Thursday, September 8, 2011

American Jobs Act is Another American Scam

The Republicans are saying that there are "some parts" they could consider. I can tell you EXACTLY what parts they like. This "jobs bill" is just another "Obama Compromise".

Will someone please explain to me?

  • I thought Social Security was bordering on insolvency? Then why is it that cuts in the payroll taxes comes from Social Security taxes, and not from federal income taxes?
  • Doesn't this only reduce Social Security benefits for workers when they later retire? (More below)
  • "Employees" (CEOs) earning up to $106,800 get a much bigger tax break than their employees (workers), who might only earn $33,000 a year.
  • Unemployed people had their "tax break" rescinded last year in their unemployment benefits. They earn less than everybody else, but they don't get any stinkin'tax break. Why is that? Is it because jobless people have no employers that can also benefit?
  • The 99ers, with no income at all, don't benefit at all. As usual, they get pushed farther and farther to the end of the line.

Whenever a bone is thrown at us, you can always bet that the rich are always getting a much bigger bone.

Social Security taxes 2010 2011

Employee

6.2% on earnings up to $106,800

4.2% on earnings up to $106,800

Employer 6.2% on earnings up to $106,800 6.2% on earnings up to $106,800*

* Social Security taxes are reduced from 6.2% to 3.1% for EMPLOYERS. The 4.2% tax for EMPLOYEES is "extended", and remains the same as it is now. That is your Payroll tax Holiday. However, the bill also says, "The President is proposing a full holiday on [ALL] the 6.2% payroll [Social Security] tax firms pay for any growth in their payroll up to $50 million above the prior year, whether driven by new hires, increased wages or both."

SOURCE:
http://ssa.gov/pubs/10003.html

THE AMERICAN JOBS ACT

1. Tax Cuts to Help America’s Small Businesses Hire and Grow

  • Cutting the payroll tax in half for 98 percent of businesses: The President’s plan will cut in half the taxes paid by businesses to 3.1%* on their first $5 million in payroll, targeting the benefit to the 98 percent of firms that have payroll below this threshold.

* Social Security taxes are reduced from 6.2% to 3.1% for EMPLOYERS. Whenever the workers get a tax break, their employers get a much larger one.

  • Temporarily Eliminating Employer Payroll Taxes on Wages for New Workers or Raises for Existing Workers: The President is proposing a full holiday on the 6.2% payroll tax firms pay for any growth in their payroll up to $50 million above the prior year, whether driven by new hires, increased wages* or both. This is the kind of job creation measure that CBO has called the most effective of all tax cuts in supporting employment.

* Does this mean that hypothetically, a CEO can give themselves up to a $50 million pay raise? They could also be defined as a "worker / employee". (I'm just sayin')

  • Cutting payroll taxes in half for 160 million workers next year: The President’s plan will expand the payroll tax cut passed last year to cut workers payroll taxes in half in 2012 – providing a $1,500 tax cut to the typical American family, without negatively impacting the Social Security Trust Fund.*

* It might not "impact the fund", but how? By reducing benefits from what they otherwise might have received when they eventually retire? It says "the American Jobs Act will specify that Social Security will still receive every dollar it would have gotten otherwise, through a transfer from the General Fund into the Social Security Trust Fund." (Robbing Paul to pay Peter?)

  • The most innovative reform to the unemployment insurance program in 40 years: As part of an extension of unemployment insurance to prevent 5 million Americans looking for work from losing their benefits, the President’s plan includes innovative work-based reforms to prevent layoffs and give states greater flexibility to use UI funds to best support job-seekers*, including:
    • Work-Sharing: UI for workers whose employers choose work-sharing over layoffs.???
    • A new “Bridge to Work” program**: The plan builds on and improves innovative state programs where those displaced take temporary, voluntary work or pursue on-the-job training.
    • Innovative entrepreneurship and wage insurance programs: States will also be empowered to implement wage insurance to help reemploy older workers and programs that make it easier for unemployed workers to start their own businesses.???
  • A $4,000 tax credit to employers for hiring long-term unemployed workers.
  • Prohibiting employers from discriminating against unemployed workers when hiring.

* Does this give Republican governors and state legislatures free reign to do anything they please with these federal funds...as they've done in the past buy reducing UI benefits to give businesses more tax breaks?

** This is also the "Georgia Plan", where employers get 2 months of FREE labor to "transition" the long-term unemployed back to work

  • Tax Credits for Hiring the Long-Term Unemployed: The President is proposing a tax credit of up to $4,000 for hiring workers who have been looking for a job for over six months.
  • Project Rebuild: Putting People Back to Work Rehabilitating Homes, Businesses and Communities. The President is proposing to invest $15 billion in a national effort to put construction workers on the job rehabilitating and refurbishing hundreds of thousands of vacant and foreclosed homes and businesses*. Building on proven approaches to stabilizing neighborhoods with high concentrations of foreclosures, Project Rebuild will bring in expertise and capital from the private sector, focus on commercial and residential property improvements, and expand innovative property solutions like land banks. This approach will not only create construction jobs but will help reduce blight and crime and stabilize housing prices in areas hardest hit by the housing crisis.

* We're giving the banks $15 billion in FREE taxpayer-paid repairs on foreclosed homes and businesses...just to "put construction workers back to work"? And all they provide is the "expertise"? SCAM!

SOURCE:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/08/fact-sheet-american-jobs-act

5 comments:

  1. This is what always happens when lobbyists get lawyers to deliberately draft complicated and confusing laws in "legalese" and then deliberately translates it into basic English in such a way as to deceive us. The average American taxpayer always gets screwed to further enrich the wealthy.

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  2. The media keeps emphasizing that the center piece for Obama's jobs bill is PAYROLL TAX CUTS. It's not! It's only a 50% reduction in Social Security taxes paid by the EMPLOYERS.

    For working people who draw a paycheck, they are only having LAST YEARS cut in their SOCIAL SECURITY taxes "extended". Obama says that it's a "savings" for ordinary working folks. But it's really a Social Security tax increase (reverting back to the previous rate) if it's NOT extended for next year.

    It's not a PAYROLL tax cut for you, it's a SOCIAL SECURITY tax cut for employers.

    And here's the kicker...We're giving the banks $15 billion in FREE taxpayer-paid repairs on foreclosed homes and businesses...just to "put construction workers back to work"? And all the banks provide is the "expertise"? Haven't we bailed them out enough already?

    This jobs bills is a scam.

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  3. The Case Against a Payroll Tax Cut
    First, the tax cut only helps those with jobs. While many have low wages and undoubtedly are spending all their additional cash flow, those with the greatest need and most likely to spend any additional income are the unemployed.

    Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute has said that a temporary payroll tax cut “is a dubious idea that would give low-wage workers a modest temporary boost, but at the expense of the Social Security program they will depend upon in retirement.”

    http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/30/the-case-against-a-payroll-tax-cut/

    ReplyDelete
  4. Representative Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, and other Republicans signaled a willingness to consider at least some of the measures. “The proposals the president outlined tonight merit consideration,” Speaker John A. Boehner said in a statement. The centerpiece of the American Jobs Act, is an extension and expansion of the cut in payroll taxes, worth $240 billion. (Why do they always say "payroll" and not "Social Security"). The president insisted that everything in the package would be paid for by raising the target for long-term spending cuts to be negotiated by a special Congressional committee. (This is where we get screwed.)

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/us/politics/09payroll.html

    Many economists agree with Obama's logic but the underlying economic theory is much weaker than supporters realize. The structural problem is that America has lost its international competitiveness in basic industries including textiles, apparel, and several other areas of manufacturing. The production jobs are now in China, India, and elsewhere, where wages are much lower while productivity is more or less comparable to the US (and where production often involves US companies, using US technologies, producing overseas and re-exporting to the US market). Because households and firms view the tax cuts as temporary, knowing that the government will have to reverse them in order to close the budget deficit, they are prone to use the tax cuts to pay off debts rather than to engage in new spending or hiring. Obama is right that the Republican vision of relentless tax cuts, deregulation, and shrinking government is the road to ruin. Yet Obama's alternative of short-term and shortsighted stimulus is only marginally better. Neither approach is getting America back on track.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/a-real-jobs-program_b_955357.html

    The United States need not worry about creating millions more jobs, but also ensuring that the jobs are good ones, jobs that pay enough to support a family.

    http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/07/the-challenge-of-creating-good-jobs/

    ReplyDelete
  5. I thought we had a budget problem. So we fix that with less tax revenues in the American Job Act?

    CEOs, hedge fund mangers, banking executives AND every member of congress who once paid $6,572 a year in Social Security taxes, now will only have to pay $3,286 a year. A $3,286-a-year annual savings for them. Yours stays the same.

    CEOs, hedge fund mangers, and banking executives can hire people to work two months for free.

    CEOs, hedge fund mangers, and banking executives will get a full holiday on the 6.2% "payroll tax" corporations pay for any growth in their payroll - up to $50 million - for a savings up to $3.1 million.

    CEOs, hedge fund mangers, and banking executives get a tax credit of up to $4,000 for hiring each worker who has been looking for a job for over six months.

    CEOs, hedge fund mangers, and banking executives can save 3.1% on their first $5 million in payroll totaling another $155,000 in savings.

    Banking executives get $15 billion in FREE taxpayer-paid repairs on the homes and businesses they foreclosed on.

    In others words, more tax breaks for the rich.

    SOURCE:
    http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/08/fact-sheet-american-jobs-act

    ReplyDelete