Gas tax holiday a non-starter. Why not a payroll tax holiday?

[LuckyTheDog]

McCain's gas tax holiday proposal makes no sense and just shows that McCain really doesn't know anything about the economy. Why cut off funding for infrastructure at a time when the need for building it is so great (and when money spent on such projects can create needed jobs)?

If we are going to rob Peter to pay Paul, we should be gaming our long-term obligations, not scrimping on our immediate needs. So, why not declare a year-long “holiday” from the payroll tax?

A payroll tax holiday would put more money into paychecks without the need to let bridges collapse. And we could make the money up later by collecting more tax. We could do that a number of ways that would not hurt the middle class:

One way to change the payroll tax would be to exempt, say, the first $25,000 in earned income from the tax, but also eliminate the $90,000 cap. Or we could leave the cap where it is, exempt all the money one earns above $90,000 and below $200,000, and then tax income above THAT level up to, say, $5 million or $7 million. (I have not run the numbers in either example, so I don’t know if those exact dollar amounts would work, but you get the idea).

The idea is simple: if you need money now to pay the gas bill, don’t use the kid’s milk money for this week. Raid the college fund – and make a plan to pay it back over time.

[The Wielding Truth]

1. Profits for Exxon will continue to rise, while our country is bled.

It guarantees that oil profits will not take the hit from the reduction of purchase power.

The money will be stripped from the critically needed infrastructure and handed to the oil barons.

Consumers will continue to suck up the most gas and who suffers? Our country.

Thanks for working for us Republi-Cons.

Heck of a plan, McCain!

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Why do you hate your children? You don't want to have payroll taxes now so that your

children and grandchildren can pay what 2 or 3 times more in the future? You do know that as of today, your kids already owe close to $31,000 each to the national debt. Any plan that keeps on increasing that debt is a bad plan.

[LuckyTheDog]

3. Try to keep up, OK?

I also suggested raising Social Security taxes on wealty Americans to more than make up the revenue lost during any payroll tax holiday.

So, no, the "plan" is not to increase the national debt. Sheesh.

[sinkingfeeling]

5. "And we could make the money up later by collecting more tax.." Why do you feel that only

the wealthy should pay taxes? I'm of the belief that everybody should pay their fair share. Those on the lowest levels pay basically nothing. Those in the middle should pay a certain percentage of their wages (18-25%) in both federal income tax and SS/Medicare. Those with more incomes (from all sources) should pay higher percentages (30-50%).

[LuckyTheDog]

6. Now hold on

Where did I say that "only the wealthy should pay taxes"?

I never said that. But in case you have not noticed, the tax code has been changed to give the rich a lot of breaks over the past 20 years. Meanwhile, the middle class is hurting.

Yes, "everybody should pay their fair share." I never said they shouldn't. The trick is defining what is "fair." And you don't do that by arbitrarily coming up with percentages that "feel right" and building a federal budget based on that.

You START by deciding what government absolutely needs to do, what that costs. After that, you decide what it really ought to do and how much THAT costs. Then you decide more minor priorities and what THEY cost. Each step of the way, you apply a cost/benefit analysis to the spending plan to figure out whether we can really afford those plans, and whether they are really worth the cost. And only THEN, you figure out the details of the tax code you will use to pay for it all.

It's only at that last stage that you consider who should pay what.

What's "fair" depends on a lot of very subjective judgements about what people are getting for their money. In some cases, a 1% tax could be too much. In other cases, a 30% tax could be a bargain.

[sinkingfeeling]

7. Sounds very reasonable. However, that contradicts your plan to have a payroll tax holiday.

As things currently stand, with a $9 trillion dollar debt, how could we afford to exempt the 1st. $25,000 of everybody's income from payroll taxes?

[LuckyTheDog]

9. One more time... try to follow, OK?

There is NOTHING contradictory about collecting less tax for 12 months in order to stimulate the economy and then PAYING THAT BACK by collecting more taxes later.

Are you aware that income above $90,000 is now exempt from the payroll tax? Do you understand that raising or eliminating that cap would result in more revenue being collected? If we collected more revenue from upper-income earners wouldn't that allow the government to collect less from lower-income earners? Do you not know that our Social Security obligation are a long-term obligations -- with a very long time horizon?

Are you just pretending to not understand in order to be argumentative?

[underpants]

4. Al Gore has proposed an end to payroll tax -replaced by a pollutant tax

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Gore_calls_for_elimination_of_payroll_0918.html

[trotsky]

8. I'm all for eliminating the payroll tax cap.

Or as you say, putting a little donut hole in there.

And while we're at it, apply that tax to ALL earned income. Dividends, capital gains, etc.

The "fair taxers" are all about everyone paying the same rate, right? So let's do that with SS and Medicare.