An insurance company CEO has issued a stark warning about why lower-to-middle-class Americans could be harmed by a Kamala Harris presidency.
Florida-based entrepreneur Shawn Meaike has argued that Harris’ likely fiscal policies, which are yet to be outlined, would negatively impact small businesses.
‘What people are not understanding is what… significant and actually ridiculous tax hike proposals mean for all of us, right?’ Meaike told The Big Money Show on Fox.
‘When you start looking at these businesses now… it sounds great to say, I’m going to tax the 1% or get this, or I’m going to get only these individuals.’
‘At the end of the day, all these restaurants, all these business owners, myself, profit-sharing, what we’re doing… we can’t do,’ added Meaike, who founded life insurance agency Family First Life, which made $20 million in 2023 per ProPublica.
Florida-based entrepreneur Shawn Meaike has argued that Harris’ fiscal policies, which are yet to be fully outlined, would negatively impact small businesses
It’s unclear exactly what Harris’ tax proposals are if she secured a term in the White House come November, but based on her previous policies, business owners are almost definitely going to take a hit
‘At the end of the day, the American dream… I don’t want to say the American dream is dead — that’s probably a little bit over the top.
‘But what I can tell you is it’s going to make it really difficult to navigate what you want to do with employees, for employees.’
Meaike, who lives in Boca Raton, Florida, also revealed the kinds of conversations business owners are having on the ground.
‘I was with a gentleman yesterday,’ Meaike recalled. ‘He owns multiple restaurants. I said, “what are you doing to stay alive?”
‘What do they do? Cut staff. Cut resources. The valets up the street are laid off. The servers are laid off. The guys and girls who deliver the food are laid off.’
Meaike launched marketing firm Family First Life in 2013, and it is now represented by more than 17,000 licensed agents across the US, according to the company’s website.
He previously worked in real estate and at the State Department of Children and Families for 13 years.
Harris has a record of favoring steeper tax hikes on businesses and people than Joe Biden – however, she previously repeated his pledge not to raise taxes on any households making less than $400,000 annually.
In 2020, she proposed multiple changes to the tax code, including implementing a four percent ‘income-based premium’ on households making more than $100,000 to fund her version of ‘Medicare for All’.
She also favored raising capital gains tax rates to ordinary income tax rates, raising the corporate income tax rate of 21 percent up to 35 percent, and expanding the estate tax.
Harris also supports the expiration next year of many key parts of former president Donald Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Trump after signing the Tax cut and Jobs Act on December 22, 2017
Findings from the Tax Foundation on the 2017 tax law passed under Trump
Known as the TCJA, the policy included some major provisions that benefited the wealthiest Americans, while also simplifying the individual income taxes and reduced tax rates across the board.
Some lawmakers including many Republicans want to see most of the provisions extended while many Democrats want to see only some of them extended or modified.
It’s unclear exactly what Harris’ tax proposals are if she secured a term in the White House come November, but based on her previous policies, business owners are almost definitely going to take a hit.
But many share the same concerns as Meaike. A pipeline worker recently blasted Harris as a ‘left-wing liberal from San Francisco with the highest taxes’.
‘Why would anybody with any common horse-sense that’s a blue-collar worker want to even look at this woman?’ Texas laborer Bugsy Allen told Fox News.
