Aaah…the economic news has been all over the place of late. Great Economy, Best Ever. Recession coming between now and 2021. The Fed should lower rates to beef up the economy. Tariffs are getting the job done. Delaying tariffs to avoid impacting Christmas sales. Best stock market ever. Fake news is pushing the recession story…no such thing.
You know…you’ve seen it. But this past week there has been media gossip about the Trump regime wanting to implement cuts to payroll taxes. It is being considered…no it’s not…it’s needed to spike the economy (which we have heard repeatedly is doing great…you now…best ever!).
But right after White House staff denied that payroll tax cuts weren’t being considered…the president said…well yes they are!
President Donald Trump undercut his aides on Tuesday, saying he has “been thinking about” the prospect of a payroll tax cut, just hours after one of his main spokespeople denied such a move was under consideration.
“Payroll tax is something that we think about, and a lot of people would like to see that,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, sitting alongside Romanian President Klaus Iohannis.“I’ve been thinking about payroll taxes for a long time,” Trump added. “Whether or not we do it now or not is — it’s not being done because of recession.”
Hogan Gidley, the White House’s principal deputy press secretary, told Fox News earlier Tuesday that Trump is generally “looking at tax cuts again,” but insisted a payroll tax cut was not on the table.
Payroll taxes were reduced during the economic recovery efforts of the Obama administration…as the president fought his way out of the Great Recession left behind by George W Bush. They included temporary reductions in the taxes collected from wage earners to fund Social Security and Medicare. They were a desperate, eleventh hour measure to add liquidity to the consumer markets.
We don’t need that kind of infusion in 2019. As the president has said:
…the economy is “doing fantastically” and dismissed warnings of a possible recession, remarking that the word is an “inappropriate” term that “certain people and the media are trying to build up because they’d love to see a recession.”
So why would such tax cuts be implemented? It’s a simple end run to reduce the trust funds that fund Social Security and Medicare. If you can’t bludgeon them to death…a death by a thousand cuts? Run the sucker out of money so we have to cut benefits or shut it down? I wouldn’t put it past Trump for a split second. Or am I thinking too hard and this is a simple election year ploy?
btw: once again, why is the president talking about domestic policy while sitting alongside Romanian President Klaus Iohannis?
We are not interested in democrats, republicans or independents. We are not interested in a payroll tax if that will place the social security fund in further deficit.
We are ONLY interested in restoring the social security fund to its original amount of money.
If money was stolen from the social security fund to finance other projects, then money must be stolen from other projects or programs (whether it be military, space, immigrant or any other)to replenish the social security fund back to its original amount.
What I wish is that there was a hand guillotine n the social security trust fund that would chop off any hand that attempted to rob its contents.
The fact there is little money left in social security is a damn disgrace.
JUST PUT THE STOLEN MONEY BACK INTO SOCIAL SECURITY.