Opinion: On payroll tax cut, whole is worse than the parts
Bipartisanship doesn't serve self-interest
Article by: TIM PENNY and TOM HORNER
Minneapolis Star Tribune
February 25, 2012
Tom Horner is a public affairs consultant and was chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Dave Durenberger, R-Minn. Tim Penny is president and CEO of the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation and a former Democratic member of Congress. Both are former Independence Party candidates for Minnesota governor.
Sometimes compromise isn't all it's cracked up to be. The latest example is the agreement reached by Republicans and Democrats to extend the payroll tax cut.
As G.K. Chesterton put it more than a century ago, "The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." The payroll tax cut proved Chesterton right on both counts.
Continuing to give 160 million working Americans more take-home pay through a payroll tax cut may have value as the country climbs out of the Great Recession. But in doing so, Democrats are undermining the future solvency of Social Security (a program they usually defend from any incursion), while Republicans (who of late are loudly defending tax cuts for the wealthiest) are now in no position to propose ending the payroll tax cut for working families.
For decades we have known that baby boomers would overwhelm the Social Security system. Already, the system is no longer raising enough revenue to cover annual benefits. Yet, amazingly, now is the time both parties have conspired to reduce the program's revenues. Worse, they offer no mechanism to replace the dollars lost to the payroll tax cut. Consequently, they make fixing the program's long-term shortfall more challenging and difficult. That is the kind of bipartisan behavior we do not need.
The other elements cobbled into the payroll tax bill are also dubious. Arguments can certainly be made for avoiding deep cuts in Medicare payments to doctors (dubbed the "doc fix") and for extending unemployment benefits. Unfortunately, like Social Security, what we need aren't more stop-gap solutions, but rather meaningful, long-term policy reforms.
(Continued here.)
Article by: TIM PENNY and TOM HORNER
Minneapolis Star Tribune
February 25, 2012
Tom Horner is a public affairs consultant and was chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Dave Durenberger, R-Minn. Tim Penny is president and CEO of the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation and a former Democratic member of Congress. Both are former Independence Party candidates for Minnesota governor.
Sometimes compromise isn't all it's cracked up to be. The latest example is the agreement reached by Republicans and Democrats to extend the payroll tax cut.
As G.K. Chesterton put it more than a century ago, "The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." The payroll tax cut proved Chesterton right on both counts.
Continuing to give 160 million working Americans more take-home pay through a payroll tax cut may have value as the country climbs out of the Great Recession. But in doing so, Democrats are undermining the future solvency of Social Security (a program they usually defend from any incursion), while Republicans (who of late are loudly defending tax cuts for the wealthiest) are now in no position to propose ending the payroll tax cut for working families.
For decades we have known that baby boomers would overwhelm the Social Security system. Already, the system is no longer raising enough revenue to cover annual benefits. Yet, amazingly, now is the time both parties have conspired to reduce the program's revenues. Worse, they offer no mechanism to replace the dollars lost to the payroll tax cut. Consequently, they make fixing the program's long-term shortfall more challenging and difficult. That is the kind of bipartisan behavior we do not need.
The other elements cobbled into the payroll tax bill are also dubious. Arguments can certainly be made for avoiding deep cuts in Medicare payments to doctors (dubbed the "doc fix") and for extending unemployment benefits. Unfortunately, like Social Security, what we need aren't more stop-gap solutions, but rather meaningful, long-term policy reforms.
(Continued here.)
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