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• Unemployed people had their "tax break" rescinded last year in their unemployment benefits.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