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Inside Obama's Twitter Blitz On the Payroll Tax
Hugh Pickens writes "Brandon Rittiman reports that White House officials launched a Twitter campaign Tuesday to put pressure on Congress to reach a deal extending the payroll-tax cut. Using the Twitter hashtag #40dollars, the White House successfully got thousands of people to respond and explain what a $40 cut to each paycheck would mean to them personally. By Wednesday morning, the #40dollars hashtag started 'trending,' which is what happens when Twitter's algorithms see a topic suddenly surge. It's not easy to create that kind of surge, but the White House has 2.5 million Twitter followers to call upon. Macon Phillips, the President's Director of Digital Strategy, says his team has managed to get a few Twitter topics to rise to the level of 'trending' before — most notably when they began tweeting about the death of Osama bin Laden. 'What's very important about a social-media campaign like this is that regular people are making the point about how this would affect them. It's not us here in Washington trying to argue on their behalf.' says Phillips. 'The #40dollars campaign puts a face on that amount to demonstrate the payroll tax cut's real-world impact on middle-class families.'"
I thought tax cuts are evil and stuff?
It is great to see Twitter used for people to have their voice heard! I have more respect for politicians when they take the time to listen to the people rather than corporate lobbies. Having the Twitter trending algorithm manage our political agenda is a scary thought, however.
The disagreement was never over the payroll tax holiday. The disagreement was over how to pay for it. The President's initial proposal was to pay for it with the millionaire's surtax, which he knew that Republicans opposed before he proposed it.
For Democrats who are pretending to not understand, this would be the equivalent of the Republicans proposing to pay for it by slashing Obama Care, and then accusing the President of being against the payroll tax holiday when he came out against the legislation.
For some reason, the media has used this as a huge opportunity to bash Republicans. Want to know why Republicans don't want to extend the tax holiday for two months? They don't want to go through the same media circus again in two months.
The bias of our media is pathetic. The stupidity of our population is tragic. The fate of our people is obvious. Next year we elect the last President of the United States. We face serious problems in the next five years, and the media has successfully kept anyone remotely competent out of the race.
This is going to be hilarious.
The 40 dollars number was completely lost on a majority of tweeters yesterday. Many thought it was 40 dollars a week.
That's was '$40 a paycheck', another 'conservative' who can't figure out math. $40 x 26 paychecks a year = $1040
$40 a paycheck, at a paycheck every two weeks, is about $1000 a year. Not everyone is paid weekly.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Paychecks are normally bi-weekly. 40x26 = 1040 so sounds like the math is consistent. If it is correct or not I can't say, but it is consistent.
FTFA:
The payroll tax holiday would keep an extra $1,000 in the pockets of an average American worker — or $40 per paycheck, according to the administration.
Most people get paid every two weeks. 26 paychecks * $40= $1040. Some get paid twice a month. 24 paychecks * $40 = $960.
Isn't the White House saying $40 / paycheck or did I miss something? For those of us who have real jobs, we get paid once every 2 weeks. Hence, $40 / paycheck is just over $1000 / year.
Both?
Isn't thei tax the source of funding for SSI?
It looks like saying "I'm cutting the payroll tax" == "I'm bankrupting SSI faster than ever!"
SSI is in the red, this will not help, it will hurt 'real-world' 'middle-class families'.
This goes well past obfuscation and looks like intentional dishonesty to me.
This will hurt everyone.
No brain, no pain.
Treats for his dog
The funny thing is, President Obama probably spent less for his pet on Christmas than a majority of Americans...
$40 per paycheck (if being paid bi-weekly as most people are) does come out to roughly $1000/yr
Because it is a pain in the ass and costly to implement
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Isn't the White House saying $40 / paycheck or did I miss something? For those of us who have real jobs, we get paid once every 2 weeks. Hence, $40 / paycheck is just over $1000 / year.
Quote from Obama
"[On] Tuesday, we asked folks to tell us what would it be like to lose $40 out of your paycheck every week. "
Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/12/22/president-obama-discusses-what-40-means-americans-families
A more important deception is that it is a reduction in the amount taxpayers pay into Social Security--NOT the general budget. This is more akin to reducing the amount of 401k withholdings than a tax break because you will have to make it up later one way or another--either through reduced SS benefits or increased SS taxes to make up for the deficit.
If this cut means $40 in each weekly paycheck, you are doing pretty well for your self. It is only a 2% cut in the Social Security tax withholding. For the average U.S. household, that is less than $25 a week. So apparently, Obama is targeting this tax cut to the rich, since his target demographic will get $40 a week from it? The other great part of this is that the House was getting beat up for not passing this two month extension, when they had passed a one year extension.
Of course, what I love is that the people pushing this are the people who cry about "ending social security as we know it" every time someone proposes a plan to make social security more likely to be long term sustainable.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Give 72% of total available wealth to the 5% of the population, and then do $40 cuts, $40 raises etc ...
nothing can fix things in a system that gives 72% of everything to 5%, and gives the rest 95% of the population only 28%. oh, and the bottom 85% in that society, gets only 15% to boot.
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
Read radical news here
in their obstinance to defy anything obama tries to do, no matter how good or bad for the american people, the republican leadership is willing to oppose a tax CUT
because the tax cut is not for rich people?
republican robots: if you define yourself as "i'm everything that guy is not" and that guy is actually decent, where does that leave your political future?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
should be the next tag the white house pushes. The US cannot afford spending $650 billion on a military we don't need.
No, they keep claiming $40 per paycheck. Most people are paid every other week. Which maths out to $1040 annually.
Spelling, grammar, punctuation? We need something that checks logic.
The two-month extension passed both houses and Obama just now signed it.
Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
you will have to make it up later one way or another--either through reduced SS benefits or increased SS taxes to make up for the deficit.
Nah, they are going to make it up by making our children(or at this point, more likely our grandchildren, they have already spent all the money our children are going to earn) pay more in SS taxes.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
In more than a few states, it is either illegal to pay biweekly or it is considered a special circumstance that must be approved first and is then subject to frequent reviews (complaints from employees will void the waiver.)
Now I'm not sure where you live, but in the state I live it seem to be rare for a company to either get approval to pay biweekly or perhaps rare that they make such a request, for I don't know *anyone* paid biweekly.
"His name was James Damore."
I think it's worth mentioning that on twitter "trending" isn't just a measure of numbers. It's also a large part a measure of proportional increase. This means it's easier to get a trending topic on something that hasn't been talked about much before with a wierd hashtag.
This is a blog discussing how a tag for a gaming tournament became a trending topic.
http://latenightmarketing.com/gsl-trending-twitter-stats/
I hate to say it, because it's horribly unpopular from a political perspective, but this payroll tax "holiday" is just disastrous policy. Depending on what numbers and what year you're looking at, anywhere from 81 to 89 percent of the entire U.S. budget goes to two things: defense and entitlements. And of those entitlements, the biggest long-term liabilities and problems that we have are Social Security and Medicare.
When you hear these Presidential candidates talk about how they would fix the budget deficits by getting rid of things like the EPA, the IRS, the Departments of Commerce / Energy / Education, etc., then you know should know that they are not making any sort of good-faith effort at solving the problem, and that they cannot be taken seriously. The dirty little secret is that you could cut out 100% of the discretionary non-defense spending (i.e., everything except for the military and entitlements) and you would have barely made a dent in the problem as a whole.
The whole purpose of the payroll/FICA tax is to provide funds for Social Security and Medicate. Again, these are the two biggest problems that the U.S. has from a budget perspective -- biggest by leaps and bounds. So not only does this policy make the deficit problem worse, it makes it worse in the worst possible way. Politicians can claim that these tax cuts are "paid for", but everybody knows that these types of Washington claims are usually just shell games for political purposes.
For what it's worth, I like the fact that the payroll tax holiday disproportionally benefits those towards the lower end of the income scale. But there has to be a better way to do this, especially at this critical time in history when the Boomers are retiring and we're going to need these trust funds more than at any time in our history.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Source: The Whitehouse
The President said: "[On] Tuesday, we asked folks to tell us what would it be like to lose $40 out of your paycheck every week. And I have to tell you that the response has been overwhelming. We haven't seen anything like this before. Over 30,000 people have written in so far"
Thats a direct quote from the President of The United States, as cited by his website.
Thats $40 per week, another 'liberal' who can't realize when they are being bullshitted.
"His name was James Damore."
What gets me steamed about budgets is huge debate on small stuff. Geez a $40 payroll tax cut? (which is really Social Security deduction people should get back later as it is an entitlement). All this debate over $40!?!?!? It is like they argue over NASA, NSF, NOAA, etc. budgets that don't amount to diddly. Meanwhile on big ticket items (DoD) is never debated. I'm going to mention Social Security as that is entitlement program separate from budgets that lead to deficits. SS has its own problems (will leave that for another thread).
It is the ***same*** mentality that people who want to lose weight so they have a Diet Coke along with a large meal. If ya want to lose weight you must either reduce intake, do more exercise, or both. A Diet Coke is only 0.05% of the big picture. Be a man and have a real coke.
mfwright@batnet.com
The only times that I have ever been paid weekly were when working temporary jobs. Every part time and full time job that I have held has been bi-weekly. I have had contract jobs where hours reported was weekly but the paychecks were still cut bi-weekly.
Unfortunately, when the NDAA puts Americans into military detention indefinitely, they will not have internet access to twitter the impact of the negative consequences it has on their lives.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
No, the Dems took that out of the bill. The year long tax holiday the Republicans passed included a cut to congressional pay.
Source
Weekly payment of wages. Exemptions. (Sec. 31-71b). (a) Each employer, by himself, his agent or representative, shall pay weekly all moneys due each employee on a regular pay day, designated in advance by the employer, in cash, by negotiable checks or, upon an employee's written request, by credit to such employee's account in any bank which has agreed with the employer to accept such wage deposits. (b) The end of the pay period for which payment is made on a regular pay day shall be not more than eight days before such regular pay day, provided, if such regular pay day falls on a nonwork day, payment shall be made on the preceding work day. (c) This section shall not be construed to prohibit a local or regional board of education and a recognized or certified exclusive bargaining representative of its certified or noncertified employees from including within their collective bargaining agreement a schedule for the payment of wages to certified employees or noncertified employees that differs from the requirements of subsections (a) and (b) of this section. (d) Nothing in this section shall be construed to apply to employees swapping workdays or shifts as permitted under a collective bargaining agreement.
I get it. Anonymous Cowards are liberals that know that they dont know what they are talking about.
"His name was James Damore."
Pay day laws Mostly in New England.
Let's see #legalizeitdontcriticizeit... It will empty the prisons
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Throw all incumbents out for the next 20 years!
Lou
Well, it covers one month of electric.
But how much will it cost companies to update their payroll deduction systems?
More painful than not having insulin? Really?
Those fuckers should lose half their pay and half their staff.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Sorry, if I offended the loyal customers who think Republican means something other than the brand name it now is which was bought and payed for many years ago.
No you aren't. But that is the point, right? Making it seem like you have more to say than you really do.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Nope, total bullshit.
And pandering likely to work. Poor underemployed democrats, the ones who put him in power in 2008 in the first place - yet he's destroying the revenues that directly pay for Social Security, and hence hastening said programs demise.
Here's all you need to know about the parties in power:
Republican want to take your money and give it to big business.
Democrats want to take your money and give it to everyone but you!
Or 40 McDoubles... of course with the long term health complications of eating 40 McDoubles a paycheck far outweighs the $1000 / year.
So this President wants to continue a payroll tax cut that effectively defunds Social Security (that's the tax that is being cut), but at the same time blames Republicans for trying to destroy Social Security?
Got it.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
More painful than not having insulin? Really?
Without insulin we can speed up people's health complications and force them to need more health care! Hence, without Social Security their lives will be much more painful, eh?
Nice find.
So in a country with a population of 301 million people, only 60.5 million of them live in states where it is legal to pay employees biweekly without some sort of special exemption. So 80% of the working population are likely to not be paid biweekly.
"His name was James Damore."
This us vs. them attitude where you paint everyone as a 'liberal' really makes it sound like you're in a cult
I demonstrate again and again that it is they that are in a 'cult', that they operate on lies, and blame the shit that they do on the Republicans.
Deregulation of the housing marker.. ie, default swaps? Democrats overwhelmingly voted in favor of it, yet those same Democrats tell everyone that it was the evil Republicans did it, and the liberal drones repeat the nonsense because they couldn't be bothered to actually look up what the fuck their idols voted for. The media doesnt help because most of the people in that business are also liberal drones, and investigative journalism is dead (and by "investigation", I mean performing simple searches to see who the fuck voted for what.. they cant even be bothered to do that.)
The liberal response to the facts is always to stick their head in the sand and pretend that I didnt just shatter their fucking dream world when I point out that only 4 democrats voted against the shit they are blaming on the Republicans.
And hey, why worry that 80% of the country lives in states where it is not even fucking legal to pay employees biweekly.
Surprised? I am too. I figured there were only a handful of states where this was verboten. Turns out that its only legal in 13 states, with a combined population of only 60.5 million of the 301 million living in the country.
The problem with the liberal cult is that it IS a cult. They only care about what their leaders say.. and never seem to actually watch what their leaders do. If thats not a cult, what the fuck is?
"His name was James Damore."
As long as they are going to trash their environment we should help them and also do the same to ours as long as your massa gets to line his pockets and make the rest of us pay the price.
"That's supposed to be your retirement folks"
no its not, and that is a major problem with the entire system, its supposed to be when flunky Johnny simply cant work any more he wont starve to death at age 80 while living in a cardboard box.
somehow the old farts in this country demand and expect that after putting in a fraction of their 60$ a week paycheck in 1973 they are entitled to thousands a month today for them to live on in retirement, but again its not, its a safety net that everyone abuses.
and cry me a river, I remember being told as young grade school the shit wont be there when I get old enough, so I have been planning my retirement since I started working in the mid 90's, sorry if you did not get the memo maybe you should have cut back on pizza night yourself instead of depending on a welfare system to glide you though retirement.
You fail to take elasticity into account, the impact is typically negligible if any at all. Your argument lacks much if any fact based evidence, so it's about as good as when greek scholars were able to argue that there are 4 elements. Even William A. Niskanen has come out against supply side economics.
I guess it's a good thing, I wasn't advocating supply side economics then. Almost magic how your argument falls apart when you take that into account.
If your logic were correct, the soviet union with its effective 100% tax rate would have had exactly 0 people employed.
It's tax rate wasn't 100%. And it did fail hard. I'm sure you're trying to prove something here, but you don't quite have the basics of logic down.
I need to correct myself. It was more than 4 Democrats that voted against it. It was actually 9 Democrats that voted against deregulating default swaps.
The final House roll call went 292 to 60, and breakdown by party is 133 to 51 for Republicans and 157 to 9 for Democrats. More Democrats voted for this thing than Republicans, in spite of the fact that more Republicans bothered to vote.
Yet the Democrats tell us time and again that it was the Republicans that deregulated the beast.
The really interesting part was that in June of that year, the House voted for a precursor to this bill that did not include deregulation of default swaps and that vote went 217 to 214 (Democrats went 3 to 206, overwhelmingly against the bill when it did not include default swap deregulation!)
Republican support tanked when it included deregulation of default swaps, and Democrat support grew enormously.. yet somehow the Republicans are to blame? Really?
THIS is why liberals are cultist fuckwads. They dont have a fucking clue whats going on! They think the Republicans are to blame for what the Democrats did, because thats what the Democrats told them to think.
The facts are available, assholes. You don't need to rely on what Senator Daterape told you. Stop listening to what they say and start looking at what they do. The Democrats are more responsible for the economy being in the shitter, BECAUSE THATS THE WAY THE VOTE WENT. Stop listening. Start watching.
"His name was James Damore."
Even if the dog didn't go with them on the vacation, I still think that it is total BS that the president gets to go on several vacations a year while the rest of us can't afford to go anywhere or do anything.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.