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.'"

Comments

But

[0123456]

I thought tax cuts are evil and stuff?

Re:But

[Timewasted]

Well that depends: who are the tax cuts for? If they are for the poor, then of course it is evil. If they are for the rich, then it will spur job growth and our economy -- at least, this is what FOX would like us to believe...

Re:But

[Kenja]

The republicans are only for the tax cuts the democrats are against. So its not so much that they are pro-tax cut but that they are anti-democrat.

Re:But

[Osgeld]

As a fairly regular FOX radio news listener (know thy enemy and all that rot) I can assure you that this IS the tripe they spit out on a daily basis ... which is what the parent post stated, not REP vs DEM's.

If nothing else its the more vocal nutters from the TP that are harping every single day that things like extending unemployment during a very high period of unemployment is a terrible thing to do as it encourages dependence, but giving tax breaks to people / companies that already exploit every single loophole in loopholes is a 100% sure fire way to grow the economy.

I am personally somewhere in the middle, yes people do not need to be accustom to a handout, but giving megacorp a break is just going to help Brazil, India and China cause at the end of the day their only goal is to squeeze every single ounce of profit that they possibly can by any means necessary.

Re:But

[jmac_the_man]

The Republicans (and apparently the President) wanted the tax holiday extended all year. The Democrats talked them down to two months.

Re:But

[artor3]

No Democrat has ever claimed that all tax cuts are evil. That's just a flagrant lie. By contrast, the Republicans do claim that taxes are always bad and should only ever go down. So why are they set against this one?

Answer: They're not. They're just taking hostages, again. Just as when they secured the extension of the Bush tax cuts on the rich by threatening to cut off unemployment benefits around this time last year. Or when they forced cuts to discretionary spending by threatening to force the country into default. This time they're trying to secure a new oil pipeline, and probably other concessions, by threatening to raise taxes on the middle class.

Re:But

[jmac_the_man]

Well, Mr. Ingenuous, the pipeline thing would require an up-or-down ruling on the Keystone Pipeline. (Obama's EPA is holding it up because it makes environmentalists mad despite being a good idea.) The Republican bill doesn't even require them to approve it. Calling that provision a subsidy (e.g., the owners of the pipeline getting some kind of monetary payment from the government) isn't ingenuous at all.

Re:But

[ninetyninebottles]

The Republicans (and apparently the President) wanted the tax holiday extended all year. The Democrats talked them down to two months.

You should really pay more attention. The Democrats presented a plan to extend the payroll cut for a year and keep medicare payouts at the same level. The Republicans presented a plan to extend the payroll cut for a year while at the same time guaranteeing the oil companies can build a pipeline from Alaska to the Gulf through protected wildlife refuges. Both groups compromised on extending it for two months (with some republicans trying to stall it) in order that they might argue more about which additional things should be added. Mostly, the Democrats have been trying to pass the cuts while the Republicans are refusing until they get the oil company benefits they promised lobbyists.

Claims that it is the Democrats that are preventing the passage of these tax cuts on a longer time frame is either disingenuous or reflects a twisted perception of reality. Stop watching Fox "News".

Re:But

[burning-toast]

Unfortunately they (house republicans) also wanted to trim 200,000+ jobs from the public sector, reduce unemployment benefits, and a bunch of other such nonsense. This being the first tax break they chose to harp about how we are going to pay for it after all. There are a lot more details to the house bill for 12 months which you seem to have excluded from the account.

We can always start with the fact that the bush tax cuts are passed through without payment for them, but when it comes time to renew the tax "holiday", then by god we must pay for this somehow!!!

And you can't say that this has anything to do with the pipeline in the first place. Both the democrats and the president agreed to that stipulation in both existing forms of the bills (2 and 12 month) so your point is moot on that.

- Toast

Re:But

[porges]

In case it really has to be said yet again: the poor often have no federal income tax liability, but if they are working poor, they still have to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, which are deducted from one's paycheck, which is why they're called payroll taxes. These taxes are deducible from gross income, but you don't get the taxes themselves back on April 15th. And it was these taxes that the current tax cut is about.

Re:But

[gtbritishskull]

Almost all economists agree that getting money to poorer people helps stimulate the economy the best. The reason is that rich people will just save the money and it will not do much stimulating. Poorer people will buy products that they need and it will stimulate the economy. 70% of our GDP comes from consumer spending. If people buy more products, then companies will hire more people to make more products. Hence, unemployment decreases.

Re:But

[gtbritishskull]

Your response makes no sense. I am talking about return on tax dollars invested. I agree with you that poor people don't save much while rich people do. I save quite a bit. It is a good thing to do if you can afford to do it. But, if you are giving a tax cut of $1bn (for example), then it is more effective to give it to the poor and lower middle class than it is to give it to the rich because the rich will save more of it while the poor cannot afford to save it. So, a tax cut to the poor of $1bn would most likely increase consumer spending by almost $1bn (because they cannot afford not to spend it) while a tax cut of $1bn to the rich would increase consumer spending by a much lower amount (because they can afford to save a lot of it). And since the biggest reason for high unemployment right now is low demand for products, anything you do to increase consumer spending (ie consumers buying products) will help employment because companies will have to hire more people to make more products.

Re:But

[CrimsonAvenger]

These taxes are deducible from gross income, but you don't get the taxes themselves back on April 15th. And it was these taxes that the current tax cut is about.

It should be noted that we have something called an "Earned Income Credit" that allows a partial (if not complete) refund of your payroll taxes, if your income is low enough.

So, yes, many people do get this back on April 15th...

Re:But

[Osgeld]

I never said its morally inferior to helping America, but America really should be helping Americans first. As an American who is scraping up pennies to pay rent and having to make long term budgets in order to buy toilet paper why should I feel guilty that I would rather see my tax dollars helping me out over helping a billionaire exploit labor in China just so they can bring their junk back to America and fuck me over with a 1000x price increase?

Re:But

[ninetyninebottles]

guaranteeing

Lie: The Republican proposal guaranteed a RULING up or down within 90 days, but did not guarantee approval.

True enough, it just forces a decision on the proposal in a very short timeframe and before the EPA study of probable effects will be finished.

the oil companies can build a pipeline from Alaska

Lie: The Northern end of the pipeline is in Canada.

Umm, I guess you're right it is from Alberta not Alaska, although that seems worse in my opinion not better. We're now risking our protected wildlife area in order to process foreign oil, not even Alaskan?

to the Gulf

Half-lie: The pipeline goes to endpoints in Illinois, Oklahoma, and the eastern coast of Texas. Though the eastern coast of Texas borders the Gulf of Mexico, the pipeline is obviously not dumping oil directly into the Gulf. But thanks for trying to tie a land pipeline to oceanic oil spills.

The pipeline goes to the refineries along the gulf coast for easy transport. Who said anything about oil spills or dumping? Sounds like a truly pathetic strawman to me.

through protected wildlife refuges

Lie: TransCanada already rerouted the pipeline around the refuges in question.

They've proposed several routes, but are trying to push it through before any environment impact studies in the new areas can be researched or evaluated.

Amazing lie density. I'm impressed.

You have some serious problems man. Get help.

*yawn*

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:*yawn*

[sandytaru]

The thing is, it's only Republican legislaters that are so darn against the millionaire's surtax. The majority of Americans are okay with it, and a great deal of millionaires are also okay with it. The only people fighting it tooth and nail are those who kissed the ring of Grover Norquist, and those whose districts are held hostage by the Tea Party. Oh, and delisional Tea Partiers who are retired or unemployed yet somehow believe they'll be making a million bucks a year ANY DAY NOW.

Re:*yawn*

[AJH16]

Yeah, as much as I hate how biased Fox news is, CNN surprised me with something I happened to catch when I was in the grocery store and happened to see it on. They were talking to one of the Republican presidential hopefuls about what his view on the whole thing was and he was answering quite well I thought (in terms of explaining his view) that he didn't want to gut the money from elsewhere and that he thought that there needed to be some way to fund the tax cut and was being pretty clear that while he didn't like the idea of allowing it to expire he wasn't seeing an alternative that he thought would work, but the anchor would not let go of trying to ask him if he was in favor of raising taxes even though he was already being pretty direct at stating his view. The CNN anchor was clearly trying to corner him in to having to say something unpopular as opposed to having a dialog and talking about the issues it would cause. It was politics not news and appeared very clearly biased to me.

Re:*yawn*

[Anonymous Coward]

Are there really people out there that decide whether to hire or fire based on their personal income tax?

If a business is set up to make money to begin with, seems like it'd make more sense to base hiring and layoff decisions around meeting demand. And it would logically follow that policies that increase demand will benefit "job creators" more, unless their taxes are so severe (like, say, 100%+) that meeting increased demand costs them money.

People who make all their income from investments might not like it very much, but by the same token, how many of them hire and fire or base their investment decisions on their personal tax rate?

Re:*yawn*

[Paul Pierce]

The problem with the millionaire's surtax is your talking about a band-aid at best. The rich already pay the vast amount of taxes in this country. According to CNN 48% of people don't even pay federal taxes anymore. Even ignoring that - history shows the government will take in ~18% of GDP at the end of the day; no matter what they tax who. Think about how important that is - even if they tax the rich 85% - they'll still get the same amount at the end of the day. There are lots of reasons for that magic number - but some of it comes down to how much of their own money people want to keep at the end of the day. The more they are taxed the more they will hide, or they will make less. Would you work for 30 cents on the dollar - perhaps - but as hard as you'd work for 80?

The government really does have a spending problem only. Revenue is quite static; however the big trouble they got themselves into is their deficit spending. GDP is C + I + G +-exports basically. G (government spending) is a huge part of GDP, but government overspending is roughly 12% of our GDP. Think about that - 'fake demand' is really all it is.

If the government spends what they take in next year (which they should) our GDP will shrink 12% automatically. No one wants that - because that cycle gets worse - revenue goes down the year after and now they have to spend even less, etc...

Option 2 is what the President, most dems, and many repubs want - 'kick the can'. Now some are smart enough to know that only makes the inevitable worse. Some probably really do believe we can borrow more and more - even though to even stay at our current state we have to borrow 'exponentially' more every year. Run that through your head - to sustain our current economic situation (which isn't that good) we have to borrow at record rates - to the point where in 10 years we'll have to borrow as much as our entire country produces in one year - just to keep where we are.

Bottom line - we take the hit now and ride through it - or we ride it out until it collapses entirely.

Re:*yawn*

[Mitreya]

Oh, and delisional Tea Partiers who are retired or unemployed yet somehow believe they'll be making a million bucks a year ANY DAY NOW.

I think you forgot to mention one more detail that is important. The tax is marginal - you are taxed on income above 1 million! That is, anyone making 1 million a year will be unaffected by it and anyone making 1,000,100 will pay $2.5 (or $3.5, dollars, I forget) extra taxes. You have to make well over (i.e. several) a million to care.

Re:*yawn*

[Kagato]

Generally if you have employees you'd want to get away from filing as a Schedule C. A good accountant would move you towards a structure where you would draw a fairly low salary while being provided with various fringe benefits (company car, expense accounts, etc.) I once complained to my father about taxes and he said "Taxes? With a good accountant taxes are a second form of income!" Certainly I do much better as a consultant wrapping my work in an LLC than I would as a W2 employee both in terms or pay and taxes.

I would also say if I had a large company there are a slew of shelters one can take in the international sector. I.e. Google transferring IP and business units to Irish shell companies. Banks that put token executives in Switzerland for some massive tax shelters. In the end these tax dodges hurt the economy because it makes small businesses less competitive. Small business is where jobs start.

Re:*yawn*

[burning-toast]

And pay a disproportionally large amount of tax. First they fall into the highest tax bracket of 35% then pay AMT on top of that, plus capital gains on anything else.

You can be certain that no millionaire pays the full %35 on income tax. They would have to be completely ignorant and stupid about how to handle money.

I work in the financial industry surrounded by people IN that income bracket. What they do is transfer funds or take their income directly into non-liquid (non-cash) capital like stocks, bonds, mutual funds, real-estate, stock ownership whatever. Then they roll their cash over, and over, and over again by transferring it between these assets when they are performing well. This increases the total assets they own without it showing up on their "income" sheet. They bankroll money generating schemes and occasionally start small businesses (mostly geared around how to make themselves more money), but rarely do they start something like a public service industry or a manufacturing firm fresh. They would more likely buy an existing company, layoff 1/2 of the staff, reduce worker pay, "increase productivity", offshore any software development, etc. and then sell their stakes in the company (frequently in exchange for other non-cash assets). This is exactly how Romney has made his money and is exactly where he holds his cash (assets within other companies). He is living off of the dividends payed to him for this sort of work to this day. He no longer "works" for those companies, but he does draw a paycheck. I can assure you he has never done any of the work OF the companies he was employed by either. It's always been in a "how to maximize profits by gutting the existing setup and doing something different" sort of a position.

When they need some liquid assets (cash) they will take it out and pay a 15% capital gains tax or they will run it through another tax shelter (like off-shore accounts). I have known some to pay each other directly in non-liquid assets (trade a ton of stock in something for real-estate, no one made "income" that way).

Most do not create jobs, instead they use their personal income to steam-roll gathering more personal wealth. They buy holdings, stakes, yachts, real estate, and other assets.

Unless you are part of the 1% you cannot adequately defend the 1% as you apparently do NOT have any idea how simplistic your life becomes when you stop living on your paycheck and instead live on your dividends from your existing assets (which are further increasing in value on their own over time). This is exactly why many of the top earners have said, point blank, "Go ahead and tax me more, I can take it!", because you know what happens? They pay their additional on the taxable direct income (which frequently is a fraction of their total assets gained / year) and it still doesn't matter to them because most of their big assets and holdings are tied up in real property, stocks, bonds, etc.

Just let me ask you how many jobs it creates if you buy 100,000 shares of stock in a company outside of it's IPO. How many does it create when you sell them?

Simple answer: none, other than hiring a stock broker. But you CAN live on the dividends of those shares (depending on the company) and you can make a killing if you keep moving your stock holdings around in the market.

The extremely wealthy really don't tend to invest in human capital that much, it's not reliable enough ROI.

- Toast

Re:*yawn*

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The CNN anchor was clearly trying to corner him in to having to say something unpopular as opposed to having a dialog and talking about the issues it would cause. It was politics not news and appeared very clearly biased to me.

I didn't see it - I don't watch any television news. But if I were doing such an interview, that's exactly what I would be pushing for because few if any republicans had word one to say about how to pay for the extension of the Bush tax cuts. At best it was all magic talk about "job creators" ultimately improving the economy.

I don't think its "politics" at all to zero in on what sure looks like a serious case of hypocrisy. I put a lot more weight on increasing consumer demand as a way to create news jobs than I do on incentives for "job creators" so perhaps I'm biased, and there is some means of explaining the apparent hypocrisy that I've missed.

Re:*yawn*

[AJH16]

That's understandable, but then question them on the hypocrisy, don't try to trap them in to saying what you want them to day because it would be sensational and make them look bad. Ask them how they feel it is different from that situation. Ask them why their view seems to be different. Give them a chance to explain themselves and ask questions if things don't add up. That is the point of the press. Not to try and get someone to trip up so that you can make a big headline and make someone look bad. When you start doing that, you change over from a neutral press that tries to inform to a political organization that is trying to make the news rather than report it.

Re:*yawn*

[burning-toast]

You missed the point.

Once someone has a few million they do not pay %35 income tax (unless they are pretty stupid), they do not struggle to meet any burden related to paying the taxes they do have.

And if you consider hiring a wealth management firm to invest your money to be "work". Or you think $5 million to be hard to come by for the people who already have cash... I might suggest taking a look at what exactly a private equity firm is and does.

Bankrolling is not a hard game compared to working all of your life, it's just a game that has a high barrier to entry.

- Toast

Re:*yawn*

[roman_mir]

Here is a millionaire that pays himself a salary instead of rolling the money over and over, so he pays 35% federal and 7% state income taxes, plus the 3% Medicare and 12% SS, but that 12% is only on the first 100K or so, and so it doesn't matter, because 99% of his income is taxed at marginal rates. He argued this in a Congressional hearing on Obama's "jobs" act, and this remains his point that near 50% of his money already is paid to gov't in taxes before any sales taxes, property taxes, etc.

You can contact him if you want for specific details, he is pretty vocal about it and about the fact that he is unwilling to pay anymore taxes and that's a large part of the reason why he is now moving his business offshore, which will cost US many jobs, as he hires people across US.

Of-course he also will tell you that the US gov't is doing a huge disservice to the US population, by preventing him from doing lots more business with US customers (all thanks to Patriot Act), and you would know this if you tried to open a bank account outside of US, near nobody will want your business as an American bank account holder.

Re:*yawn*

[shutdown -p now]

Funnier still, vast majority Americans - including most Republican voters! - actually believe that the best way to distribute income is, essentially, "socialist" (i.e. what Americans themselves normally think as socialist). You just have to be careful to ask them without using that dirty pinko word:

The ideal wealth distribution chosen by the 5,522 people who took the online survey has the top fifth of Americans owning between 30 percent and 40 percent of the wealth. That means Americans believe the ideal distribution of wealth is that of Sweden. Moreover, 90 percent of Republicans share that belief. (Actually, 90.2 percent, as the survey coauthor, Prof. Daniel Ariely of Duke University, noted when we met to discuss his work.) The survey sample, with more than 10 times the 504 people often used in polls, is robust and credible. (For the report, see Doc 2010-21608.) The genius in the survey was to avoid questions using loaded terms like ‘‘estate tax’’ and ‘‘death tax.’’ Instead those surveyed were shown pie charts and asked what they thought was the ideal distribution of wealth and what they estimated to be the wealth distribution in America. They were not told that one of the pie charts was Sweden’s actual wealth distribution, but people gravitated to it like moths to a flame.

Re:*yawn*

[khallow]

No, that's wrong. Higher corporate taxes mean there is less wealth with which to employ people. Once those earnings are personal, they are not going to be used to hire people. That's why it's called personal income.

I imagine most personal income doesn't go into the fireplace. It either pays for jobs directly, as in the person pays for someone's work (there isn't a law against paying someone with personal income to work in the US, but maybe I just don't get the laws in your locale) and indirectly, by buying stuff or investing it.

The thing I don't get here is how people can think that there is some way to tell the difference between money that pays for jobs and money that somehow doesn't.

Re:$40 figure is bullshit

[sandytaru]

$40 a paycheck, at a paycheck every two weeks, is about $1000 a year. Not everyone is paid weekly.

They said $40 per paycheck

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

Using the media to hide the impact

[drainbramage]

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.

Re:Using the media to hide the impact

[Sloppy]

All I can think of is that Obama lost a ridiculous bet with Boehner on some secret round of golf.

Boehner: "Ten thousand dollars? Chump change. No, I said let's make it interesting."
Obama: "Ok, loser has to wear a dress and an SS armband at their next press conference."
Boehner: "That's getting closer, but people pretty much expect that. The campaigns are on, so wacky attention-whoring is already in."
Obama: "What did you have in mind?"
Boehner: "If I win, you have to be all tax cut, free money, no consequences, wooo! and my party gets to be.."
Obama: "-- Oh my god --"
Boehner "..the voice of.."
Obama: "-- I don't believe this --"
Boehner: "..reason and responsibility."

[Several seconds of silence, then they both burst out laughing]

Boehner: "Scared?"
Obama: "No, you're toast. Speaking of which, what happens when I win?"
Boehner: "We drop the birther thing."
Obama: "Oh please. No seriously, c'mon. I used to think that whole thing was stupid, but it makes people subconsciously think of me as a little more exotic and cool. Try again."
Boehner: *shrugs* "Science."
Obama: "Are you serious?! Holy shit. Really?"
Boenher: "The question is, do you have the balls?"
Obama: "What's your handicap?"
Boehner: "Gingr--" Obama: "Quit fucking around, this is a serious bet."
Boehner: "Minus 5."
Obama: "Oh."
Boehner: "Not so cocky now, are you, Mr Cool?"

Obama should be praised as a hero. So he lost at golf, BFD. He fought for science.

Re:$40 figure is bullshit

[Brian_Ellenberger]

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.

i especially like how

[circletimessquare]

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?

Re:i especially like how

[Attila Dimedici]

You mean that passing a year long extension rather than a two month extension is what you call opposing a tax cut?

Re:i especially like how

[artor3]

They intentionally added tons of unrelated, partisan crap to the one year bill. Essentially, they were taking the American people hostage. Obama and the Senate refused to play that game, and so came up with a two month extension to buy time in the hopes that the Republicans will stop taking hostages.

It's a vain hope, and we'll be right back where we started in two months -- the Republicans with a gun to the head of the American people, demanding that we give them the world. Same as they did with the unemployment benefits last year, and the debt ceiling some months ago. So don't you dare try to pretend that the Republicans were behaving ethically in proposing that "one year extension". To do so makes you either ignorant or a liar.

#650billionformilitaryisstupid

[Dan667]

should be the next tag the white house pushes. The US cannot afford spending $650 billion on a military we don't need.

Breaking news

[travdaddy]

The two-month extension passed both houses and Obama just now signed it.

Well, this one is.

[cje]

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.

Re:Well, this one is.

[roman_mir]

You should vote Ron Paul then, because nobody else will cut militarism and bring all troops home from across the globe and would reform the SS and Medicare to keep taking care of people who are on those programs now, the elderly and the children, while giving people option to opt out (at first just the people under age of 25, but eventually to let anybody opt out as these programs will be shut down.) And SS and Medicare will be shut down, whether Ron Paul is elected or not, it's just with Ron Paul the way to shut them down will be gradual, allowing the current recipients to keep getting their support (but probably means testing in order to cut costs). If it's not Ron Paul, then the way these programs will be shut down is going to be by the dollar crashing and the loss of purchasing power will mean that the nominal numbers on the coming checks will buy nothing.

Re:$40 figure is bullshit

[Rockoon]

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.

Re:Most tweeters were clueless yesterday

[Rockoon]

Maybe they thought that because thats what the President of the United States has been saying.

Obama: "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"

Re:Social Media: Removing Money from Politics

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Especially when it's being used by politicians to manipulate people who don't actually have a broader understandimg of the issues at hand. Yep, great to see.

Re:If this cut means $40 to you

[the eric conspiracy]

Most people get paid every two weeks, which is the basis used to come up with the $40. Not weekly.

Also the House got beat up justifiably. The one year extension they passed included stuff like unemployment insurance duration cuts.

Re:Diet Coke syndrome

[Ksevio]

Maybe you should read some of the tweets that this article is about where people explain how $40 less will make a difference in their budgets.

No doubt there are other programs that need debating, but for a lot of people, this will make a difference in their day to day lives.

Re:$40 figure is bullshit

[Rockoon]

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?