Surveys tell us that congress has a favorable rating by about 9% of the population. That is significantly worse than the president’s rating that is about 45%. In spite of that the congress continues to behave as if they had public support.
The most recent outrageous decision was the vote by the Senate to extend the reduced Social Security tax for two months rather than the one year requested by the president. To add to this foolish political dance the House refuses to confirm the Senate’s regulation. The consequence is that there may not be an extension of the lower tax regulation.
The idea of reducing the Social Security tax is a bit of political nonsense. The law puts $20 a week more into the hands of those earning $50,000 per year. This is not a consequential tax reduction. It is enough to buy a half a tank of gasoline for most cars (not SUVs). The effect of the first year of this lower tax has been reported to be zero.
So why is the president pushing so hard for this lower rate? He will win the political argument no matter how the congress votes. If the law is not passed he will blame the Republicans and point out that they only favor tax cuts for the rich. If the law is passed he will point out that it was he who triumphantly won a tax cut for the average man despite the efforts of the Republicans to block fairness.
The worst part of this law is that it lowers tax collections needed to support the Social Security trust fund.
This entire tax battle is another example of politicians legislating short term benefits at the expense of long term financial needs of the nation.
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I don’t even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was good. I don’t know who you are but certainly you are going to a famous blogger if you are not already 😉 Cheers!