Posted on 12/16/2011 9:36:22 AM PST by SeekAndFind
We've largely ignored the not-so-great payroll tax debate on the assumption that it would pass in any case and won't matter much to the economy. But now things are getting interesting: If Republicans hang tough, they might even get a useful policy victory in return for giving President Obama his political fillip.
Keep in mind that the payroll tax "cut" is nothing more than a tax holiday. All the political palaver is about extending it for one more year, through 2012, so Mr. Obama can claim he did something for middle-class voters before Election Day. Because it is temporary, the tax holiday will do little to change employer incentives to hire.
The best one can say for the payroll reprieve is that individuals will better spend the money than the government would. The problem is that government will keep spending anyway, borrowing the money instead. The one-year payroll extension will take something like $121 billion from Social Security revenues, which means about 10% to 15% of the entire federal budget deficit expected for this fiscal year
Congress is now fighting over the details of how to "pay for" this lost revenue with spending cuts. But the only certainty is that most of those cuts will be either notional or pulled from the later years of the 10-year budget window and thus never happen. The real news in this end-of-year political rush is that total federal spending in fiscal 2012 will increase—notwithstanding all the posturing about a new era of spending restraint. Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats have blunted House GOP efforts this year and largely preserved the government they grew so rapidly in 2009-2010.
Which makes it all the more important for Republicans to show some achievement for their first year controlling the House.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
What action will hurt America most?
Kill American jobs, starve American refineries, provide cheap energy to China, spike up domestic energy costs, increase taxes, pander to the internationalist left, insure high Saudi income of American dollars to use to fund militant madrassas world wide.
What’s here for him not to like?
And now we hear that Canada is not happy about the delay with the Keystone pipeline. Canada may build their own pipeline, entirely on Canadian land, to Vancouver, so they can export oil to China and other countries, instead of selling it to us.
Obama has said that the final decision on the pipeline is delayed for more study. However, if our partner in Canada is not going to wait around for us to study it some more, and decide to change their plans, where does that leave us?
The liberals have said that this Canadian oil is dirtier than other oil, and that’s part of their opposition to the pipeline. Anybody believe that?
What’s here for him not to like?"
Post of the day. Perfect description of the Obama mind.
RE: Obama has said that the final decision on the pipeline is delayed for more study
This seems to be the standard operational procedure of the greenies .... Study the issue to death. When the results of the study are unfavorable tot heir assumptions, guess what they demand? MORE STUDY.
The same thing is happening on the Hydraulic Fracking issue for the Marcellus Shale here in NY State. Even as the Pennsylvania side has been creating energy jobs for several years through fracking, and even as study after study have shown that the environmental impacts are minimal and additional safety measures can be put in place to address any concerns, guess what the environmentalists demand — MORE STUDY.
NY Governors David Patterson and more recently Andrew Cuomo have succumbed to this ( this after Cuomo promised to approve it ).
The green strategy is this — DEATH BY A THOUSAND STUDIES.
I’m surprised that zero’s union buddies aren’t more vocal.
——I’m surprised that zero’s union buddies aren’t more vocal——
You do not know how vocal or how loud the unions are because the presstitutes do not report anything perceived as negative.
What nobody is saying is that the less that one pays (due to the "reprieve"), the less that will get credited to ones social security account.
People will be trading their future social security entitlement for cash today.
-PJ
Will Obama veto a tax holiday to stop a job-creating pipeline?
I’ll go out on a limb. He won’t veto it because he would then have to take resposibility for the consequences of the veto, of both these elements of the omnibus spending bill. I could be wrong.
Where's all the stories about the homeless, for example? Haven't seen any as far as I can recall.
True. Everybody I tell this too immediately changes the subject and starts blathering stuff like “you idiot. dontcha know there’s no money in your SS “account”!, there is no lockbox! it won’t be there when its time for me to collect it anyway”!, social security is a scam!”
Stuff like that, instead of rationality like you posted.
Considering that I have no faith that I will get anything from Social Security, I would rather have the money today, thank you very much.
Seriously.
Which is why mentioning something like this forces people to face that possibility.
Once they do that, they can begin to see the farce in pretending that these "compromises" are serious attempts to solve the longer-term problems.
-PJ
In 1991-92 stories on homelessness, thousands turning out for dozen of burger-flipping jobs, lines at food banks, starving kids, etc. were all part of the nightly national news.
I know homelessness in my area is up because I meet them when out walking in my community. These are new faces, including some women for the first time in the decades I've been here. I've checked, there aren't shelter beds available for the men, a few exist for women. Most of the availability is for runaway teenagers.
There's are real gaps in a so-called "social safety net" that overly favors migrants, minorities, punishes savings and upward mobility.
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