The Washington-based Tax Foundation found that nationally most people in the top 1 percent of earners are business owners and entrepreneurs, and that in 2004, business owners paid 54.3 percent of all income taxes. Or, to put it differently, the top 1% are paying more than 54% of all income taxes.

Of the total amount of income taxes collected from business owners, 69 percent came from upper-income taxpayers. The study concluded that lowering top marginal tax rates benefited many highly-taxed business owners, as well as the U.S. economy.

Unfortunately, I don't have statistics yet for 2005, but the results are quite interesting. When you consider that in my state, 95 percent of all businesses employ 100 or fewer employees and 75 percent employ 10 or fewer, it is clear that small business is the backbone of our economy.

Supporting small businesses by lowering the top marginal tax rate will provide an opportunity for these businesses to expand and create more jobs.