Taxes - two competing sets of drivel: Endless attack and counterattack on 'leaving out' working class families [10K -25K / year] from the new child tax credit. Much playing with word definitions.
1. Both sides insist on claiming that the Social Security taxes aren't income taxes. And technically they aren't. They are taxes on wages.
2. So people who get income from anything but wages are already priviledged by the duopoly's fantasy that there is such a thing as a social security trust fund [it is an accounting fiction on a ponzi game].
3. The social security part as distinct from the medicare portion is further priviledged by only being levied on wages to a maximum that goes up each year.
4. So the duopoly's talking heads get to shout past each other - one talks about taxpayers and glosses over the fact the what was cut was income taxes, not taxes. The other gets to keep pointing to the fact that they are different taxes and goes on pretending that there is some special piggy bank that the social security taxes are stored in. USG takes it all and issues special bonds to the social security trust fund. This is like writing an IOU to yourself. It has meaning only as long as you say it does.
5. To make this even dumber, both sides persist in the lie that the employer pays half the tax. I've been an employer. If I get a severe case of stupidity I may be again. From an employers prospective it is all wage cost.
So tune out the chaos. Just more inside baseball from two sides of the same coin who think you are dumb enough to be paying attention.
Scott
posted by scott 7:42 AM