Stop confusing the needs of small business with those of the richest among us

By Julia Mozumdar

Julia Mozumdar is president and owner of a local storage container company in Minneapolis and a source in MPR's Public Insight Network. This commentary is adapted from an open letter she sent last week to House Speaker John Boehner.

Dear Rep. Boehner,

I heard your speech Friday regarding the current debate over student loan interest and various solutions to that problem. You made reference to small businesses and women's health programs. I am a small business owner, I am a woman and I have student loans. So these are all issues that affect me and that I know well.

Student loans are critical if the middle class is to continue to exist. People need education to be able to work in well-paying jobs. I was fortunate enough to have student loans from the '90s and I am almost finished paying them. But I would not be if it had not been for low-interest loans that allowed me to pursue a career path that worked for me. I currently own my own business, which is the American Dream. We can all agree that's a good thing. However, if I had to pay current tuition and high interest on top of that, well, things might be very different.

Your current solution is to take money away from health care prevention and screening for low-income people (primarily women) to pay for the lower interest rate. In my time as a student, and afterward when I was working hard to pay back my student loans, I was a patient at Planned Parenthood. Its low-cost services allowed me to stay healthy and see a doctor regularly and still afford to pay my rent and pay my student loans. My high-deductible plans did not allow for any other solution.

Prevention is less expensive than treating medical emergencies. A healthy worker works more and is happier and contributes more to society, so clearly that is money well spent.

The Democrats' solution is to close tax loopholes for S corporations. I currently run an S corporation. I pay my taxes. If the government closes loopholes so that I pay my Medicare and other taxes the same as a payroll employee — well, frankly, that is fair.

My parents are 65 years old. Their generation, and yours, has paid into Medicare your whole adult lives and deserves to have the safety net that you paid into for years. I also want there to be a safety net for my generation, which means paying into services we plan on using. If I owe a tax, please tell me and I will pay it.

Often I hear about closing tax loopholes for the top 1 percent of our country. Yet the response from you and your caucus is that this will hurt small businesses. I would like to take this opportunity to explain something to you.

I own a small business. My company's total sales were $1 million last year. The company's net income was just enough to pay me a modest, middle-class salary. There is no way that I could possibly be in the top 1 percent of earners. Please stop using me as an excuse for cutting spending on things like health care.

When I started my own company, I was lucky enough to use Minnesota's equivalent of COBRA to buy health insurance. But when that ran out, I would have had to buy insurance 100 percent on my own. Luckily, I met my husband in the meantime and was able to get on his insurance. But so many people would like to change jobs or start out on their own. Health care is what keeps them from doing that.

If you really want to grow small businesses, stop worrying about the richest among us. They have enough money. Worry about issues like health care for those of us who put ourselves out there, becoming the lowest earners to grow something from scratch. That truly is the American Dream. That is what a small business really is. It is what you really want people to strive for and build. Encourage that with your actions instead of doing the opposite.

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