A new study by the American Sustainable Business Council, Main Street Alliance and Small Business Majority finds interesting results—small business owners generally think that big businesses and multi-millionaires don’t pay their fair share of taxes. In the poll, 90 percent of small business owners nationwide said that large corporations use tax loopholes and accounting gimmicks to move U.S. profits overseas and avoid taxes. 67 percent of small business owners believe corporations and the wealthy do not pay their fair share of taxes and support increasing their taxes.

I agree with them – part of my commitment to working Americans is to stop sending jobs overseas. And to do that, we need to close tax loopholes that are paying American companies to send American jobs overseas. Instead, we should be supporting small businesses that create jobs right here in the East Bay and across the United States.

The poll also finds that the majority of small-business owners believe we should let the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire as scheduled on Dec, 31, 2012.

I have repeatedly voted against the Bush Tax Cuts. Congress should make it a priority to support the middle class, not allow extensions of tax cuts for people who make over a million dollars each year.

One small business owner told the Small Business Majority, "I've been in business 32 years, and I'm appalled at how big corporations and millionaires have shrunk their taxes. Ingrates like Amazon wouldn't even exist without the Internet, which grew out of government research. The least that big corporations and their executives could do is pay their fair share for the roads, ports, education, research, public safety and everything else that tax dollars buy."