“SAY HUH?”
God bless the stupid people … they just can’t help it. Caught up in the euphoria of their class warfare “victory” during the fiscal cliff debate, millions of Americans getting their first paychecks of 2013 received an unexpected surprise this week.
They’re making less money …
Starting on January 1, 2013, the employee portion of the federal government’s payroll tax rose from 4.2 percent to 6.2 percent – for everybody. In fact the average American worker will see his or her paycheck reduced by $80 a month thanks to this tax hike. All told, we’re looking at an estimated $120 million getting sucked out of the private sector and pumped into government – specifically our unsustainable Social Security entitlement program.
Will any of these (mostly middle-class) workers see a dime of that Social Security money?
Ha! Don’t be silly …
Liberal middle class voters need to pay attention. All that talk from the administration of Barack Obama about protecting their interests was just that … talk. And while thousands of them are predictably irate over getting bamboozled, what are they going to do? Vote “Republican?” That’s not gonna work – the GOP is every bit as bad on taxes and spending as Democrats are.
Not only did fellow middle class panderer Mitt Romney endorse this tax hike, an overwhelming majority of “Republican” U.S. Senators – including Lindsey Graham (RINO-SC) voted for it. So did eighty-five “Republicans” in the U.S. House of Representatives.
And yet GOP operatives want to rail on the stupidity of liberal voters? Here’s a news flash: Republican voters are liberal voters, too. They’re just in denial about it.
Ideology aside, the economic realities here are painfully self-evident: Tax hikes on upper income earners stunt economic growth by reducing jobs and investment. Meanwhile tax hikes on lower- and middle-income earners stunt growth by reducing consumption. With “bipartisan” support, our federal government has done both of these things in 2013 …
Can’t wait to see how that works out for them …
And as for all the Democratic and “Republican” dummies who swallowed all the pro-middle class rhetoric emanating from their elected officials last year, we’ve got one thing to say to you …
“What is ya, ig-n’rant?”
Wait, you don’t need to answer that question …
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70 comments
It’s pronounced ignant.
In defense of crash test dummy’s, they did get a choice in whether they were strapped into a car and run into a brick wall at 55 mph.
edit: “DIDN’T” get a choice
“January 1, 2013, the employee portion of the federal government’s payroll tax rose from 4.2 percent to 6.2 percent…”
And would have gone up two years if the Republicans had their way.
“Tax hikes on upper income earners stunt economic growth by reducing jobs and investment.” Empirical evidence suggests you’re full of shit, shocking, I know:
http://www.businessinsider.com/study-tax-cuts-dont-lead-to-growth-2012-9
“Will any of these (mostly middle-class) workers see a dime of that Social Security money?”
Well, only if you don’t actually read what the CBO says. Social Security is solvent and will remain so.
You should use Medicare – it’ll be insolvent soon enough.
mph,
How many times do you have to be told? Facts are not allowed on this site.
“Ignant” are those who didn’t understand the temporary, not permanent, relief from SS payroll taxes the “Payroll Tax Holiday” represented.
“Ignant” would be to not understand that with all the structural reforms proposed or bandied about in order to fix the SS solvency problem, none include reducing the payroll tax permanently.
“Ignant” are those who don’t understand how important SS is to their parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, and elderly neighbors.
“Ignant” is a symptom of a larger problem, the lack of knowledge on the impact SS dollars have on the lives of all citizens including those of who would be writing supplemental income checks to your parents and grandparents in their old age.
“Ignant” are those who think charitable organizations are a real answer to the societal problems of feeble, insecure, and impoverished elderly citizens that is, of course, the reason SS was established.
Preach it brother.
….. read and initialized
….. edit: initialed
I’m in my upper thirties…Social Security is a tax by another name for my generation…I will never, ever see a dime of the tens of thousands of dollars already taken from my pay checks since I started working at 18…
lollie, that’s because the system needs to be adjusted, especially considering the incoming wave of old people that are about to collect from it.
As I said below (waiting for approval), eliminating the payroll tax cap would make Social Security solvent for the next 75 years, meaning people born today would be able to collect at 62/65. Simply raising it to a more reasonable amount would increase its longevity as well.
That’s merely one solution, but it is the simplest one.
@lollie… yep, they told me I wouldn’t collect it either when I was at Clemson 40 years ago. That notion has been an idealogically conservative professor’s crutch for all of its years.
By the way, I got you beat… I started paying SS taxes at age 13 in 1965. Paid them from wages earned in tobacco fields and barns, tobacco warehouses, school bus driving. Confession: when I washed cars and pumped gas on weekends at the local Gulf service station I was paid in cash and didn’t report taxes. Has the statute of limitations run-out on that illegality?
“Ignant” is also a failure to examine the market failures and terrible externalities created by state welfare plans.
“Ignant” might be those that think SS might be around in 50 years, let alone 30.
:)
Prior to Social Security 50% of persons over the age of 65 lived in poverty, today that number has been decreased to below 10%.
Prior to Medicare 50% of person over the age of 65 had no health insurance. Today that number has been reduced to below 10%.
Since the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid, The life expectancy of the average American has increased by 7 years, the 28 day infant mortality rate has been reduced by 50% and the fetal mortality rate has been decreased by 2/3rds.
What are the market failures and terrible externalities created by these programs that I am to weigh against these successes.
Jan,
You should know that correlation does not equal causation. Look at a life expectancy table sometime. US life expectancies had been increasing significantly since 1900, with no discernible uptick following the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid. Same trends apply to infant mortality.
As for fetal mortality rate, I think we all know what the #1 cause of that is, and I seriously doubt that has decreased by two-thirds since the start of Medicare/Medicaid.
Jan, I agree with you that the entitlements are an important social safety net that has elevated the quality of life for the majority of Americans. The problem with Medicare/Medicaid is that by offering a longer, healthier life to millions of people is that they are only consuming and not creating anything by way of production or revenue to the government. We are not equipped to properly provide for them with the money allocated, not even close. The thing is that it isn’t their fault. It’s unfair to call them a drain on society because many of them are retired and “did their part” as the government asked. The government is more to blame because they did not plan accordingly.
There is no solution. To quote Dennis Leary, “Life ain’t fair, so get a fucking helmet.”
The consistant increase in life expectancy and decrease in infant mortality correlates very well with the expanding access to proper health care by working class and poor people. Medicare and Medicaid have been a part of that expanding access. You can agree or not, but I think we continue to see great improvements in medicine as a result of these programs for the disabled and elderly.
That said you only addressed one of the three results and gave me no market failures and terrible externalities caused by Medicare and Social Secuirty.
Sorry, but the facts don’t support you. The Senate passed a bill extending all of the Bush Tax Cuts for those making under 250k and extending the payroll tax cut. Obama said if the house would pass that bill he would sign it.
A majority of House members were willing to vote for the Senate bill, but the Republican majority refused to allow an up or down vote on the Senate bill. They essentially held the middle class tax cuts hostage until Obama agreed to end the payroll tax cut and expand the Bush Tax cuts to those making between 250k and 450k as well as other concessions.
Consequently Republicans in the House are the only reason the payroll tax cut was not extended.
My last post should have been a response to the next thread.
say what?
WTF
47% payroll tax increase???
who did dat?
YES WE CAN!!!
Republicans in the House of Representatives.
I thought Obama won?
The irony is yum yum yummmmy:
The Bush tax cuts are now PERMANENT and the Obama payroll tax cuts are DEAD.
YES WE CAN!!
I agreed with ending the payroll tax cut. It was supposed to be temporary. I also agreed with ending the Bush tax cuts, which has happened for some. But your question was a racist form of “Who did that?” My answer was accurate. The Republicans in the house ended the payroll tax cut and used the savings to pay for more tax cuts for those making over 250k per year.
LIBTARD logic:
Republicans (barely)control the US House while democrats have an overwhelming majority in the Senate and a democrat/communist in the White House and the “republicans in the house ended the payroll tax cut”!!
Nice try but blaming bush would be more believable to yo mo fo lo info voters.
I can’t wait to see the look on the libtard faces when they see their take home pay SLASHED this Friday.
YES WE CAN!!
The facts don’t support you. The Senate passed a bill extending all of the Bush Tax Cuts for those making under 250k and extending the payroll tax cut. Obama said if the house would pass that bill he would sign it.
A majority of House members were willing to vote for the Senate bill, but the Republican majority refused to allow an up or down vote on the Senate bill. They essentially held the middle class tax cuts hostage until Obama agreed to end the payroll tax cut and expand the Bush Tax cuts to those making between 250k and 450k as well as other concessions.
Consequently Republicans in the House are the only reason the payroll tax cut was not extended
The only bill the Senate passed and eagerly signed by the wealth re-distrubutor was the “deal” to INCREASE taxes for the average taxpayer by $1,000:
http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2013/01/02/fiscal-cliff-payroll-tax-paycheck-cut/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmaing7%7Cdl16%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D251930
YES WE CAN!
So you mean short-changing our contributions to our pension fund (SS) wasn’t permanent? Just ask the folks running state pension funds all over America (including SC) – stealing from tomorrow for today’s $80 high is jus common sense conservativism. It’s Palinist logic at its best.
So how much is currently residing in the SS pension fund?
?,
Trick question. You mean actual money or IOUs?
Oh, so you mean there is no fund that we are stealing from?
“We” are stealing IOU’s?
Hey James, it’s Yes We Can” that fought to keep the payroll cut it was the other party that tried successfully to raise them. Read up, hombre.
The CBO says Social Security is fully solvent until 2038. Even if there is nothing done to change the formula (raising age, means testing, etc), and we all know changes are coming in the next two years, it will still pay out 78% of benefits thereafter.
Social Security is here to stay.
….. as long as it will keep me from starvation with:
“grits ‘n greens ‘n beans ‘n things = and my Knob Creek bourbon”
Obama a fighter?
Shadow boxing in the sand traps on Oahu does not a fighter make.
YES WE CAN!!
The last I read, the surplus sat at $2.5-2.7 trillion.
The real rough sledding will be trying to fix Medicare.
Obama pretty much handed Republicans a helluva deal. He was originally asking for $1.4 trillion in revenue, got a counter-offer of $800 billion in revenue, and the final deal was for what, some $600 billion in revenue? lol… I imagine Obama’s car dealer must grin ear to ear when he tries to haggle the price.
Sad, but unfortunately not surprising. Not enough revenue increases, not enough spending cuts, more handouts to the well connected… Why, that almost sounds like status quo!
Payroll tax relief was nice to have, and it should have been extended at least for a short time. However, this shouldn’t be a permanent cut because it could have adverse effects on Social Security.
If you remember, a while back Democrats wanted to extend it and fund its extension via increasing taxes on the rich, which Republicans flatly rejected. From an old article on CNN:
Last week, Senate Republicans blocked progress on a Democratic plan that would assess a surtax of 3.25% on income over $1 million.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/05/politics/congress-new-payroll-plan/index.html
Not a bad plan, this could have been used to extend the payroll tax cap until 2014 (and if still necessary, extended another 2 years) without harming revenue. What we really need, though, is to raise the payroll tax cap. This goes against Obama’s campaign promise because the cap is just over $100k (which really is bullshit), it should definitely be higher. Why not at least $250k, at most $400k? That could’ve been used to extend the cut, possibly even to lower the permanent rate just a tad, and still improve the longevity of SS.
Of course, we could also just completely obliterate the cap and make Social Security solvent for the next 75 years.
Just my thoughts. Letting the payroll tax cut expire will likely hurt things, but hopefully not too much.
Wanted to add from the article I linked:
The new proposal sponsored by Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pennsylvania, contains a reduced version of that tax provision, down to 1.9%, and calls for it to expire after 10 years, according to a statement by the senator.
Also:
In addition, the Democratic plan includes cutting the payroll tax paid by workers from the current rate of 4.2% to 3.1%.
Keep in mind this was more than a year ago, it is a bit infuriating that some version of this wasn’t worked into the fiscal cliff “deal” considering all the bullshit that is (and isn’t) in there.
Good grief…..had the President and Congress not created the theft from SS two years, it would not be an “increase”. We were paying the 6.2% two years, but we all clapped our hands at the little treat we were “given”. Knowing full well it wouldn’t last.
This is part of reason that SS has a shortfall the last 18 months. This stolen 2% and unemployment rates.
Come on, we really have more important items to bitch about than this 2% we never should have gotten anyway.
My grandfather, as he fed his hogs, said the world was going to the dogs;
His grandfather, in his house of logs, said the world was going to the dogs;
His grandfather, in his leather togs, said the world was going to the dogs;
His grandfather, in the Scottish bogs, said the world was going to the dogs;
There’s only one thing I have to state, and that those dogs have had a mighty long wait.
Why do you rob banks? Cause that’s where the money is.
Note to “middle class” Obama voters – you’re next. You can wipe out the “rich” in America, take it all — and it would not make a dent in the deficit.
The fact is, we actually do need a broader tax base – the Democrat controlled congress during the Bush years took nearly a third of the tax base off the rolls, and in so doing, recaptured the support of the so called Reagan Democrat. Bush went along with it, to get goodies for his constituencies – the “rich,” defense contactors, oil companies, big pharma, and wall street.
Hence, the mess we are in today.
Everyone who works should pay some income tax. The broader the tax base, the better. After that, we should go after corporations that sponge off the government and cut off the pipeline to the public trough. The only way to end crony capitalism is to starve the federal government of money and take away its power to incur more debt.
Proud of our SC Congressmen for their No Vote on the tax increases (except Comrade Clyburn of course.) Senator Pansy Graham may as well run as a Democrat next time. He’s toast.
Read the “beer” link in the WIRE today.
Tax hikes on upper income earners stunt economic growth by reducing jobs and investment.
lol… From the Congressional Research Service:
The results of the analysis suggest that changes over the past 65 years in the top marginal tax rate and the top capital gains tax rate do not appear correlated with economic growth. The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment, and productivity growth. The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie.
However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution.
graphics8.nytimes.com/news/business/0915taxesandeconomy.pdf
“the Democrat controlled congress during the Bush years”
Well, Edmund, The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 had a Republican majority in the House and was split 50-50 in the Senate. Dick Cheney came in and it passed 51-50. It was a Republican plan with ZERO support from the Dems.
In 2003 when they passed another round of cuts, the Republicans had majorities in both houses. It also was a Republican plan.
So what are you talking about?
MPH: May 26, 2001, 11:25 AM H.R. 1836 (Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001)..
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00170
12 Dem votes. Chafee and McCain voted Nay.
Oh, and if you taxed (broadened the base) the bottom 50% at 100% of their income, we’d still be running a debt because they collectively don’t make as much as the 400 richest individuals.
We’re going to have to raise taxes and cut entitlement, defense and military spending. Ain’t complicated.
It really is nuts the amount of money we spend on defense.
But FITS told us there was NO difference in Romney and Obama…
Dumb@$$#$…..
Hey Big T Sock Puppet, Obama was the one fighting to maintain the lower payroll tax, not Romney and the Republicans.
Upside down reality prevails on this board.
Are you really that Mother-F*^#ing Stupid, or are you just a liar???
Either way…you are amazing….
Actually, an anazingly stupid liar.
Nobody can figure out how we got into this deficit mess – we cut taxes just as we’re going to war in 2001. We spend more money on defense budgets than during Cold War, including the Eisenhower and Reagan Administrations. We create a new entitlement (Med D) with no source of funding. We cut taxes again in 2003 while we’re heading to our second war. And then we can’t figure out how we went from a 230 billion surplus to a systemic deficit of over a trillion dollars.
Oh right, it was the stimulus, Pell Grants and 47% of free loaders.
Look at Revenues under Bush and Obama…you Brain Dead Imbecile…
Not to mention: close to 50 million on Food Stamps, Unemployment forever instead of jobs, w/ Obama’s Declining household income…add $90 Billion on Solyndra, No Keystone pipeline, the Cash for Clunkers fiasco, home values…
You are one Ignorant Mother-F*#$@# if you can’t figure it out….
Ah, Big T, calling anyone ignorant, especially with his tenuous grasp of grammar, is hilarious. I counted nine grammatical mistakes in that train wreck of a response.
In any event, I’ll try to answer that rambling mess.
Revenue under Bush and Obama? This is to prove what? Yes, tax receipts dredged during the Great Recession. The recession began, wait for it, during the Bush Administration. When Obama was sworn in, the economy was purging 800k jobs a month. The majority of jobs lost during the Obama Administration were lost in the first three months, Professor.
50 million in food stamps. Well shit – out of a budget 2.6 trillion that’s the problem!
Solyndra is another canard of the right. A stupid investment? Yes. A key to the deficit? Um, no. Look at the spending items I mentioned above. The notion of cash-for-clunkers as a driver of our debt is absurd.
Sigh. Why do I bother? Dude, go get a job and try reading more and writing less. You’re either Will Folks in disguise or an illiterate fucktard.
About Solyndra: Mitt Romney made numerous bogus claims in the Oct. 3 debate about the $90 billion in grants.
Keystone: Export only
BigT: Dumb@$$!
Nothing but Exuses…
Still no jobs or answers..just more taxes…and Idiots like you just lap it up…and remain Stupid…
You’re the silly biTch who keeps telling the same lies.
Big T, do you know how to identify proper nouns? Do you know how to compose a sentence without using an ellipsis?
Dude, it’s not too late. Try Hooked on Phonics or Adult Ed classes. Work at it and you can get to a 5th grade level in a year or two.
BigT is upset because Santa didn’t bring him a new pc and a fully-working keyboard with spell-check and grammar-check. The one he uses now has some stuck keys but the top row works just fine.
BigT really should use flashcards for his profanity. If he hangs out at a Starbucks he could tape a cheat-sheet on his laptop. Or he could tattoo them on his knuckles (after he shaves them).
It’s 54 degrees out…grab a fucking rank or something.
For Biggs!
Edit: Rake!
Obama told us no new taxes, but more jobs…Instead he gives us more taxes…and No new Jobs…
I hope no one is Stupid enough to still believe this proven Liar and/or Failure….
It’s to the point if you’re defending Obama now…you look like a D@*n Fool….
Yea T, let’s not vote for him next time……
We not be fallin for dat trick Robert.
YES WE CAN!!
So, what was Romney’s plan?
This is not based in reality. New job creation is indeed being reported in each new report that comes out. And no one except those hiking near the summit of bullshit mountain thought we could deal with America’s financial issues without an approach that included both new revenue and spending cuts. Obama argued for placing the bulk of the tax weight on the upper classes, who will not suffer as much from higher taxes as the lower ones.
Why work?
Article would be more meaningful if it provided citations for its elementary level political economic analysis.
“Obama told us no new taxes, but more jobs…Instead he gives us more taxes…and No new Jobs…”
This is not based in reality. New job creation is indeed being reported in each new report that comes out. And no one except those hiking near the summit of bullshit mountain thought we could deal with America’s financial issues without an approach that included both new revenue and spending cuts.