I’ve been spitting into the wind on this issue since days before the 2008 election.
Rather than strengthening social security as a pay-in retirement protection program, Obama consistently has sought to destroy social security as we know it by treating FICA payments as just another tax (the so-called “payroll tax”) to be played with as political circumstances dictate, and to create a disconnect between pay-ins and benefits, thereby making social security just a welfare program:
Meanwhile, Democratic Party leaders supported by The NY Times have developed a strategy to demonize conservatives who refuse to go along with plans to extend again the “payroll tax” holiday, For Some in G.O.P., a Tax Cut Not Worth Embracing:
It is hard to find a tax cut that Congressional Republicans dislike. Unless it is a tax cut pushed by President Obama.In a turning of the tax policy tables, Democrats are increasingly hammering on Republicans who oppose the president’s proposal to extend for a year a payroll tax cut passed last year with bipartisan support….“One way or another, there will be a vote on extending these tax cuts,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the third-ranking Senate Democrat, “and Republicans will have to stand up to the fact if they oppose it they are for tax cuts for the rich but not for the middle class.”
I have wondered why liberals were not screaming at the tops of their lungs against these Democratic Party policies, and it now appears that many liberal Democrats have woken up, as reported by The Hill:
With bipartisan support in December, Congress approved a one-year reduction in the employee share of the payroll tax, to 4.2 percent from 6.2 percent. Obama proposed in his speech to Congress that the tax be lowered to 3.1 percent for both employers and employees through 2012.While the moves add to the deficit, the administration has said the trust fund would not be affected because the money would be shifted from the general fund and because the change is temporary.Liberal Democrats were not convinced, and they began campaigning against extending the tax break when it was first broached earlier this year.“We remain gravely concerned that yet another, unacceptable cut to Social Security’s revenue stream appears to be on the table,” a group of 62 House Democrats wrote in a July letter to the president. “As alternative measures would have the same net effect on deficits and the economy, there is simply no need to negotiate cuts to Social Security taxes.”
It’s probably too late for liberal Democrats. They are so invested in Obama that even when he plays political games with one of their highest priorities, they are almost helpless to do anything more than I’ve been doing, spitting into the wind.
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