Republicans Plan to Continue Payroll Tax Holiday Indefinitely to Destroy Social Security

[jtown1123]

We cannot allow our Democratic representatives to support this payroll taxcut holiday. Social Security has never had to rely on general revenues to pay out benefits and this change will inevitably annihilate the program as Republicans will never allow it to expire and say they will frame it as a tax increase against Obama.

Please call your reps today or send them a letter opposing this provision. Many of them are unaware how this provision will weaken Social Security: http://capwiz.com/ncpssm2/issues/alert/?alertid=20648111

Huffington Post

Ryan Grim

WASHINGTON - The tax cut deal that President Obama struck with congressional Republicans contains a provision that could ultimately be the undoing of Social Security, say Senate Democrats and backers of the old-age and disability program.

Obama, as part of the Democratic package, secured a roughly 30 percent cut in the payroll tax, from 6.2 to 4.2 percent. Allowing it to expire in a year will mean that workers will see a nearly 50 percent jump in payroll taxes as the rate reverts back -- an event that will surely be described as a tax hike. The cut is estimated to cost $120 billion per year.

Democrats have never allowed the rate to be cut, even temporarily, in the history of the program, because payroll taxes feed the Social Security trust fund and create the political base of support for the program, said Nancy Altman, author of "The Battle For Social Security", a history of the program, and head of the advocacy group Social Security Works. Republicans have won a long-sought victory, even as President Obama hails it as a win for his party.

Republicans acknowledged that the expiration of the tax holiday will be treated as a tax increase. "Once something like this goes into place, a year from now, when it expires, it'll be portrayed as a tax increase," said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). So in a body like Congress, precedents matter and this is setting a precedent. I think that certainly is going to create some problems down the road if it passes."

Given that Congress, under Democratic control, can't gather itself to let tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire, members of both parties are convinced that letting the payroll tax rate revert back to its current spot will be near impossible.

"Once you bring a rate down, if it goes back up, people will feel that. They'll feel their paycheck being less and that argument" -- that letting it expire amounts to a tax hike -- "eventually is bound to be made," said Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.).

"There's always a tendency to continue those things... Once something comes in, it's very difficult to change it," said Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio.) He then volunteered, without prompting, that "It would be detrimental to the Social Security system, especially when it's in bad shape."

Story continues below
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/08/tax-cut-deal-a-hidden-thr_n_793983.html

[Poboy]

1. Obama is failing us. Badly.

[Marr]

5. He's succeeding for this favored constituents; the top 2%.

A Republican president would never be able to get away with this. Even our current crop of Democrats would block it if the Republicans were doing it. They'd have no choice, politically.

But just buy yourself a Democratic President, and you get to not only undermine the program, but blame it on the Democratic Party.

Obama is turning out to be a sort of flowering of the DLC operation. This is where the big moneyed interests get the last bits they wanted, and put the so-called opposition party firmly into their pocket once and for all at the same time.

[shraby]

2. Dems still have the Senate where bills go to die.

[bullwinkle428]

3. The Obama legacy - "ending Social Security as we know it"?

:shrug:

[mdmc]

4. ..