“Now That Sounds Like A Plan”

Love it!! It’s great to get these ideas out there…at least it might make some loyal Obama folks think twice about how where their tax dollars are going in this bill, and realize they can spend their own money better than the government can!

This makes the most sense!
How can we push this to Congress?
Can we publicize this more?

@Timothy:

This may sound super simplistic and idealistic, but if jobs are created from a substantial tax cut, then those on government assistance should be required to take advantage of those newly available jobs, or go to a job training program initially perhaps, slowly creating less of a dependence on welfare, etc. The positive effect is people feel better about themselves as well when they make their own way in life.

This may be more easily attainable when Republicans take control of Congress in 2010, but a worthy goal nonetheless.

I think I am in love. Brains and Beauty.

Definitely a lovely lady, but if I were her, I’d drop the “part economist” bit…. Obviously, she has never employed anyone in her life, and is unfamiliar with employer responsibility in taxes.

The withholding tax she is generically talking about to these Obama supporters… i.e. the fed income tax (plus state income tax, depending on where you are), Social Security and Medicare taxes are only part of the FICA taxes owed/paid to the feds. What they don’t see is what the employer is on the hook for…

ie… over an “x” amount salary yearly, 15.3% or so (depending on how many dependents you claim) of your wages is for these FICA taxes. Most of the time, the employee is paying half of it, the employer pays the other half with his “matching” to complete the full FICA amount. In some rare instances, the employer may pay all of it, or the employee may pay all of it. But splitting it is the most common business practice.

So what this very lovely bozo head is suggesting is that the “government” not require these taxes come out. Fine and good. But “the government” isn’t going to give that cash up.

What they will do is increase that cost of what the employee doesn’t pay, and make the employer pay it all. They’ll get it from someone’s hide… the choice is which hide? Taking it all out of the employer is no different than a tax hike on businesses of all sizes. And I think we all know how smart that is to an economy…

All in all, taking *less* of these withholding/FICA taxes (from either/or/both employer and employee) is ideal But it requires… as Larry said… a fiscally prudent Congress.

I think that, as this past week… no year… no decade… hang make that half century… demonstrates, there hasn’t been a fiscally prudent Congress in our lifetime.

Nice try… but embarrassingly stupid.

But, on the positive side, it does show that most people actually support more money in their pay checks… i.e. a genuine tax cut. Unfortunately, most people do not realize that their employer is on the hook for half of these taxes on top of paying them.