Chan Lowe: GOP kills the payroll tax cut extension
You’d have to be one heck of a purist to turn down a thousand bucks from Uncle Sam in the form of a payroll tax cut extension just because it might swell the deficit a little. After all, the deficit is some abstract, imaginary thing like the monster that lives under your bed, while we’re talking real money, here. Free money. You can use it to buy food, a couple of iPads, or a mess of lotto tickets⎯which is the only retirement plan many Americans have left these days.
We taxpayers are a little weary of bending over backwards to bail out financial institutions and make sure their executives have a happy holiday, so it’s about time we got a piece of the action, paltry as it may be.
At least, this is the argument that’s giving pragmatic Republicans fits. It’s that stark. No amount of fiscally conservative dogma spouted by freshman tea party congressmen is going to convince the average voter that the GOP isn’t willing to bring the country to the brink of bankruptcy to protect the high-rollers while giving the middle class the high-hat.
Elections are won and lost over simple, easy-to-understand issues, and it doesn’t get any simpler than this. The same voter who worried two years ago that the country was being sold out by the foreign-born socialist pretender is going to be fighting mad when his paycheck suddenly shrivels, and he’s going to be looking for a scapegoat.
The only hope the Republicans have now is that the Democrats are historically so deft at blowing an advantage that they won’t pull their motley ranks into a coherent front with a concise message in time for the next election.
I wouldn’t want to bet my job on it, Congressman.
CHAN LOWE has been the Sun Sentinel’s first and only editorial cartoonist for the past twenty-six years. Before that, he worked as cartoonist and writer for the Oklahoma City Times and the Shawnee (OK) News-Star.
Comments
Actually, the real problem is that this was a tax break supported by Obama and the democrats. Republicans are always in favor of tax breaks unless the democrats want them. If democrats had really wanted to get this tax break extended, they would have opposed it so that the republicans would then dedicate their full energy to getting it passed over democratic opposition.
Posted by: Tom | December 20, 2011 3:54 PM
"No matter what it is, if he presents it, we're against it!" sang the GOP as they took off on vacation. Losers. (I hope.)
Posted by: No-T | December 20, 2011 5:55 PM
The only time in his life Obama has ever supported a tax cut, and this is how the Repubs treat him.
Posted by: vortak the conquestidor | December 21, 2011 7:27 AM
The voters are bending forwards, not backwards
Posted by: A1ACharles | December 21, 2011 7:33 AM
This is one of the biggest frauds perpetrated by Lowe and other political partisans ever. And that's saying something.
I would love to keep this money in my pocket too, but the payroll deduction goes to support Social Security. SS is already bankrupt. There is no plan to repay this money. The bill will eventually come due and we will all suffer more.
The Republican controlled Congress already passed the payroll deduction for TWELVE MONTHS, not the TWO MONTHS passed by the Democrat led Senate.
Non-partisan payroll experts have said that it is almost impossible for companies to adjust for a two month program.
This is a complete political game on both sides. It hurts Social Security and does absolutely nothing to create or promote jobs. The Democrat leaning media and it's mouth pieces like Chan Lowe are spinning it against the Republicans when the Republican Congress passed the extension for 12 months.
What a giant waste of effort in Washington and dishonest commentary by the likes of Lowe.
Posted by: S Boyd | December 21, 2011 8:29 AM
Come on now. does it make sense to extend the Payroll Tax deduction for just 2 months? That is nothing more than playing politics and The Dem's know that. The Republicans didn't kill this legislation, it was the Democrats that don't really want to extend it anyway, but 2 months would be okay. We are smart enough to see through that shallow charade.
Posted by: fos_joe | December 21, 2011 8:45 AM
Lowe....your commentary is a load of uknowhat..... YOU are for a 60 day extension of the cut....Republicans that you hate on so much, are for 1 year extension tied to job creating approval of vital Canada-USA pipeline.
Posted by: Mark | December 21, 2011 9:10 AM