Kerry's plan doesn't touch corporate taxes, Jeb. It raises individual taxes. You said you were a lawyer, why are you even debating this? You should know how LLCs and S-corps operate.
Look, if you raise the individaul rate from say 33% to 39% you're going to effectively cost LLCs and S-corp's tens of thousands of dollars if they're doing any real business. What do you think they'll do? They'll lay off that new worker.
I know it feels good to talk about some big corp being evil but Kerry's plan doesn't even target them one bit. And btw, as a small business owner, I regularly give up some of my personal salary for my employees when times are tough. Of the 10 years this company has existed, I've gone 3 of them without receiving any significant salary (i.e "poverty level") in order to keep from laying off people.
But let's look at other CEOs too of small businesses. Let's say they pay themselves $250,000 per year. You raise their taxes and they say "Hey,I have expenses, and now I have to pay an extra $20k in taxes? Well, I Walter, the new guy we don't really need him that much, I'll just lay him off so that I can make my house payment on that new house I bought."