More Liberal Dishonesty About Taxes

Maybe it's not an outright lie but it's at least a big distortion or omission of the whole truth.

President Obama supported lowering of the payroll tax. Republicans generally oppose that and now that it's about to expire they want to let it expire. The politics the left are playing with this is dishonest at a minimum.

President Obama, liberals and the liberal media (which is most of the media) are whining about Republican opposition saying, "We thought Republicans wanted tax cuts. Now we're 'giving' them one and they oppose that now that WE are the ones proposing tax cuts." Sounds hypocritical, right? Not so fast my friends! Just as with most liberal claims, one has to look deeper into the facts than the liberal/media sound bites.

Yes, President Obama and the rest of the Democrats passed a reduction in payroll taxes and, yes, they want to extend it before it expires at the end of December. But what is that tax reduction? The "payroll tax" money is what pays for social security and medicare entitlements. Half of the money companies pay to the federal government comes from the employer and half comes from employees' pay. Employees pay 6.2% of their gross wages into this and employers match it out of their profits.

The payroll tax 'holiday' that Democrats so vigorously promote as a beneficial tax cut is a reduction of what the employees(!) pay, not what employers pay! Under this tax holiday, employees pay 4.2% into those entitlements accounts instead of the usual 6.2 %.

Think about that people! Two important points:

1. Reducing the tax employees pay is NOT help for companies. The conservative view is that employment is helped most by giving companies tax breaks so they have more money with which to hire people. Contrary to what's implied by The Media, this payroll tax reduction is no help whatsoever to companies or, therefore, to reducting the unemployment rate.
2. This tax reduction arguably makes our current problem (the looming entitlement cost problem) worse. When Democrats pass legislation (ie, that 'payroll tax holiday') that puts less money into entitlements which, therefore, makes them less solvent and therefore are making our looming debt problem worse!!!

Is it any wonder that Republicans, most of whom actually want to reform entitlements and their costs in order to avoid national bankruptcy, are opposed to making entitlement-caused debt problems worse by extending that payroll tax holiday for employees only? Contrary to what Democrats are claiming, Republicans are being consistent with their philosophy and principles (by opposing this tax cut), not hypocrites!

And they're doing what's best for the country's financial future.