US House Links Payroll Tax Extension to Keystone Pipeline

[tomahawk6]

Both sides are playing games by forcing the other side to accept a poison pill or explain to the electorate why they rejected something that would turn their voters against them.

Currently the Dems have regained the upper hand.

And it appears that everyone is losing patients with Boehner's inability to control his own members.

Wouldn't be surprised if they end up cutting him out completely.
[/q]

Must be something in the water up there.The congressmen that are dragging their feet were all Tea Party approved.They arent going to cave to the democrats.Its absurd to pass a 2 month extension then have to come back and do it again.The Senate is in recess.Obama is on vacation and the American people are focused on the holidays.Polls dont mean squat right now.The only number that matters is how confident people are in Obama's handling of the economy.As we get closer to the election say August we shall see if Obama can sell snow cones to eskimo's.

 

[a_majoor]

Sigh. The GOP is being handed things on a plate, but seem determined to drop the serving tray. It seems to me that the focus for real change will have to be the downline elections, sweeping "Progressives" out of local, municipal and State offices, and applying strict fiscal discipline to their own houses.

This will lead to a lot of knife fights, since one aspect of strict fiscal discipline will have to be undoing, defunding and closing down expensive and disfunctional "Progressive" initiatives, rolling back wages and benefits for unionized government workers (or firing lots of them to balance the books) and other short term measures. fighting the local war may not be as glamorous as fighting it out in Washington, but probably will have more positive results:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/286587/re-payroll-tax-mess-michael-walsh

Re: The Payroll Tax Mess
December 22, 2011 4:28 P.M.
By Michael Walsh

Jonah, thanks for pointing out the salient feature of this flap — that the Democrats have undermined their own arguments about the true nature of the Social Security program (turns out it really is a tax-based welfare program, not a dedicated, contribution-based retirement program), and that the Republicans either ought to take them up on it, or flip the thing one more time and pose as the principled champions of Keeping Social Security Solvent. You write:

    Third, as I understand it, the president and the Democrats have conceded a core principle. By supporting a payroll-tax holiday that will be partly paid for out of general revenues, they’ve undermined the fiction that Social Security is a pay-as-you-go program.

I made a similar point right here just the other day:

    It’s all political Kabuki, of course. Obama wants to paint the congressional Republicans as tax-raising hypocrites, so naturally they’re scattering in fear. But have they thought this thing through? (Rhetorical question.) Do they really want the paying suckers to finally realize that Social Security is a fraud?

Seems to me the GOP would like to have it both ways, but isn’t clever enough to figure out how to do it.

The kicker is that the “payroll tax” cut isn’t really a cut at all. Not only is it a “holiday” (although Obama’s proposal to make it even larger gives the game away), but so far it’s been “paid for” by the government’s making up the shortfall with general-fund taxes and borrowed money. Some cut!

So the GOP really has a twofer here, both halves of which they’re blowing. They’re not making enough hay about the shovel-ready Keystone pipeline and they’re not “quietly celebrating this strategic blunder,” as you so aptly put it, that reveals Social Security’s congenital philosophical flaw.

But then, I expect no strategy from “Republican strategists,” just advice on tactics. They seem to know everything about elections except why we actually have them.

 

What is even worse is the entire debate is being framed with totally fake numbers:

http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/22/white-house-manipulating-payroll-tax-numbers-for-political-gains/?print=1

White House using fake numbers in payroll tax fight
1:57 PM 12/22/2011
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The White House is manipulating numbers to boost the emotional impact of its allegation that Republican legislators are denying a $40 per paycheck tax cut for 160 million American workers.

According to the Census Bureau, the U.S. economy supports only 131.7 million American workers — not 160 million. That total is only slightly up from last November’s total of 130.3 million workers, because of the stalled economy.(Interpolation: miscounting thirty million people is not a simple error)

Still, White House officials continue to push the 160 million number.

“We’ve been doing everything we can to ensure that 160 million working Americans aren’t hit with a holiday tax increase,” President Barack Obama said Dec. 22 at a White House press event intended to pressure the GOP into signing the Senate’s compromise deal on taxes and spending for 2012.

Also, according to White House spokesman Jay Carney, the temporary rollback of Social Security tax is worth about $1,000 a year. That means about $20 a week to the average worker, not the $40 per week the White House commonly cites.(Interpolation: this gives a whole new meaning to "doubling down"!)

On Thursday, Obama repeated the $1,000 estimate, saying “if you’re a family making about $50,000 a year, this is a tax cut that amounts to about $1,000 a year”

But he also repeated the $40-per-week misdirection on Thursday, saying thousands of people have responded to a White House request for people to describe “what would it be like to lose $40 out of your paycheck every week.”

The White House website is streaming many of those Twitter-style responses, many of which also portray the $40 as a weekly gain.

“#40 dollars a week is the cost of my prescriptions; without these medications I would die from a stroke or heart attack.”

“$40 buys a week’s worth of the nutrient drink that my 98-year-old mother virtually survives on.”

“#40 dollars pays for over a week of groceries, fresh fruits, veggies, dairy, whole wheat bread.”

“#40 dollars is half of my grocery budget for the week for my family.”

Many in the media have amplified the misleading $40-per-week soundbite. “Lawmakers were deadlocked Wednesday over continuing the program, which is attached to legislation that would extend a payroll tax cut of up to $40 per week for workers,” the Associated Press reported on Thursday.

“In several hours [on] Tuesday, 10,000 Obama supporters had responded to an e-mail from senior adviser David Plouffe asking what $40 per week, about what the payroll tax cut is worth, would mean to them, according to a White House official,” National Journal reported Dec. 20.

Carney has been careful not to describe the $40 as a weekly gain. “We’re worried about individual families who need that extra money, an average of $40 a paycheck. … That adds up to about a thousand bucks for the year,” he said on Wednesday.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/22/white-house-manipulating-payroll-tax-numbers-for-political-gains/#ixzz1hMuiww80

 

[Rifleman62]

If the payroll tax is extended 12 months (after the Nov 2012 election), I believe in Jan 2013, both the Bush Tax and the payroll tax, will expire. Interesting what will happen and who will be the President.

 

[Edward Campbell]

For all the weeping and wailing, this is, I think, just a phase through which America must pass - rather like adolescence or, more appropriately, male menopause. America is passing from a "free and easy" phase (say, 1900-2000), rather like a person in the prime of his or her life, into the onset of old age, rather as Britain did in about 1900. The current political shenanigans are just the political expression of that change. Neither the Tea Party nor the Occupy movement matter.

 

[cupper]

According to the Census Bureau, the U.S. economy supports only 131.7 million American workers — not 160 million. That total is only slightly up from last November’s total of 130.3 million workers, because of the stalled economy.(Interpolation: miscounting thirty million people is not a simple error)

Still, White House officials continue to push the 160 million number.

“We’ve been doing everything we can to ensure that 160 million working Americans aren’t hit with a holiday tax increase,” President Barack Obama said Dec. 22 at a White House press event intended to pressure the GOP into signing the Senate’s compromise deal on taxes and spending for 2012.

You need to review your articles for accuracy before posting.

The 160 Million number comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is a direct count of the number of employed / unemployed receiving benefits who are responsible for paying the payroll tax. And yes, if you go to the BLS site, you will find that the number is more accurately noted to be 153,883,000, which includes 140,580,000 employed, and 13,303,000 unemployed receiving benefits.

 

[Redeye]

If the payroll tax is extended 12 months (after the Nov 2012 election), I believe in Jan 2013, both the Bush Tax and the payroll tax, will expire. Interesting what will happen and who will be the President.

Barring something significant happening, who will be President is more or less a certainty, though there is a year to go. I think the hope the Democrats have is that they can play on public revulsion against the antics of the Congress, particularly with payroll tax holiday, to retake both Chambers, and allow the Bush tax cuts to come to an end among whatever other policies they have in mind. I'd expect the payroll tax cut is fine with them, as it benefits their base much more.

Tying the issue to something that a contingent of Dems seem to have an interest is quite a development.