we could fix the deficit and other problems inherited by Bush's administration without higher taxes. But if the small guy gets taxed more, it will decrease his buying power, resulting in less mass consumption, less demand for mass products (including yours) and bad economy. If the $250k+ households get taxed, the demand for higher end items(expensive cars, boats, jewelry) will be less but it won't affect the economy nearly as bad. Investments in your business are tax deductible, including creating new jobs, materials etc. but also owning a business has it's nice tax advantages if you know how to use those(you already have advantage there over the guy with a regular job). What we are talking about here is, the ability of the high income people to take home more money, buy bigger houses and boats. I am not saying you don't deserve it, but it's better to cut that kind of spending than the mass products.
There is no doubt that jobs now days don't earn as much as in earlier decades. Americans work longer hours and for less while productivity has sky-rocketed. Businesses have brought in higher profits but that didn't translate to higher salaries. I have seen plenty of business owners who would pay $1/hour for hard work, if it was legal and feel great about themselves. Maybe even call lazy anyone who would rather not work at all than barely survive. The coin has different sides but a democracy is about majority ruling. The rich are a minority. The more they take away from people by paying them less, the more the majority will take back through their voting power.
What Obama is saying, the distribution of wealth should be fair for the majority of the people. The majority of this country agrees with him. McCain is saying to leave it to businesses to help people by creating jobs and paying more. Most people don't trust businesses because they have shown to be too greedy and selfish. They trust the government to be fairer.
