Free Republic

The decision by Senate Democratic leaders to delay a vote on the Bush-era tax cuts until after the election has put the payroll industry on high alert. If Democratic leaders fail to determine the tax rates by Dec. 10, it could be too late for payroll administrators to withhold the right amount of tax from workers’ paychecks, according to industry officials. “The closer you get to the end of the year the more problems there’ll be,” Michael O’Toole, senior director of publications and government relations at the American Payroll Association (APA), told The Hill. “If [the IRS] issues [withholding tables]...

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...

Can you imagine someone working in the private sector going to work one day and going off on a deadly rampage, murdering a number of his coworkers and then continuing to receive paychecks from that employer? That’s exactly what is happening in the case of Major Nidal Hasan. Hasan gunned down his fellow soldiers and he’s still receiving a paycheck from the United States. Good grief! At least the banks are doing the right thing. ....

Earlier last year, ACORN founder Wade Rathke glowingly blogged that Patrick Gaspard, political director of the White House, was a former ACORN organizer. When that claim started receiving a bit of attention, Rathke offered a retraction, saying his memory was playing tricks on him. Right, Wade, right… What is indisputable about Patrick Gaspard is that at one time, he was the Executive Vice President of SEIU Local 1199, the New York City-based chapter that is the largest of all SEIU locals. At some point in late 2007 or early 2008, Gaspard allegedly left SEIU to join the Obama campaign.

After years of debate about whether to extend the tax cuts launched by President Bush, the Obama administration now wants to extend a tax cut of its own. Among the major tax provisions in the administration's fiscal 2011 budget is a one-year extension of the "Making Work Pay" tax credit, which was a critical part of President Obama's campaign platform and the 2009 stimulus law. The payroll tax credit is set to lapse at the end of 2010; extending it for a year would cost $61.2 billion. Obama has touted the tax cut's breadth, emphasizing at last week's State of...

The US economy shed 216,000 jobs in August, less than the 276,000 lost last month and the 225,000 loss economists were expecting, the Labor Department reported today. With monthly job losses still elevated, the unemployment rate rose to 9.7% in August, its highest level since June 1983. Labor also revised June job losses from 443,000 to 463,000 and July job losses from 247,000 to 276,000, which together adds another 49,000 jobs lost over the last three months. Economists have said the economy needs to create about 100,000 jobs each month to keep up with new workers, but with August's numbers,...

Four unions representing the nation's postal workers are pleading for a meeting with the White House to address possible funding shortfalls for workers' payroll and retiree health benefits, according to a letter obtained by CongressDaily. The letter alleges that USPS "may not be able to make payroll in October and will be forced to issue IOUs instead." Yvonne Yoerger, a spokeswoman for USPS, confirmed that the unions wrote the letter but disputed the claim that payroll deadlines will be missed.

Another steep drop in payrolls expected in April 580,000 lost jobs would be the least bad in six months By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch Last update: 10:13 a.m. EDT May 3, 2009 WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - U.S. workers lost jobs at a devastating rate again in April, but the expected loss of 580,000 would be least bad since October, economists said. Compared with what the economy has just seen, 580,000 lost jobs might look good. But in absolute terms, it'd be horrible. Aside from the current recession, it would be in percentage terms the eighth worst month for job losses in the...

No other stimulus provision will be as immediate and as effective,' says small business lobby Posted: December 14, 2008 10:51 pm Eastern © 2008 WorldNetDaily WASHINGTON – Big business bailouts and "economic stimulus packages" are all the rage in the Capitol these days. Most involve massive transfers of wealth from taxpayers to government-directed projects. But a new and very different bill, proposed by a heretofore little-known congressman from Texas, is gaining traction from Republicans – and even a few Democrats, according to the sponsor. It's called "the tax-holiday plan." And one version of it picked up support from the National...

How much is a CEO worth? What is appropriate compensation for the leader of a large and complex organization? The standard reply has always been, “Let the market decide.” Lately, though, markets have proven themselves to be spectacularly ill-suited to be the last word on just about any issue. Even before Alan Greenspan recently and belatedly figured it out, “the invisible hand” and “magic” of the markets were mostly what their airy nomenclature implies: figments of irrational economic exuberance. Markets have never been stand-alone forces of nature; rather they are shaped, controlled and guided by human beings as fallible and...

The state of California's payroll is skyrocketing, even as its budget deficit has grown to billions of dollars in recent months. In Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's first four years, the total bill for state workers' salaries jumped by 37 percent, compared with a 5 percent increase in the preceding four years under then-Gov. Gray Davis, a Chronicle analysis of state payroll records shows. One month before Schwarzenegger took office in November 2003, just eight state employees earned more than $200,000 a year working in the core state government, which excludes universities and the Legislature. In April of this year, there were...

Nonfarm private employment grew 130,000 from December 2007 to January of 2008 on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the ADP National Employment ReportTM. The estimated change in employment from November to December was revised down 3,000 to 37,000. January's increase of 130,000 is consistent with nonfarm private employment growth that averaged 110,000 during the three-month period from October through December 2007.

Ten months after installing a new computerized payroll process that has been roiled by glitches, Los Angeles Unified officials now say costs for fixing the system and completing its rollout could top $210 million. The system, with an original price tag of $95 million, has underpaid or overpaid thousands of employees, and last week district officials said hiring consultants to fix it has already ballooned the cost to $132.5 million. And some officials are questioning the district's transparency on all the costs associated with the system, noting that at least $6 million will be forfeited by allowing some overpaid teachers...

WASHINGTON -- More than the ascension of Nancy Pelosi & Co. was disturbing congressional Republicans last week. They worried that George W. Bush may proceed down the same path that made his father a one-term president. Thus, they ask this question: Will the current President Bush embrace a tax increase that would produce potential economic disaster and guaranteed political catastrophe?

We're grateful to our police officers. We count on them. We're proud of them.  Our state is going broke paying for them.  Same goes for teachers. We wish we could afford them, but we're having trouble.  We're having trouble paying for New Jersey's nearly 500,000 public employees. Especially at their current salaries and fringe benefits. Especially with New Jersey's property taxes among the steepest in the nation and rising.  Especially now that state officials have closed a $4.5 billion budget gap by raising taxes and cutting services while sidestepping the subject of how we compensate unionized public workers.  This isn't...

New Jersey added 59,400 state and local-government jobs in the first half of this decade, even as private-sector employment was flat, a Star-Ledger analysis has found. The 11 percent increase in government jobs -- driven largely by ballooning education payrolls -- outpaced population growth and came at a time of rising anger over skyrocketing property taxes. "It's an incredible number that leaves private businessmen and taxpayers scratching their heads and saying, 'How is this possible?'" said Philip Kirschner, president of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association. "The economy is the same for all of us, so where are the...

Document ISGQ-2004-00060580 is a memo that contains a direct order form Saddam Hussein in the middle of the war asking to treat the Arab Feedayeen i.e. the non Iraqi Foreign Arab Terrorists as equal as the Iraqi soldier in salary and benefits and not just any soldier but like those in the Special Forces. These are the same Arab terrorists who stayed in Iraq after the removal of the regime and caused those horrible attacks mostly on innocent civilians. This document is a follow on another document where the Iraqi were training Foreign Arab terrorist since the year 2000 (please...

U.S. Economy Adds Fewer Jobs Than Expected in October (NYT) Payrolls Expand in Oct.; Jobless Rate Dips (AP)

Have you signed up with your employer for an automatic payroll deposit? Then be warned. The employer has access to your bank account for 5 days after the deposit is made. Technically, the employer can only debit your account to reverse an error. BUT IN REALITY, he can debit your account for the full amount of your check for any reason he chooses. Revenge. Coercion. Whatever. Your bank won't care; it's not their problem. His bank won't care, or they may fake it and just not call you back. The ACH people won't care. Mid-America Payment Exchange won't care (it's...

In January 1937 the Federal Government began taking Social Security taxes from the paychecks of Americans. Americans have been whining and voting to get their money back ever since. Election after election, year after year, the retirement that American workers are owed and have prepaid is held at virtual gunpoint by the same sort of politicians that 68 years ago sold the program as a new “freedom” -- freedom from worry in old age. Now old age is filled with worry about Social Security. Vote for me or the other guy will steal your Social Security.No, vote for me or...