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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