I guess you have been following the payroll tax debate. Here are some of my views. For some reason everyone keeps calling this a payroll tax with the implication that it a normal tax. The payroll tax is a deduction from every ones pay check to pay for social security. It is not a tax, it is your personal contribution toward your future social security. If you don't put anything in, how can you expect to take anything out when you are 65? Because the argument is structured to call this a tax, most people are drawing the wrong conclusion. Why people who are on or close to age 65 are silent is a mystery to my. Don't they know that this is money that is being taken out of the social security fund which is projected to be under water in a few years? Rather than taking money out of social security, we should be talking about how to put in more or pay out less.
Here is a cute trick in all of this. The argument is to get some kind of off set for the reduction in the payment of the social security tax. Sound good so far, but wait. The off set tax is "not" going into the social security account. It will be going into the general funds where it will be wasted and unaccounted for. When most people wake up and find that Obama has stolen from the social security fund, it will be too late. Did you hear anyone who was saying that the off set tax should go into the social security fund? No!
Here is another point. If the social security deduction is given to the workers by reducing the amount deducted %, that extra money will be spent or invested by the average worker. Those additional purchases will help the USA economy in the short term, but will help the China economy in the long term. Why do I say help the China economy in the long term? Because China will not have to pay the money back into the social security fund. We will!! Further, it the deduction were from the employer's portion, the business person would spend or invest the money. The employer is much more likely to invest the money better than the average worker. Sorry, but those are the facts.
Rather than look to the hardest working people to make up the reduction of the social security investment, we should think about a small federal sales tax. If we were to do this, we would make products made in China more expensive and the products made here less expensive. This is the way to get more jobs here.
Watch the debate and think about the facts rather than the spin that everyone seems to be putting on the topic.
