Brilliant Democrat Plan For Creating Jobs: Exempt Employers From Paying Into Social Security

• February 10, 2010

Social Security is bankrupt. It’s being run like Bernie Madoff ran his “investments.” Meaning that nothing is really invested or produced. Rather, payments from new workers are used to pay benefits for retired workers. And given that there is soon to be far more retired workers than younger workers can support, the entire house of cards is set to collapse.
Just like Bernie Madoff’s pyramid scheme collapsed.
And into that environment enters a brilliant new plan from Democrats to create jobs. Exempt employers from paying their share of Social Security for new hires.

Washington (AP) Senate Democrats have started circulating a jobs bill one that doesn’t contain a lot of new initiatives for boosting hiring.
It does contain provisions that have been sought by lobbyists for business groups, doctors and the satellite broadcasting industry.
The measure is still in draft form, and hasn’t been officially released.
Among the few new ideas for creating jobs is a $10 billion plan to exempt companies from paying the employer’s share of Social Security payroll taxes for new hires if they are unemployed and hired this year.
It’s an idea seen as more workable than President Barack Obama’s plan for tax credits of up to $5,000 for new hires.

More workable? Pulling money out of a gigantic entitlement program that’s already teetering on the edge of insolvency is more workable?
Cutting payroll taxes isn’t a bad idea. One way to encourage businesses to hire more workers is to make it cheaper to hire them. But that only gets us so far. These employers must also have a need for new employees. And that sort of need isn’t going to be created until the economy starts working again.
So cutting this payroll tax will only have a marginal impact. And it would simultaneously hasten an already impending entitlement apocalypse with Social Security.
In summary: Really, really, really bad idea.
Unless we’re planning on getting rid of Social Security. Then I’m on board.

Tags: Asshats, Domestic Issues, Politics

sayanything-5633

Really bad idea and we all know that they won’t get rid of SS, so the only option for keeping it going would be to shift those taxes to the workers. That could be either in the form of simply increasing the employee contributions or by implementing some other tax like a national sales tax.
sayanything-203

Jay,

While I understand the practical approach of what you’ve written, I couldn’t disagree more. Second on the list of standard leftwing responses to serious questions of issues or policy, right after “But, Bush… ” and just ahead of assorted strawman arguments and adolescent name-calling, is the dishonest attack the messenger retort. (Put up a post about Ronald Reagan, Karl Rove or Sarah Palin – you’ll see what I mean.) To dismiss making the Bush tax rate cuts permanent for the reason you’ve given is to implicitly acknowledge and endorse their tactic.

The best hope we have for reinvigorating the engine of our economy is to make those cuts permanent, index cap gains for inflation, and further reduce the taxes on both businesses and capital formation, and then couple those actions with some serious spending reduction.

Paradoxically, those may also be the only steps that can conceivably save the Obama presidency, for without those steps there will be no on-going econoomic recovery and no job growth.

Period!
robert108

This is just another example of the economic ignorance of the Obama administration. Jobs are not created by giving “tax breaks” for hiring more employees; they are created by overall tax rate reductions on personal and business income, along with capital formation. As prosperity leads to greater demand for goods and services, more people will be hired to meet that demand.
The Keynesian myth that flooding the economy with taxpayer money will somehow increase demand is ass-backwards.
sayanything-7956

This isn’t their football anymore. They’re facing the biggest election implosion since the post-Watergate disaster in 1974 by jumping off the cliff with Obama.
http://Array sayanything-43

I like the idea of cutting taxes, but things have to be done in a way that businesses can count on the savings to be ongoing.

This isn't going to help any more than the stimulus checks did. Sure they were nice while they lasted, but they didn't do a thing to help the economy past the quarter they were spent.
sayanything-7956

Since Social Security is now running a real-time defict wherein collections are now running below current payouts, this is an especially stupid idea.

How about cutting taxes by not allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, lowering the capital gains tax, re-killing the Death Tax, and permanently lowering the corporate income taxes?
sayanything-4744

Not letting the Bush tax cuts expire is a non-starter. Mainly because they're Bush's tax cuts. Democrats don't really go for tax cuts often, but even less so when they can't take credit for them.
sayanything-101

With IRA's, Keogh's, 401ks, and others, SS is an anachronism that should be ended.
sayanything-5231

The big problem as I can see it is that I know of at least one owner of a company that would hire like crazy and get rid of long term employees later in the year, as the new ones are trained up to speed just to get this cut and not have to pay into the system at all or very little.
sayanything-1317

So acknowledging that Democrats won't make the tax cuts permanent because they can't take credit for them is an endorsement of that action?

I don't really get ya there, Bert.
sayanything-4808

"satellite broadcasting industry"

I see Halstead and Dish Network Service Centers, LLC are both in the political game now. They already treat their legal employees illegally as contractors. Why not throw in with the true anti-labor party, the Dems?
sayanything-3444

If by brilliant you meant bug-f*ck crazy, then yes it is.

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