Payroll Tax

The Next Fight For The 99%

Isaiah J. Poole — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 08:45:08 -0500

Consider House Speaker John Boehner's U-turn on a temporary extension of a payroll tax holiday a temporary retreat. The tea-party Republicans who lead Boehner show no signs of actually moderating their agenda, and that will make next year's fight to continue the payroll tax for a full year no less intense than this week's nail-biter.

We're going to have to keep the pressure on congressional Republicans. When it comes to anything related to the economy, they are still in the hostage-taking business. They will still make unacceptable demands on behalf of their conservative and corporate overlords in exchange for the ability of ordinary Americans to have the wherewithal to make it from week to week.

It pays to remember how we got to this drama in the first place. For that the House Republicans themselves have given us a helpful guide: the resolution they passed on Monday affirming their support for a one-year payroll tax extension, continuation of extended unemployment benefits, and forestalling for two years a deep cut in Medicare reimbursements to doctors.

That resolution demands that in exchange for this that we "reduce spending from areas throughout the Federal Government, including a freeze on congressional salaries" and acquiescence on three important business priorities: " (A) final approval of the Keystone XL pipeline;

(B) expensing for capital assets placed in service in 2012; and (C) drafting new regulations for boilers that are achievable and cost-effective."

The first demand will undercut the whole reason for the payroll tax holiday, which is to add demand to the economy through increased spending. The Economic Policy Institute's Andrew Fieldhouse wrote that Republican proposals to cut federal spending "would result in roughly 280,000 job losses—ironic, given that the purpose of the payroll tax cut is to create jobs. Someone should remind the GOP that the purpose of a pay-for is to offset the cost of a policy, not its impact."

Plus, budget cuts in some agencies will actually increase the deficit, not reduce it. Imagine fewer Internal Revenue Service auditors catching tax fraud, or fewer Medicare investigators catching overbilling by doctors and hospitals.

Brian Beutler at Talking Points Memo pointed out that the payroll tax break, unemployment benefits and Medicare "doc fix" together "cost a couple hundred billion dollars over the course of a year, and offsetting them via cuts to an already constrained budget is hard. ... In the end, depending upon whom you ask, Senate Dem and GOP negotiators got within $60 billion and $90 billion of the total cost — but they couldn’t bridge the gap."

But Democratic leaders have pretty much conceded on the larger frame of this issue by abandoning the one "pay for" that made the most sense: a surtax of about 2 percent on incomes in excess of $1 million. That would have placed the burden of offsetting the cost of these measures on the one segment of the population with the capacity to bear it—the one segment whose incomes have skyrocketed over the past decade as their tax burdens have hit record lows.

Democratic leaders and the White House have completely caved on the Keystone XL pipeline. By allowing language in the two-month extension that requires the administration to make an environmental ruling on the pipeline, which would run from Canada to the Gulf Coast, Democrats allowed Republicans to get away with one of their repeated attempts to have Congress dictate the terms of administrative actions of the executive branch. Earlier, the House passed legislation that would essentially strip the executive branch of its ability to make independent decisions on environmental policy based on expert, scientific analysis, and instead impose the whims of Congress (and the corporate lobbyists who own Congress) on the process. It is bad enough that the Keystone XL pipeline will only create a small number of jobs during its construction and is intended for exporting Canadian tar sands oil overseas; little if any oil would end up being used in the U.S. But the pipeline is a conservative nose in the tent of congressional micromanagement of the executive branch—a highly dangerous trend.

Which brings us to the innocuous sounding directive that the feds draft "new regulations for boilers that are achievable and cost-effective." That's in response to the Environmental Protection Agency's anticipated ruling, which finally came out earlier this week, on reducing emissions from coal-fired power plants.

David Roberts at Grist writes, "There are still dozens of coal plants in the U.S. that don't meet the pollution standards in the original 1970 Clean Air Act, much less the 1990 amendments. These old, filthy jalopies from the early 20th century, mostly along the eastern seaboard and scattered around the Midwest, are responsible for a vastly disproportionate amount of the air pollution generated by the electricity sector in America, including most of the mercury. They have been environmentalists' bête noire for over 30 years now."

The EPA's new ruling would finally force these plants to adapt new technology to operate more cleanly or shut down altogether. The Republican directive is to keep these plants open and force no consequential changes in the amount of mercury and other pollutants released by these plants other than what the industry itself deems "achievable and cost-effective."

So this is the deal the conservatives in the House, and their counterparts in the Senate, are offering the American people: You want an extra $40 or so in your biweekly paycheck? You're going to have to accept a crippled federal government (including federal workers who won't see a raise until at least 2014), a pipeline that puts environmentally sensitive parts of the country at risk for only a pittance of jobs, and the continued operation of outdated, coal-fired power plants that spew toxic chemicals into the air breathed by tens of millions of Americans.

It's hard to have a merry Christmas when this is the kind of fight that lies ahead. The good news is that Christmas does remind us of the basic values we're fighting for, that in the end it's people who matter most. We can use this time to fortify ourselves for the fight ahead.

How The 1 Percent Thinks: To Boehner, $166 Payroll Tax Break Is "Measly"

Isaiah J. Poole — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:32:30 -0500

For "renaldomacias" on Twitter, $40 extra a paycheck means "buying a full bag of groceries OR filling the car with gas to get to work. Without that $40, we'll be doing neither." BaldEmotions writes, "#40dollars a paycheck through the entire year is what it costs us to send our daughter to public preschool." Fink820 sent this Twitter message: "#40Dollars means gas 4 a wk so that I can get to work to earn #40Dollars for the next week. #40Dollars means ALOT to ALOT of us middle class."

But to House Speaker John Boehner and the House Republicans who appear to be leading him rather than the other way around, $40 extra a paycheck for two months isn't worth the trouble. Rather than taking the simple step of accepting a bipartisan Senate-approved two-month continuation of a payroll tax break, Boehner and his Tea Party brethren chose to be obstinate and arrogant.

After all, the tan one said, all that's involved is "a measly $166." Making sure that workers aren't hit with the loss of that "measly" amount of money is too much to expect of the "job creators" out there, he went on to say.

"“The Senate only goes for two months, but businesses send their taxes in, write the check – I used to write the check to the IRS, but it’s done on a quarterly basis. And so you’re gonna have a couple of months of this and another month of this … trying to figure out what your obligation is, is going to be difficult,” he said.

Waaa!

This afternoon, there are reports that Boehner may finally be trying to find a way to gracefully back down and accept some sort of short-term tax extension, after a 24-hour period in which Boehner was rebuked by even Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and the ultra-conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page.

Still, a settlement that that keeps the tax break in place, and allows benefits to continue to flow to the long-term unemployed, won't easily wash away the taint of that "measly" comment.

A few days ago the White House began encouraging people to send messages via Twitter, Facebook and a White House webpage to let them know what the loss of $40 a paycheck, or roughly $166 over a two-month period, would mean to them. It turns out that for a lot of people, $166 is not "measly" at all. President Obama held a news conference today and brought before the television cameras some of the people who sent "#40dollars" messages. He shared some of their stories.

Joseph from New Jersey talked about how he would have to sacrifice the occasional pizza night with his daughters. He said -- and I'm quoting -- “My 16-year-old twins will be out of the house soon. I'll miss this.”

Richard from Rhode Island wrote to tell us that having an extra $40 in his check buys enough heating oil to keep his family warm for three nights. In his words -- I'm quoting -- “If someone doesn't think that 12 gallons of heating oil is important, I invite them to spend three nights in an unheated home. Or you can believe me when I say that it makes a difference.”

Pete from Wisconsin told us about driving more than 200 miles each week to keep his father-in-law company in a nursing home -- $40 out of his paycheck would mean he'd only be able to make three trips instead of four.

We heard from a teacher named Claire from here in D.C. who goes to the thrift store every week and uses her own money to buy pencils and books for her fourth grade class. Once in a while she splurges on science or art supplies. Losing $40, she says, would mean she couldn’t do that anymore.

For others, $40 means dinner out with a child who's home for Christmas, a new pair of shoes, a tank of gas, a charitable donation. These are the things at stake for millions of Americans. They matter to people. A lot.

It is easy if you are man whose net worth is between $2 million and $6 million to treat $166 as not worth forging a political compromise over. In Boehner's world, $166 means as much to him as $3.32 would to a person whose net worth is $40,000. In other words, $166 is the change in the bottom of the dresser drawer.

But the conservative argument that belittles the pain of workers who will see their paychecks shrink by that amount over two months starting January 1 lays bare how estranged conservatives such as Boehner are from the lives of 99 percent, the people for whom $3.32 is frankly a big deal. Boehner and the extreme conservatives in the House would literally rather spare some payroll processing corporations and business bean-counters a few minutes of paperwork hassles than try to prevent some families from having to scrimp on groceries, some children from having to without a new item of clothing, or an older worker having to forgo a prescription.

It's about time someone told the House speaker that if he thinks $166 is "measly," he should resign from the House, surrender his wealth and get back in touch with the American economy wrecked by the policies that he has advocated.

Instead of "Working Through The Holidays," GOP Shuts Down The House, Turns Off The Cameras.

Bill Scher — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:05:18 -0500

Yesterday, a chief House Republican talking point was they really, really, really wanted a compromise on a payroll tax cut extension, and were "willing to work over the holidays" to get one.

Then, right after voting to ignore the Senate-passed bipartisan compromise and demand re-opening negotiations, most of them left town. W. Post reports:

As the last vote was called in the House on Wednesday — a resolution restating House support for its own payroll tax bill adopted last week — lawmakers left clearly believing their work was done through Christmas.

“All right! Woo-hoo!” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), her coat under her arm, heading for the Capitol doors.

But technically, the House did not adjourn just yet. And this morning, Democrats went to the floor planning to propose a solution: allow the full House to directly vote on the Senate compromise, something which the House Republican leadership has not allowed for fear it would pass.

How did the House leadership respond?

By literally ignoring the Democratic request as it was being shouted on the House floor, slamming down the gavel, adjourning the House for two days, walking off the floor without a word, and pulling the plug on the C-Span cameras.

The blatant disrespect House Republicans have for the working Americans who pay their salaries could not be more stark.

They are not "working through the holidays."

They are recklessly snubbing the work that other legislators put in to avoid making the middle class take an unnecessary hit while the jobs crisis continues.

And they are closing up shop instead of allowing the will of majority to be expressed.

They seemed to think that they had an unlimited ability to get away with perpetual obstruction by making up-and-down arguments and shirk responsibility. But now even the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board is sputtering that the House Republican foolishness is paving the way for the President's re-election.

The Republicans need to keep feeling the pressure if they are to reverse course and save the middle class from an unnecessary tax increase. Sign the petition at OurFuture.org/stopGOPsabotage.

There They Go Again: Republicans Sabotaging The Economy

Isaiah J. Poole — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:06:39 -0500

House Republicans are expected later today to engage in yet another one of their acts of economic sabotage. After a rare bipartisan agreement in the Senate to temporarily extend a worker payroll tax break and extended unemployment benefits for two months, getting both initiatives past a December 31 deadline and giving Congress more time to work out the details of a full-year extension, House Republicans aim to wreck it in their Tea-Party drunken rage.

Never mind that their refusal to accept "yes" for an answer even to some of their more egregiously out-of-line demands—such as their demand for expedited consideration of the Keystone XL oil pipeline that President Obama had earlier threatened to veto if it appeared in the payroll tax cut extension—will take billions of dollars out of workers' take-home pay, thus slowing a fragile economy and killing jobs.

"There they go again. The country needs these measures to infuse cash into the economy and the Republicans torpedo them for political reasons,” said Roger Hickey, co-director of Campaign for America’s Future, in a news statement today. “House Republicans claim they support extending payroll tax cuts and unemployment insurance, but every time Congress gets close, they add on onerous conditions or renege on previous deals. We call that sabotage.”

“Even if you passed the payroll tax cuts and unemployment insurance, the government would still be doing less to boost the economy than they did last year, which is folly with 23 million Americans unemployed,” said Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future. “The Republican House Majority has blocked every proposed bill that would actually create jobs. They have forced the U.S. into austerity. It’s either pure blind stupidity or craven treachery designed for a political purpose.”

Borosage said, “If we don’t assume the Republicans are dim-witted, the only conclusion is that they are happy to go contribute to mass unemployment that they can blame the President for.”

Whatever the reason, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is not bending over and taking the House Republican shenanigans. David Dayen at Firedoglake offers a good summary of the state of play between the two houses of Congress and cites a statement from Reid:

In a statement, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that “If Republicans vote down the bipartisan compromise negotiated by Republican and Democratic leaders, and passed by 89 senators including 39 Republicans, their intransigence will mean that in ten days, 160 million middle class Americans will see a tax increase, over two million Americans will begin losing their unemployment benefits, and millions of senior citizens on Medicare could find it harder to receive treatment from physicians.”

The very fact that Democrats are having a serious discussion about how to "pay for" a tax break intended to stimulate the Main Street economy without a surtax on millionaires is already an exceptional, and exceptionally bad, concession, since "paying for" an economic stimulus in this way invariably involves taking from working-class and middle-class people with one hand and giving back with the other—at best, a wash, not a real increase in economic growth.

We need the government to spend more in the short term to stimulate demand. The Progressive Caucus's latest jobs and economic recovery bill is one example of the set of policies that we should be debating. Instead, Congress is arguing over whether an economy that has had its head bashed in and is bleeding profusely should get a pain-killer.

Dean Baker, whose latest column in The Guardian unsparingly details the political failures that brought us to this point, reiterates the point we've made repeatedly for years about the king of economic policy we need, as opposed to the kind of economic policies being proffered by both political parties. "People had to understand that we are poor because the country as a whole is spending too little to keep the workforce fully employed, not that the government is spending too much."

So far, more than 13,000 people have signed our petition calling for House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell to "to quit trying to sabotage the economy, and support the extension of the temporary payroll tax cut and long-term unemployment insurance without spending cuts that would negate the stimulative effects. This is the bare minimum Congress can do to keep the economy from sinking into a double-dip recession."

We need more signatures so Republicans get an unmistakeable message: Enough. Stop sabotaging the economy.

Here's what else you can do (courtesy of the AFL-CIO): Dial 1-888-245-3381 and tell the person who answers the phone: “Please pass the Senate’s bill to extend unemployment aid and middle-class tax cuts immediately.” You can also call House Speaker John Boehner at 202-225-0600 and tell him, “You and your Tea Party supporters can’t keep hurting the American people just so you can get what you want. Stop this temper tantrum and pass the Senate’s bipartisan bill to extend unemployment aid and middle-class tax cuts now.”

Boehner Faces Key Test After GOP Mutiny Over Payroll Tax Cut

Isaiah J. Poole — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 07:16:08 -0500

Long, long ago - well, on Friday night to be exact - it looked like a two month extension of the expiring payroll tax cut was on a glide path to passage in both the House and Senate — preventing an automatic tax increase on 160 million workers on January 1 and giving Republicans and Democrats until the end of February to negotiate an extension through the end of 2012.

But as soon as the deal was announced, House GOP aides privately speculated that the deal wouldn’t fly with the majority of their caucus despite buy in from Speaker John Boehner, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, all of his deputies and the vast majority of Senate Republicans.

Sure enough, they were right. The deal collapsed in spectacular fashion early Saturday.

WHO, Specifically, Blocked Millionaire Surtax?

Dave Johnson — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 14:34:00 -0500

The public overwhelmingly wants taxes on the 1% increased to help pay for things that help the 99% and our economy. But the Senate was prevented from even voting on this.

This was a filibuster. A minority that represents the 1% was able to block something demanded by the 99%. It wasn't "rejected by the Senate." It wasn't "The Senate." It wasn't "both sides." Specific senators voted to block the Senate from even voting on a millionaire surtax. Here are their names.

The Bill

TheMiddleClass.org "provides information and analysis on bills in Congress that have a significant impact (positive or negative) on America's middle class, as well as on the aspirations of low-income Americans who want to work their way into the middle class. It also enables voters to evaluate members of Congress based on their votes on these bills."

According to TheMiddleClass.org, the specific bill, (S. 1917) Payroll Tax Relief for Middle-Class Families and Businesses, would have extended the "payroll tax cut" for a year. This bill would have extended the existing reduction in Social Security taxes for another year, and "urther cut the payroll tax rate workers pay from 4.2 percent (a 2 percentage-point reduction from the 2010 rate of 6.2 percent) to 3.1 percent. The employer share of the payroll tax would be cut in half, from 6.2 percent to 3.1 percent. The tax would be waived entirely on the first $12.5 million in payroll for newly hired workers -- in the hopes of creating an incentive to spur hiring." The money would not come out of Social Security, though. Instead it would be covered by a "3.25 percent surtax on individuals earning more than $1 million a year that would take effect in 2013."

The Vote

TheMiddleClass.org's record of the vote on (S. 1917) Payroll Tax Relief for Middle-Class Families and Businesses tells you who voted to filibuster the surtax on millionaires.

WHICH Senators voted to block a vote? Here are their names:

Alexander, Lamar (R-TN)
Ayotte, Kelly (R-NH)
Barrasso, John (R-WY)
Blunt, Roy (R-MO)
Boozman, John (R-AR)
Brown, Scott (R-MA)
Burr, Richard (R-NC)
Chambliss, Saxby (R-GA)
Coats, Daniel (R-IN)
Coburn, Thomas (R-OK)
Cochran, Thad (R-MS)
Corker, Bob (R-TN)
Cornyn, John (R-TX)
Crapo, Michael (R-ID)
DeMint, Jim (R-SC)
Enzi, Michael (R-WY)
Graham, Lindsey (R-SC)
Grassley, Chuck (R-IA)
Hatch, Orrin (R-UT)
Heller, Dean (R-NV)
Hoeven, John (R-ND)
Hutchison, Kay (R-TX)
Inhofe, James (R-OK)
Isakson, John (R-GA)
Johanns, Mike (R-NE)
Johnson, Ron (R-WI)
Kirk, Mark (R-IL)
Kyl, Jon (R-AZ)
Lee, Mike (R-UT)
Lugar, Richard (R-IN)
Manchin, Joe (D-WV)
McCain, John (R-AZ)
McConnell, Mitch (R-KY)
Moran, Jerry (R-KS)
Murkowski, Lisa (R-AK)
Paul, Rand (R-KY)
Portman, Robert (R-OH)
Risch, James (R-ID)
Roberts, Pat (R-KS)
Rubio, Marco (R-FL)
Sanders, Bernard (I-VT)
Sessions, Jeff (R-AL)
Shelby, Richard (R-AL)
Snowe, Olympia (R-ME)
Tester, Jon (D-MT)
Thune, John (R-SD)
Toomey, Patrick (R-PA)
Vitter, David (R-LA)
Wicker, Roger (R-MS)

THESE are the Senators who blocked a vote on a millionaire’s surtax. THESE are the individuals who are responsible for new proposals to cut the things government does for the 99%, instead of taxing the rich.

(These same members voted a second time against a modified version of the bill, even though that bill would have been less costly to taxpayers, included suggestions from Republicans for offsetting some of the costs and would have levied a significantly lower surcharge on millionaires, 1.9 percent rather than 3.5 percent.)

Sen. Sanders' Vote

So why is Senator Sanders on this list? He has actually proposed increasing taxes on the 1%. But he feels that the payroll tax cut is too risky for the Social Security system, so he joined with those opposing the tax increase to block this from passing. Cutting the payroll tax is not the best way to "stimulate the economy" but it was the only remaining path left that hadn't been blocked by Republicans who hope to keep the economy in bad shape, to get votes in next year's election.

Republican Hostage-Taking Threat Again! Guess Who Benefits?

Dave Johnson — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:23:37 -0500

Once again, Republicans are holding government hostage, trying to force through unpopular cuts to the things We, the People -- "the 99%" -- do for each other and our economy, while giving handouts to the 1% who pay for their campaign ads and smears. Once again they are threatening to just shut down the whole government if they don't get their way This time the hostage is unemployment benefits for 2 million people and the payroll tax cut that is the only stimulus left to keep the economy going. Here's the thing, they say they want "cuts" but what they are really doing is shifting costs from the 1% on to the rest of us.

The current 112th Congress is the first Congress elected under the Citizens United Supreme Court decision that opened the floodgates of corporate money in elections. Remember the flood of ads accusing Democrats of "half a trillion in cuts from Medicare" that got them elected -- paid for with corporate money? Those ads swung the electorate toward Republican candidates, and now we are seeing the results -- including cuts in Medicare and even plans to privatize it entirely.

How Many Times?

To get their way Republicans have already nearly shut down our government or just shut down parts of it several times. Shutdown. Hostage. Shutdown. Shutdown. Shutdown and hostage. Shutdown. Shutdown. Shutdown. Hostage. Shutdown. Shutdown. Hostage. Hostage. And on and on...

This Time

Here are just some of the Republican demands this time if we want the hostage released:

Approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline project.
Block rules reducing air pollution from industrial burners.
Drug tests for people receiving unemployment benefits.
Reduce the duration of jobless aid from 99 to 59 weeks.
Allow states to cut benefits even more.

Even Worse Than That

The National Women's Law Center writes, in, House Bill Cuts Unemployment and Health Benefits, Domestic Programs, Child Tax Credit and More that there are many other reasons to be concerned:

Slashes federal emergency unemployment benefits for long-term jobless workers by more than half—and hits the states with the highest unemployment rates the hardest.
Makes permanent, mean-spirited changes to the basic unemployment program, such as requiring claimants to have a high school diploma or GED and making unemployed workers pay for re-employment services offered by the government.
Reduces health benefits by reducing financial protections for low- and moderate-income families purchasing health insurance, cutting funds to providers serving low-income populations, and slashing prevention and public health funds.
Denies the refundable Child Tax Credit to low-income immigrant families by requiring a Social Security number to claim the credit.
Cuts funding for non-security discretionary programs by over $26 billion—on top of the cuts already imposed by the Budget Control Act.

The European Lesson

Republicans claim that cutting back government is good for the economy and creates jobs. (Note -- they always claim that anything for the 1% is good for the economy and creates jobs, whether or not it really is good for the economy and creates jobs or not.)

But is it really good for the economy to cut back on the things government does for the people and the economy? Let's look to Europe, where they have been cutting back on government in a grand experiment to see if that helps the economy. (Hint: it has really, really, really hurt the economy.) Reuters: Analysis: Europe's austerity zeal risks killing the patient,

Europe's "no pain no gain" attitude to solving its sovereign crisis risks exacerbating the bloc's problems, choking off the very growth needed to raise the money to pay down the debt.

... The austerity zeal risks tipping the continent back into recession and a downward spiral of austerity as pitiful growth prospects undermine budgetary targets and ramp up debt burdens, meaning further austerity is required.

"The expansionary fiscal contraction story says that you cut, you show you are serious about cutting and then the confidence fairy will come along and she will start pulling in private investment," said Stephen Kinsella, professor of economics at the University of Limerick.

"The expansionary fiscal contraction story is a lie. You don't cut your way to growth."

Shifting Not Cutting

Do cuts in government spending actually cut spending? Consider what happens when you cut health care spending. The need for the health care certainly doesn't go away, but the cost of it is shifted away from government and on to individuals. Since iIndividuals do not have the economy-of-scale bargaining power and ability to protect themselves from scams and schemes that government does, their own individual cost is often much higher. So when these costs are shifted from government the cost to the larger economy is actually increased dramatically.

The things government does are done because they need to be done. So if government doesn’t pay for them, does the need go away? No, when you cut government the need is still there. The costs are still there. But the power to bargain and to protect is gone. By cutting the 99%'s ability to protect themselves from scams and schemes, the 1% are better able to prey on them.

So, no, cutting government does not cut the costs of the things government does, it just shifts those costs from government onto the larger economy -- the 99% -- and even increases them, to the benefit of the 1%.

Who They Are Protecting And Who They Are Hurting

Why else do the 1% push so hard for government budget cuts, even though they really just shift the same costs onto the larger economy? Because this cost-shifting takes the tax pressure off of the 1%. Government collects taxes to cover the things regular people need, the cost of maintaining and modernizing infrastructure, etc. Of course, these are all good for the economy, the country, and the people. But since the 1% make most of the money and hold almost all of the wealth these prime beneficiaries of the economy are the obvious people to collect taxes from. So by cutting back on government they cut back on government's need for taxes -- from them.

And they get the added benefit of cutting back on government interference in their schemes and control.

In the long game of cuts and consequences, a society cannot win. In the 1980s we cut taxes and started cutting government. As a result we now have crumbling infrastructure, bad schools, unaffordable universities, etc. This is because government cuts do not cut the need out of the larger economy, they shift the costs of needed things away from causing tax pressure on the wealthy.

They don't care if the larger economy suffers as a result, they're already the 1%.

What To Do

Tell Republican leaders to stop sabotaging the economy. Renew the payroll tax cut and long-term aid for the jobless.
Sign the petition.

Republican Payroll Tax Gamesmanship Risks A Government Shutdown

Isaiah J. Poole — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:03:29 -0500

Congressional Republicans know what must be done. If they do not act in good faith, millions of workers will face a significant hit in their paychecks once a temporary payroll tax reduction expires, and several million long-term unemployment people will lose their jobless benefits.

Yet today House Republicans are once again voting on a bill that they know will not see the light of a presidential signing and is not in the public interest—and in doing so they are now flirting with a government shutdown.

That's because Senate Democrats have linked the payroll tax extension to efforts to pass a 2012 budget agreement in response to the threat that House Republicans would jam legislative poison pills down the nation's throat.

Talking Points Memo's Brian Beutler explains:

Senate Democrats and the White House are executing a strategy to prevent House Republicans from jamming them with legislation to extend the current payroll tax cut that’s been larded up with GOP goodies, according to White House and Congressional aides. For all practical purposes, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has linked the payroll tax issue — and other key end-of-the-year issues — with legislation to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year. And he’s presenting Republicans with a choice: deal in good faith on the payroll tax issue, or trigger a government shutdown.

Democrats were worried that House Republicans would close ranks around a version of a payroll holiday that included both must-pass items (such as an extension of unemployment insurance and a patch to prevent Medicare physicians from experiencing a severe pay cut on the first of the year) and GOP poison pills (including a provision forcing the Obama administration to give thumbs-up or thumbs-down to the Keystone XL oil pipeline within 60 days)…then pass it and skip town, leaving Democrats little choice but to swallow their bill whole.

On the Keystone XL pipeline in particular, the right-wing noise machine has gone into overdrive. One example is The Heritage Foundation missive earlier today denouncing President Obama's veto threat against the legislation "all because of his opposition to the single measure in the bill that would create jobs," referring to the pipeline. That's even though the White House veto message today makes no mention of the pipeline.

Republicans think they can checkmate Obama on the jobs issue by casting his administration as obstructionist on the pipeline. But, as a New York Times editorial points out, this is an argument over a project that will directly create 6,500 construction jobs and perhaps 50 permanent jobs—and will primarily serve as a conduit of fuel that will be exported by Gulf Coast refiners, rather than used in America. The question of whether the significant environmental risks are worth it is a serious one, and the Obama administration's specialists should be allowed to take it seriously. Instead, Republicans want to impose an artificial deadline that's based on politics, not science.

There is a whole box of poison tea bags in the House bill, including a plan to raise premiums for some Medicare recipients, a loophole that will allow coal plants to continue spewing harmful pollutants into the air, and a longer salary freeze for federal workers.

The legislation would also cut the length of time jobless people could collect long-term unemployment benefits, from 99 weeks to 59 weeks, a provision that the National Employment Law Coalition said would actually cost the economy 140,000 jobs as the impact of the reduced benefits ripples through the economy.

Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., said on the House floor that many of the Republican add-ons are there because "a paycheck is better than an unemployment check." Yet Republicans have voted against measure after measure that would actually create jobs, including each of the elements of President Obama's jobs program earlier this fall.

If Republicans actually valued paychecks in the hands of unemployed people, they would be debating the legislation that the Congressional Progressive Caucus introduced today, which would create up to 4 million jobs, many of them right away. But it is the conservative ideologues and the corporate lobbyists, not the unemployed, that are the real preoccupation of congressional conservatives—even if their fealty to Wall Street and K Street brings the government to a halt.

Republican Joke Bill Reveals Weak Hand On Payroll Tax Cut

Bill Scher — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 15:06:09 -0500

Congressional Republicans have been in disarray since the President cranked up the pressure to extend the payroll tax cut before it expires this month, with some leaders swearing that Republicans really really would like to extend it but not if it means multimillionaires have to pay a penny more in taxes, and others undercutting that claim by arguing that it would be better if taxes went up in the middle class next year since what we should be doing is cutting taxes for multimillionaires anyway.

Senate GOP leaders have already failed twice to get their own caucus to support their own version of a payroll tax cut, severely weakening their negotiating leverage.

And House leaders were struggling to come up with bill that their own members would support. But today they appeared to find a solution to appease the "tax the middle class" caucus -- propose a joke bill that has nothing to do with helping the middle class and will never become law.

As The Hill reported, what got House Republicans to agree to back a bill that includes an extend middle class cut was not a new way to offset the cost, but a provision designed to force the President to approve the controversial pipeline to the Canadian tar sands. Once the President pledged to veto any bill that had such unrelated provisions in it, the pro-middle class tax caucus could safely get on board.

(Also, the House bill would cut the current time the jobless can receive unemployment insurance -- at a time when the number of jobless vastly outstrips the number of job openings -- from 99 weeks to 59 weeks. By depriving people of money to spend on necessities, Repubkicans would cut demand and kill jobs.)

This only papers over the reality that much of the Republican Party simply believes that taxes on the middle class and the poor should go up and taxes on ther wealthy should go down.

And more that cruel, bizarre and untenable view is understood by the public, the harder it will be for the relatively saner Republicans to keep their usual obstructionist united front.

The Democrats maintain their strong hand. The Keystone pipeline is not some killer wedge issue. For one, most folks don't know what it is. Two, most folks aren't angling for one of the handful of jobs the project would create.

And most importantly, no one is going buy that Republicans are so adamant about creating a few thousand jobs when they have repeatedly obstructed bipartisan proposals that would create millions of jobs.

Democrats should persist in holding the line. Republicans are still on the verge of cracking.

Decoding the Payroll Tax Debate [radio interview - KPFK]

Richard Eskow — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 14:15:44 -0500

This morning I appeared on KPFK's Uprising program with Sonali Kolhatkar to discuss the "payroll tax holiday" debate now going in the Senate.

There's a lot of confusion around this issue. For one thing, the general public always struggles to understand numbers, finance, and taxation. In this case the confusion's even worse because the Democrats chose to use this tax, rather than other options, as the mechanism for their tax break. That creates some unfairness, makes it a less efficient form of stimulus, and endangers Social Security politically.

Cutting the payroll tax helps people earning under $106,000 or so, but it offers the biggest savings to those on the upper end of that spectrum. That tax break can come to more than $4,000 for a two-earner couple if both spouses earn a six-figure income. As a result, those savings are given to everyone above those earning levels as well. That means that, on average, the "1%" will get a much bigger tax break than the "99%" will.

And it's dangerous to target Social Security's funding source to provide any sort of tax "holiday," for reasons we outlined here. It would be disastrous for the middle class if this tax cut expired, but we need to keep a wary eye on the Dems while fighting the GOP's nihilistic approach. She quoted my line from an earlier post: "It's a choice between the inadequate and the insane."

We tried to explain this complex topic in a minute or two - let us know how we did! - and then had a good conversation with Sonali. The clip is below:

Play Uprising KPFK