Payroll Tax Holiday a Poor Stimulus Idea....from 2009

[spanone]

...from January 26, 2009

This week Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested suspending the Social Security payroll tax for a period of time, as a stimulus measure. A payroll tax holiday, however, would both be costly — a two-month suspension
could cost about $120 billion, for example— and likely relatively ineffective as a stimulus measure. Public resources would be better spent on stimulus measures with a higher “bang for the buck,” such as the Making Work Pay tax
cut that President-elect Obama has proposed.

Biggest Tax Benefits from Payroll Tax Holiday Would Go to Workers Least Likely to Spend Them

Economic stimulus measures aim to encourage an immediate increase in aggregate demand by boosting consumer spending. The most efficient way to boost consumer spending is to put money into the hands of people who will
spend it quickly rather than save it; tax cuts focused on moderate- and low-income households are more effective as stimulus than tax cuts that are larger for people with higher incomes, because people at low-income levels spend
a larger share of tax cuts they receive than people at higher income levels do.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2264

[Skink]

1. A progressive president would be instituting taxes on capitol gains to offset this.

capitol gains are always generated by somebody's labor therefore a portion should be put into a public pension system.

[leftinportland]

2. Biggest benefit goes to employers...

not the employees. This payroll tax is matched by every employer writing a paycheck. If our contribution is reduced by 2% so is theirs...hugh tax break for employers. Merry Christmas Walmart!

[hay rick]

4. No.

The holiday only affects the employee's contribution, not the employer's contribution. One article here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704156304576003441518282986.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

From the article: "The employer's half of the tax—also 6.2%—wouldn't be affected under the White House proposal, and thus the cost of hiring new workers wouldn't be directly affected."

[doc03]

3. My problem with it is it takes funding from SS and it is a

sure thing it will come back and bite us, first of all they will use it to make deeper cuts in SS. Second they got their foot in the door with SS by cutting the payroll tax, now you watch the Republicans will try and make the cut permanent just like the Bush tax cuts.

[reformist2]

5. SS is a fiscally sound "big government" program, and Repugs can't stand that.

They can't attack it now as "big government run amok" so long as it runs surpluses. But if it's running deficits like everything else, then it becomes just another "failed government welfare program".

Democrats MUST NOT LET THIS HAPPEN.

[Rex]

6. Wealthy people control this country and will fuck us over as many times

as our govt (run by rich people) let them!