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Monday, August 10, 2020

tRUMP's disgusting twofer

   tRUMP's proposal to bankrupt the Postal Service has received tons of publicity in the last few weeks.  Now he is threatening to suspend payroll taxes.  There is no bottom to his evil.  What is most perplexing is that he is attacking two programs that have overwhelming public support across all political lines.  I have read that the Postal Service has a 90% favorability rating.  Post offices in small rural communities are popular meeting spots.  One would think  that Republican senators from sparsely populated states will fight to properly fund the postal service.  On the other hand, in the age of tRUMP, it is impossible to apply rational thinking to irrational minds.  


        The payroll tax is 7.65% which is charged separately  to both employees and employers.  Trump claims that he has the authority to suspend the tax without congressional involvement.  It goes without saying that he probably has no such authority.  If he were able to suspend the tax, it would mean that  wealthy wage earners  would save about $10,500.  An employee earning $20,000 would save about $765.  And, of course, unemployed people would save nothing.

     A cut in payroll taxes found its way into the proposed Republican covid relief bill.   McConnell claimed he did not know how it got into the bill.  In any event it was swiftly deleted.  McConnell well knows that the politics of defunding social security and medicare is toxic.

       Trump has not said whether he would suspend the employer tax as well as the employee tax.  We can assume that is his intent.  Think of all the money the tRUMP/Kushner criminal enterprises would save.  By my math using reasonable assumptions of payroll, it may be in the millions. Employers would love to see the tax cut.   This is a classic example of trickle down economics which has proven time and time again that the money barely trickles down.

       The payroll tax funds social security and medicare, both tremendously popular programs.  You may recall that in 2005, George W. Bush made a modest proposal to partially privatize social security.  The public reaction from all sides was overwhelmingly negative.  Bush quickly withdrew the proposal.  For years wealthy conservative Republicans have thirsted for reductions in social security benefits.  tRUMP's proposal will help starve social security and medicare.  Will tRUMP's base know or care that he wants to starve social security and medicare?  The answer to both is probably, "no". AARP will certainly care.

       As an aside,  there is an easy fix to fully fund social security and medicare for decades to come.  Right now there is a cap on the amount of income which is subject to the payroll tax.  So a millionaire pays a far smaller percentage of his or her income than does an ordinary wage earner.  If the cap were eliminated everyone would pay the same percentage.  Seems fair to me.  Eliminating the cap will never happen while Republicans control the Senate.  This is another good reason to boot them out.

       tRUMP and his enablers are actively undermining the quality of the postal service.  All of the members of the postal service board of directors are white male tRUMP appointees.  People on our side of politics are legitimately worried that tRUMP will successfully disqualify millions of mail in ballots by emasculating the postal service.  I worry as well.  But the eternal optimist thinks that most secretaries of state  will do their best to protect the franchise.  Jocelyn Benson will absolutely protect mail in ballots.  A simple protection is to make sure that every voter has access to a drop box for their ballot.  We saw in Wisconsin that neither Republicans nor covid will deter the Democratic wave from  coming. Do your part to fumigate tRUMP out of the White House.

                                                            Richard

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