Persembe Peeve

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I hate it when a reporter lies to me. Hate it.

The Washington Post‘s Harold Meyerson wrote, “America’s presumably anti-tax party wants to raise your taxes. Come January, the Republicans plan to raise the taxes of anyone who earns $50,000 a year by $1,000, and anyone who makes $100,000 by $2,000.”

Harold Meyerson knows better.
Anybody with access to a search engine knows better.

The “Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010” enacted a two point payroll tax cut in your SOCIAL SECURITY withholding rate (it went from 6.2% to 4.2% of wages paid). According to the IRS, this “reduced Social Security withholding will have no effect on the employee’s future Social Security benefits.”

But it certainly has an effect on the country’s future Social Security viability.

See, this is politics at its worst. Mr. Obama sees a huge pot of money (the Social Security Trust Fund) he can use now, so he wants it at the expense of We the Overtaxed People who have to pay it back after we boot his skinny butt out of office. Just like the ballooning National Debt.

And Mr. Meyerson knows that.

Mr. Meyerson’s piece foments the very class warfare he pretends to abhor. The Washington Post should be ashamed.

7 thoughts on “Persembe Peeve”

  1. I don’t get it.

    Someone wrote that the Repubs are going to raise taxes. You say it’s a lie, and as proof of that lie, you cite something that is going to cut Soc Sec withholding.

    What is missing, because I’m too effing lazy to click links and I have more traffic school to take, so I would like it spoon fed to me, mister blogger please, is what Meyerson’s actual lie is, and what the proof of that lie is, spelled out.

    Link your stories, plez.

    Also, if you can ‘splain how the TRUIR&JCAof10 is good or bad, that would be helpful too.

    Thanks.

  3. Links to the Washington Post article and the IRS explanation of the Act are in the original post.

    TRUIR&JCA as passed was a temporary, two-year reprieve (until 2012) of the sunset provisions of the “Bush tax cuts” (the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003).

    Had Repuglicans not pushed the reprieve through, income taxes, inheritance taxes, and yes, Social Security taxes would have returned to Clinton-era rates.

    Mr. Meyerson knows all that because he has written about all that. Certainly, his paper has written about all that.

    He lies because he would have us believe that the Repugs want the Bush tax cuts to sunset.

    He lies because he would have us believe that the Repugs want only Social Security withholding to rise.

    He lies because he would have us believe that the Repugs want the working poor to shoulder the entire retirement of the National Debt through this 2% payroll tax “hike.”

    I have as much control over Hashcash as I do over the Washington Post

  4. As I said, too lazy to click the links.

    So do the math for me.

    The bush tax cuts cut taxes. The tax cuts are going to end soon. The repubs are going to let them end this time? Is that one of the thingies?

    The Soc Sec thingie … You throw some numbers out there. The bush tax cut thingie that got temporarily re-thingied so that we still have bush tax cuts also dropped the withholding, so we’re taking home more moolah. I get that. Taking home more moolah, which means contributing *less* moolah to the SocSec pot now, doesn’t mean we’re going to get less moolah later when we start drawing our own SocSec. I get that.

    Apparently the ending of the whatsit act, which the repugs are not fighting to extend, will cause SocSec withholding to go back up.

    I get that.

    However, you write this, and this is where I am getting a bit confused because I can’t be arsed to think too deeply nor click any links that will be filled with tax and finance jargon that I can’t be arsed to think too deeply concerning:

    “But it certainly has an effect on the country’s future Social Security viability.”

    What does that mean?

    And how does it tie into this?
    “Mr. Obama sees a huge pot of money (the Social Security Trust Fund) he can use now, so he wants it at the expense of [taxpayers] who have to pay it back [later]”

    In other words, what does the sunsetting of the thingummy that the repugs are going to sit back and watch have to do with Obama eyeballing the SSTF? And in what part of your rant did you mention anything to do with Obama thinking about using the SSTF now for something other than paying SS to current retirees? What is it he is proposing to do with the current pot o’ money?

    Etc.

    Thanks for explaining.

    (holding breath that Hashcash will behave)

  5. Hashcash is the Far Green of thorough, bulky, and thumping bog security.

    This isn’t a question of whether the Repugs will let the “Bush tax cuts” expire. This is a question of how the Washington Post twisted the news and what culpability the Obamanation has.

    See Mr. Obama, not Mr. Bush, signed TRUIR&JCA into law. Along with changes it kept in the tax code came the new two point cut in your SOCIAL SECURITY withholding rate.

    By shorting Social Security revenue, Mr. Obama, not the Repugs, guarantees that the Social Security trust fund runs out faster (but not until long past his time in office) and in the meantime Mr. Obama gets all the warm and fuzzies that come from leaving an extra couple bucks a week in your pay envelope.

    My peeve was that Mr. Meyerson and the Washington Post lied to us to repaint the debate as “Bad Repugs/Good Demorats.” Now I’m pissed at Mr. Obama for his shenanigans, too.

    Oh. Wait. That part’s not new, is it?

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