1099 forms and the difference between the parties

So, with the giant health care reform bill, there were surely some mistakes.  That’s okay, nobody says Congress can’t fix them.  This one is a doozy:

To improve compliance, the law requires businesses to file a 1099 tax form identifying anyone to whom they pay $600 or more for goods or merchandise in a year. Businesses will also have to send copies of the form to their vendors, suppliers and contractors.

I.e., Kim would have to actually submit a form if she spent $600 on a new computer from Best Buy to make sure Best Buy isn’t cheating on their taxes.  Yes, nuts, so let’s fix this.  Ezra:

The problem is that the mechanism would mean a lot of paperwork. Enough, actually, that it’s probably worth scrapping it. But that means you need to make up $17 billion.

Republicans wanted to do that by cutting public-health subsidies for the poor. Democrats said no. Democrats wanted to do it by cutting subsidies for oil and gas companies. Republicans said no. Democratscame up with another way to do it, this time by closing a tax loopholethat allows hedge-fund managers to be taxed at a much lower rate than people in other professions. Republicans don’t like this, either.

I really don’t understand the vision of the economy, or of need in general, where it makes more sense to cut public-health spending than treat the income of hedge-fund managers like the income of, say, small-business owners. Is there some reason we want lots more people to enter the hedge-fund industry? Or that government should be directly subsidizing oil and gas production? I can at least understand the rationale for public-health programs. That sort of collective action is something you need government to organize. The presence of generous financial incentives for entering the hedge fund industry really isn’t.

Okay, then, so Republicans are just evil or stupid when it comes to this one.  Any other choices?  Or, they hate small businesses despite all their rhetoric?