White House considers payroll tax holiday

washingtonpost ^ | September 3, 2010 | Ezra Klein

[Dubya-M-DeesWent2SyriaStupid!]

The White House is considering a push for hundreds of billions of dollars in new stimulative spending, focusing on business tax cuts including a temporary cut in payroll taxes. In part, this is good policy. In part, it's necessary policy. Anne Kornblut and Lori Montgomery quote an unnamed Democratic strategist complaining that the White House has let the issues get away from them in advance of November's election. "'We did the mosque, Katrina, Iraq, and now Middle East peace?' said a Democratic strategist who works closely with multiple candidates and spoke on the condition of anonymity. 'And in between you redo the Oval Office? It has become a joke.'"

[Sequoyah101]

Because it is 15% friggin’ percent of income! I can think of a hell of a lot better ways to spend 15% of my gross income than to supplement a dying system that should have been means tested out of existence a long time ago.

[bmwcyle]

He will give a tax break and still expect you to pay it in April.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Like any tax cut when sitting to the right of the Laffer curve peak, it will be a true stimulus and will result in paradoxically higher revenues.

If the Rats go through with this, the GOP will be smart to praise Obama for “the only good idea he ever had, and that was borrowed from us.”

[Osage Orange]

Katrina????

[eyedigress]

The votes of the past will decide the votes of the future. The critters are doomed if their name is on tarp,stimulus or deathcare. None of it worked because the leadership has not been honest about any of it. Vote em’ out!

[eyedigress]

That one tenth of one percent savings doesn’t have much muscle does it? Obama is an OJT nightmare.

[dalereed]

“The problem isn’t that companies and people aren’t spending. That’s just the symptom. “

Anyone that spends for the purpose of spending needs to be locked up for life!

[Dubya-M-DeesWent2SyriaStupid!]

exactamundo. It is all a big game to make fun of/blame the rich play peter pan and watch Soros and Obama and chicago gang get rich all awhile they call Bush and the republicans to be for the rich.

[bmwcyle]

I got that extra with my VA last year. It was not tax free like all my other VA.

[kcvl]

The so-called tax cut won’t be for everyone...Obama, et al will pick and choose winners and losers as usual...

Sen. Russ Feingold (D., Wis.), who is in a tough re-election fight, is urging an extension and expansion of a payroll tax cut for small firms hiring new workers. The White House is examining that idea, as well as a proposal to extend the payroll tax cut to those who are hired. It also wants to extend the research-and-development tax credit.

[tanknetter]

Anyone that spends for the purpose of spending needs to be locked up for life!

Very few people and companies spend for the sake of spending. What they do is spend for the sake of having and in a consumer/market-based economy like the US's that's what drives most of the real growth.

Having said that, there's also a BIG difference between necessary/required spending and discretionary spending. What's happening is that people and companies have cut way back on the discretionary side - either not buying/deferring what they really don't need to have (such as putting off buying a new car for a year or three), or buying inferior products but at a cheaper price (generic brand mac & cheese mix vs Kraft, for instance).

If you look at the big "bumps" in the economy, they have been driven by one-time/limited time government incentives to buy "want to haves" (rather than "need to haves") now. Cash for Clunkers and the New Home Credit being the examples.

[Personal Responsibility]

Not only that but they didn’t “do” Katrina at all. They “did” the gulf oil slick disaster.