Democrats Trick Americans With Payroll Tax Cut Extension Ruse

There is more to the payroll tax cut extension than the Democrats and their comrades in the media are letting on. The GOP presidential candidates are split down the middle over it. The misinformation is so bad that an apolitical friend of mine wrote her GOP Senator upset about a provision that didn't even exist in the bill.

The Democrats are accusing Republicans in Congress of opposing the extension of payroll tax cuts. On the face of it, something seems wrong. Republicans are usually in favor of tax cuts and Democrats generally oppose them, except when there is a Democratic special interest involved like environmental causes. Democrats using the payroll tax cut extension negotiations to portray themselves to the American people as the party that cares about leaving more in hardworking Americans’ pockets. White House press secretary Jay Carney recently declared at a press conference, “What happened to Republican support for tax cuts?” Congressional Democrats and Obama claim that Republicans won’t support the extension unless additional tax breaks for the rich are included. Obama said Republicans “chose to raise taxes on nearly 160 million hardworking Americans because they refused to ask a few hundred thousand millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share."

Republicans are taking a hit, since 58 percent of Americans want Congress to approve the payroll tax extension, according to an Associated Press/Gfk poll. Democrats have beaten them in the arena of public perception using deception and semantics, which could bode poorly for the GOP in the 2012 elections. Unfortunately, Republicans have failed to come up with a clever short response that more accurately describes what is happening.

Obama implemented a payroll tax cut last year as part of his job-creation plan. It reduced each worker’s 6.2% paid into Social Security down to 4.2%. If not extended, next year a family making $50,000 will not see a repeat of the $1000 decrease they received last year.

Read the rest of my article at Townhall