The Economy. This one is simple.

Seriously.

People might think it's all big and complex and what not, but really it's a breeze to understand. Someone spends money, someone makes money, said person then spends it again. Hardworking people create useful, ingenious, or creative goods/services to sell and other people buy them.

The more money people have to spend, the more things they buy. Which means the person/business they buy them from then also has more money to spend (or to use to grow their business which in turn creates jobs).

Why on earth then would raising taxes (as one side is proposing) help our econonmy? We just clarified that the MORE money people have to spend the BETTER our economy is. "Ahh..." but you might say, "proposed tax increases won't effect ME". You might even say this with a smile on your face, thinking how those tax increases are only going to effect "those big businesses" and the really wealthy, and "they have too much money as it is, right? why not send a little my way or down to someone who needs it?"

This is a common mistake of missing out on logic. Logic tells us that we must think beyond the surface. Everything (especially in the economy) is a cause and effect process. If we change something it will definitely effect something else.

In this case, when we tax those big businesses (and ultimately many small businesses according to the proposed increases), they no longer have as much money (duh). And when money is taken away from them, they must make changes to account for it in order to run a successful business. Even a few percentages of taxes could mean thousands or millions of dollars lost to them, that must be made up for. They will do one or multiple of these things:
-lay off jobs (perhaps yours?)
-raise their prices (do you grocery shop?)
-cut pay (can you afford to take a cut?)

These big businesses provide a large percentage of the jobs in America. And since small businesses would be hit with the proposed tax increase as well, this issue effects pretty much everyone. Can you afford to lose your job? Can anyone? Will the cost of toothpaste or bread or toilet paper going up effect you? Absolutely.

On top of all this, the business owners, stock-holders, and "wealthy people" in general who are not given much sympathetic regard will not have as much money as before. And while this again might not seem so bad, you must realize they are also the biggest spenders, pouring more money into our economy (perhaps even into your small business) than any other group. Can we afford to have them stop spending money?

As you can see, raising taxes, especially as significantly as is being currently proposed, is a recipe for disaster. Our economy cannot afford more disaster.