You support the tax increase?
opposition to continuing the payroll tax break still runs high among conservatives in the House
This is the kind of “conservatism” we had before Reagan. Somebody - was it Jack Kemp? - called it “root canal conservatism.” Somebody else said it another way: “Republicans used to be the tax collectors for the welfare state.”
Are we going back to the days before working class Reagan Democrats could identify with the GOP? Is the GOP’s philosophy that the middle and lower classes need to pay more taxes?
If so, Obama will be laughing all the way to his second inaugural.
The problem is that this particular reduction in payroll taxes just further shifts the burden onto the 53% that are paying federal income taxes.
Without any changes, Social Security is committed to paying a certain amount in future benefits. It doesn't matter whether it receives enough revenue in payroll taxes to support it. If there's a shortage (it started last year), the difference must be made up from general revenue, or more Treasury bonds must be sold to borrow it.
If you reduce the payroll tax, even for a short time, it aggravates the shortage. And it shifts the burden onto the 53% that actually pay income taxes. The other 43% only pay payroll taxes, if they are wage earners or self-employed. Aside from excise taxes it's the only federal tax they pay.
Since federal income taxes are not being raised, it's simply piling more debt on their children and grandchildren -- who will eventually have to pay more income taxes (if they are in the 53%) to pay the bond holders when the bonds are redeemed.