I don't buy the 'tax hikes will kill small business' line FOR A MINUTE.

Why? Because taxes are on your PROFITS. If you are "breaking even", hiking your tax rate to 100% means you STILL won't pay any taxes.

Now, your EMPLOYEES will feel a pinch if you have to start deducting more from their paychecks, this is true.

Or is there something else I'm missing here?

The health insurance hike? That's because of rising costs and rising demands for profits from shareholders. 50% hikes in premiums are nothing new - they pre-date "Obamacare" by some 25 years. It's just that *now* an insurance company can hit you with it and claim it's due to anticipated hikes in cost - yet inflation is still VERY low and it's not like they're covering many more people - AND they still get to kick you off when you're no longer a profit center (they just can't SAY it was because you suddenly got leukemia or some other expensive disease).

I mean, what were the excuses for the 15-40% hikes in the years prior to Obama's election? I seem to recall the same thing happened when we were threatened with "Hillarycare" (and I was working for a hospital at that time). The insurance companies hiked costs AGAIN in anticipation of the law - funny how they didn't lower rates when Hillarycare crashed and burned.