Cantor Wants 20 Percent Tax Cut for Business

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is pushing a 20 percent tax cut for businesses with fewer than 500 employees, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The proposal by the Virginia Republican is expected to come up for a vote sometime around Tax Day, which this year falls on April 16. Cantor said it would give small business owners “more options” in making decisions about hiring and other issues that affect a company’s bottom line.

“We want small-business people to have more money go to their pockets, not the government’s, and then they have more money to make decisions about hiring, about retaining jobs and about creating more jobs,” Cantor told the Times-Dispatch Wednesday after a discussion on finance matters with high school students in Henrico County.

Critics of the proposal, however, say its price tag of about $46 billion in lost revenue is too much.

Michigan Democrat Sander M. Levin called it expensive and inefficient at a recent hearing, according to the newspaper.

“This bill is not a shot in the arm of economic growth, rather it is a shot in the dark,” he said, noting the benefit is not specifically tied to investment or hiring.