James Wright owns part of a small business in Los Angeles County that manufactures manhole covers - with about $10 million in sales.  Wright doesn't take anywhere near that much home to his family.  But he does have to pay personal income taxes on company profits, using money from the business itself.  He's worried about the potential one-two punch of Prop 30's approval and the expiration of some of the Bush tax cuts.  Both would raise income taxes starting at $250,000 a year.

Wright: "What this means is that the corporation's gonna have to pay more taxes - which means there's gonna be less available to hire people or to retain people."

…or give raises to current employees and owners like Wright.

Wright: "$250,000 is deemed to be wealthy.  I can tell you right now, I am not wealthy.  I live in a 1,080 square foot home in Covina and trying to put my daughter through school and trying to support a family.  And it's very difficult to do that with all these additional taxes."

But Wright's company appears to be the exception, not the rule.  Franchise Tax Board data show only a small percentage of California small businesses make $250,000 a year or more.  The rest would not be impacted by Prop 30's income tax increase.