Posted on 12/22/2011 3:50:37 AM PST by Sub-Driver
'What Does $40 Mean to You?' Sad Stories Roll In to White House December 22, 2011
(CNSNews.com) - The White House says it's been flooded with responses to the question it posed Wednesday: "What does $40 mean to you?"
An extension of the payroll tax cut will save a "typical" family earning $50,000 around $40 a paycheck, the White House says. (It also will reduce the only dedicated funding source for Social Security benefits, but few in Washington are talking about that.)
One day after the White House asked "working" people to "tell us what your family will give up if your taxes increase," the stories are rolling in, including one from a person who worried about not having enough to pay the cable bill:
"Our cable internet bill is $49 per month. If we lose this payroll tax cut then we will have to give up either (our) internet access or possibly our 'Friday Family Pizza' night. Either way, we will lose something that brings us together as a family," wrote "K.Z" from Frederick, Maryland.
Another person wrote that $40 will "buy lunch from the cafeteria for almost a whole month for my twins."
Someone else who "can barely get by now" said taking $40 out of his paycheck "would just about put me under."
A person from New Mexico said "$40 less a paycheck means I will have to pick between my insulin and the water bill. It means never being able to see my doctor -- even though I have insurance."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
$40 a week means you’re making $100,000 a year. So without the $40 a week, you’ll only be making $98,000 a year??
$40? So what? Running a $1.5T deficit means that monthly $40 “savings” is overwhelmed by $410 debt which must be paid at some point.
It’s the bread and circuses stage.
$40 bi-weekly won’t pay for nonexistent electricity when the EPA forces your local power plants to close.
I know exactly what $40 means to me. Every year after printing my taxes, I reduce my final reported income by $100 to see how much of that last hundred dollars I get to keep. Forty percent, forty dollars is the share of my own earnings that the government permits me to retain these days. Is it any wonder I’ve gone Galt to a large extent?
I thought it was $40 a paycheck. My paycheck is every 2 wks. Some people who wrote their sob stories think it’s $40 a month.
Two cases of malt and a slim jim!
Just to make it clear, we are talking $40 per week or $1000. per year average. Since all we are talking about is a 2 month extension or January and February. The real number is a total of $167.66 average total.
THANK YOU!!
Gosh, I wish someone brave enough in the media would point this out! All the “tax cut” does is delay the amount they take from you - that’s all!
Pay up now, or pay up later - either way we still get the shaft...but it’s being played up in the media like it’s an actual tax savings, which it most certainly isn’t!
$50,000 a year = $1000
$100,000 a year = $2000
$200,000 a year = $4000
etc, etc
It's the kind of smoke-and-mirrors nonsense that makes people feel good but does nothing to promote economic growth. But that won't stop the White House from ruthlessly demagoguing it, as they do everything else, and without fail.
This from a fraud who thinks nothing of spending 20 times his salary on just one of his taxpayer funded vacations.
To me $40 means 1/100,000 of what you are stealing from the American taxpayer, you freeloading communist!
1) If you are so poor that you can barely afford cable, either you are not earning $50,000 a year to start with, or you are such a poor budgeter that you deserve to go without until you improve.
2) Cable TV is trash anyway. Do yourself a favor and get rid of it.
3) If you are diabetic because you are overweight, this might be the time to consider some lifestyle changes.
4) Switch to Family Spaghetti night. Your family isn't going to fall apart because the pepperoni went away.
I read a very interesting comment on this topic posted after an article in the LA Times. The person posting indicated he has increased his 401k contribution by the amount that he saw back in his paycheck due to the reduced FICA confiscation. He is essentially “privatizing” his “contribution”, taking it back. I like that concept!
If I was that strapped for cash, where $40 would make a real difference, cable would be the FIRST thing to go.
But, then again, I'm intelligent enough to entertain myself.
Or, they just could make pizza, like at my house.
The kids like to "decorate" their own. And, I like "pizza night" because - more often than not - it uses up the leftovers (odds and ends of cheese, 1/2 jar of spaghetti sauce, etc etc etc) in the fridge.
But, I suppose that "making" pizza, would involve something called "work". Or "creativity". Easier to call Domino's and tip the pizza guy.
Women ask me that question all the time.
The MSM is hell-bent on getting the community organizer re-elected - nothing else.
Our side should start a twitter campaign...’what 1.5 trillion deficit mean to me’. The #Iamthe53percent campaign was awesome to counter the 1% thing.
Without cable you can make your pizza and play a card or board game - which is actually better for family relations than pizza and a cable movie.
Stealing from granny’s SS trust fund to ensure being able to watch 100 channels of nothing.
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