• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Trump promises permanent cut to payroll tax funding Social Security and Medicare if he’s reelected

Rogue Valley

Rogue Valley

Lead or get out of the way
DP Veteran
Joined
Apr 18, 2013
Messages
94,341
Reaction score
82,722
Location
Barsoom
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Independent
Trump promises permanent cut to payroll tax funding Social Security and Medicare if he’s reelected

484_a8aabja9kdkabgccbf66e.jpg

8/8/20
President Trump pledged on Saturday to pursue a permanent cut to the payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare if he wins reelection in November, a hard-to-accomplish political gambit that some experts see as a major headache for the future of the country’s entitlement programs. Trump unexpectedly promised the policy action as he signed a directive that aims to help cash-starved Americans amid the coronavirus pandemic. The order allows workers to postpone their payroll tax payments into next year but doesn’t absolve their bills outright — though the president said he would seek to waive what people owe if he prevails on Election Day. “If I’m victorious on November 3rd, I plan to forgive these taxes and make permanent cuts to the payroll tax,” Trump said at a news conference in Bedminster, N.J. “I’m going to make them all permanent.” “In other words, I’ll extended beyond the end of the year and terminate the tax,” Trump later added. “And so we’ll see what happens.”
Click to expand...

There you have it. Trump declared war against Social Security and Medicare by promising to terminate the payroll taxes that fund these safety-net programs.

Senior citizens, who usually vote Republican, had better wake up and rethink any election support for Trump/GOP.
 
I hope every senior citizen who votes for Trump sees the benefits of this magnificent executive order first hand. I hope every non-racist, totally not an incel, tiki torch holding patriot has elderly relatives that wil see the great improvement this will bring to their lives.

No, really, I do guys.


------------------------

Thought had by person at the White House: If you can remember, man, woman, car, camera, TV, you are fit to lead a country and no one has anything to worry about
 
Rogue Valley said:
Trump promises permanent cut to payroll tax funding Social Security and Medicare if he’s reelected

484_a8aabja9kdkabgccbf66e.jpg



There you have it. Trump declared war against Social Security and Medicare by promising to terminate the payroll taxes that fund these safety-net programs.

Senior citizens, who usually vote Republican, had better wake up and rethink any election support for Trump/GOP.
Click to expand...



I don't think the Trump cult even understands that the payroll tax supports SS and Medicare. If anything, the change to the payroll tax should be lifting the ceiling on the max tax and make it a truly progressive tax.
 
Paul Krugman:

"Payroll tax cuts are the hydroxychloroquine of economic policy."

They won't do anything to solve the employment crisis, but will have dangerous side effects.

Letting employers keep money they were supposed to be paying into Social Security and Medicare — no good reason to believe they'll pass the savings on to workers — does nothing to remedy this problem.

It will, however, undermine the finances of programs that are absolutely crucial to the lives of older Americans. If you measure the quality of policy ideas on a scale of 1 to 10, this is a minus 5 or worse.

Even Senate Republicans consider this a terrible idea. So where's Trump getting it from? The immediate answer seems to be Stephen Moore, whose previous greatest hits include predicting that tax cuts would create a Kansas economic miracle."
 
Rogue Valley said:
Trump promises permanent cut to payroll tax funding Social Security and Medicare if he’s reelected

484_a8aabja9kdkabgccbf66e.jpg



There you have it. Trump declared war against Social Security and Medicare by promising to terminate the payroll taxes that fund these safety-net programs.

Senior citizens, who usually vote Republican, had better wake up and rethink any election support for Trump/GOP.
Click to expand...
1. If "refusing to adequately fund the liabilities associated with social security and Medicare" counts as "waging war against those programs", then that war is a bipartisan policy preference that only people like Paul Ryan have refused to partake in. Certainly I don't recall the left being this upset when Obama cut payroll taxes.

2. More important than any individual policy question - the President does not have the sole power to set tax or fiscal policy. This is an unconstitutional power grab that Conservatives would be insane with rage over, were it done by a Democrat.
 
Last edited:
Rogue Valley said:
Trump promises permanent cut to payroll tax funding Social Security and Medicare if he’s reelected

484_a8aabja9kdkabgccbf66e.jpg



There you have it. Trump declared war against Social Security and Medicare by promising to terminate the payroll taxes that fund these safety-net programs.

Senior citizens, who usually vote Republican, had better wake up and rethink any election support for Trump/GOP.
Click to expand...

Sounds like Congress has some work to do. They need to start thinking of other ways to fund Social Security and Medicare or they are going to have a lot of angry citizens on their hands.
 
Mycroft said:
Sounds like Congress has some work to do. They need to start thinking of other ways to fund Social Security and Medicare or they are going to have a lot of angry citizens on their hands.
Click to expand...

Like how? Magic money?
 
BlueTex said:
Like how? Magic money?
Click to expand...

Oh...Congress has been doing that stuff for a long time. I'm sure they are capable of finding ways to fund stuff the people want.
 
Mycroft said:
Oh...Congress has been doing that stuff for a long time. I'm sure they are capable of finding ways to fund stuff the people want.
Click to expand...

I agree.. Let's slash defense spending 50%... Can we count on your support?
 
the idiots will fall for the latest con.


people with brains won't.
 
Republicans will destroy SS and Medicare if they are not electorally destroyed themselves. Never vote for any Republican again. The party needs to go extinct and be replaced with something sane.
 
Rogue Valley said:
Trump promises permanent cut to payroll tax funding Social Security and Medicare if he’s reelected

484_a8aabja9kdkabgccbf66e.jpg



There you have it. Trump declared war against Social Security and Medicare by promising to terminate the payroll taxes that fund these safety-net programs.

Senior citizens, who usually vote Republican, had better wake up and rethink any election support for Trump/GOP.
Click to expand...
No surprise. Republicans never wanted Social Security or Medicaid in the first place and try to kill them every chance they get.

This is exactly why voters should never put Republicans in power.
 
I can just seat people on Team Trump dumb enough to think this would mean their employer would give them a raise to cover what it isn't contributing AND that they would still be able to collect their payments when its their time.
 
BlueTex said:
I agree.. Let's slash defense spending 50%... Can we count on your support?
Click to expand...

And strangle health insurance companies by taking their profits to fund Medicare. Problem solved!
 
Xilnik said:
And strangle health insurance companies by taking their profits to fund Medicare. Problem solved!
Click to expand...



Medicare for All via executive order... I like it... The same executive order could triple the medicare tax to pay for it...
 
Mycroft said:
Sounds like Congress has some work to do. They need to start thinking of other ways to fund Social Security and Medicare or they are going to have a lot of angry citizens on their hands.
Click to expand...

Why would they think of other ways? Trump can't cut payroll taxes on his own.
 
Mycroft said:
Oh...Congress has been doing that stuff for a long time. I'm sure they are capable of finding ways to fund stuff the people want.
Click to expand...

We all know you bow down to deficit growth if it is a byproduct of your political tribe.
 
BlueTex said:
I agree.. Let's slash defense spending 50%... Can we count on your support?
Click to expand...

No. National Defense has a higher priority than social welfare.
 
Airyaman said:
Why would they think of other ways? Trump can't cut payroll taxes on his own.
Click to expand...

That's correct.

So Congress has to oppose a tax cut. If they do, I hope they can weather the political fallout.
 
Mycroft said:
No. National Defense has a higher priority than social welfare.
Click to expand...

So that really only leaves social security and medicare, everything else is small potatoes..
 
cpwill said:
Certainly I don't recall the left being this upset when Obama cut payroll taxes..
Click to expand...

Oh come on, Will. Totally different circumstances.

1. Obama's payroll tax cut was an actual temporary cut during a general recession, passed by Congress. A payroll tax cut now is so stupid (see #2) even Senate Republicans wouldn't support it. So Trump had to go the route of an executive order which temporarily suspends the tax. By promising to make it permanent--a power he does not have--he sets up an argument that Americans will face a tax hike in January if they don't vote for him. How cute.

2. In 2011 the US was in a severe but in other ways normal recession. This crisis overwhelmingly affects people forced into unemployment due to a virus--a payroll tax cut doesn't help them AT ALL. Nor does it help those businesses because they don't have a payroll.

3. This is just a giveaway to business — and specifically to businesses hurt least by Covid-19.
 
Last edited:
BlueTex said:
So that really only leaves social security and medicare, everything else is small potatoes..
Click to expand...

“Whichever you please, my little dears: You pays your money and you takes your choice, You pays your money and what you sees Is a cow or a donkey just as you pleases.”

Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
 
Airyaman said:
Why would they think of other ways? Trump can't cut payroll taxes on his own.
Click to expand...

As I understand it, Mr. Trump has NOT reduced the legally mandated amounts that the employers are required to withhold from their employee's wages with respect to income tax, social security, and other matters.

What it appears that Mr. Trump HAS done is to tell the employers that the simply don't have to send the money to Washington to satisfy the amounts that the employees owe for their income tax payments, social security payments, and other federally mandated payments. This means that REGARDLESS of the fact that the employers have already taken the money out of the employees' pay cheques, the employees STILL OWE those amounts and the employees STILL HAVE TO PAY them.

Yes, the employees could sue the employers to recover the money that the employers had withheld but not remitted, but that would cost a fortune and would be tied up in court for decades.

Whether or not Mr. Trump has the legal authority to actually do anything set out in the four EOs (and almost certainly he doesn't) is a totally different matter.
 
jpn said:
Oh come on, Will. Totally different circumstances.

1. Obama's payroll tax cut was an actual temporary cut during a general recession, passed by Congress.
Click to expand...

:snorts:

The "When Our Guy Does It, It's Different" argument is one of the saddest arguments honestly put forth in these stupid, tribal, times.

If cutting payroll taxes amounts to waging war against social security and medicare, then cutting payroll taxes amounts to waging war against social security and Medicare. I agree that only Congress has the authority to do this (which is why I pointed out that Trump's actions were unConstitutional), but that doesn't alter the first point a jot. The Hyperbolic War Against Old People rhetoric is pathetic, tribal, partisan B.S.

Nancy Pelosi in 2011 when calling for an extension of Obama's payroll tax cut said:
"Today is a victory for all Americans - for the security of our middle class, for the health of our seniors, and for economic growth and job creation. The American people spoke out clearly and, thanks to President Obama's leadership, 160 million Americans will continue to receive their payroll tax cut - nearly $40 per paycheck in the pockets of the average family. I salute the work of the unified House Democratic caucus on behalf of the American people."
Click to expand...

:roll:

A payroll tax cut now is so stupid (see #2) even Senate Republicans wouldn't support it. So Trump had to go the route of an executive order which temporarily suspends the tax. By promising to make it permanent--a power he does not have--he sets up an argument that Americans will face a tax hike in January if they don't vote for him. How cute.

2. In 2011 the US was in a severe but in other ways normal recession. This crisis overwhelmingly affects people forced into unemployment due to a virus--a payroll tax cut doesn't help them AT ALL. Nor does it help those businesses because they don't have a payroll.

3. This is just a giveaway to business — and specifically to businesses hurt least by Covid-19.
Click to expand...

While I don't think this is a wise policy response, it would be incorrect to say that it doesn't help the unemployed at all - by making it cheaper to hire them, it increases incentives to do so.
 
I have not a clue what President Trump is thinking. Not only will this mess up Social Security and Medicare it would drastically impact Federal Employees covered by the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS)
FERS Information

Any person over 30 years old should take a hard look at what President Trump is proposing for the future of SS. He has not provided any alternative to SS other than he would like to permanently eliminate the payroll tax.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom