Obama: Hey, You Know What Might Be a Good Idea To Boost The Economy? A Payroll Tax Holiday

Who proposed that? Oh yeah, I did. And so did thirty thousand economists.

Two years ago. On the theory -- see if you can follow this logic, because it gets twisty -- that if you reduce the cost to employers for hiring and maintaining staff, they might actually hire and maintain more staff.

Did you follow that? I know, it's heady. Let me try again:

If costs for a thing go down, you can afford more of it.

No? Still too complicated?

Here, here's a talking sandwich then.

Hey, fucklebuns! It's easy as baby-shit, see?
If hookers lower their prices by 5% you can buy 21
cooch-whores for the cost of 20! What are you, touched?!

You get it? Yeah, well, see, Obama didn't get it, and I think they had to invite time-travelling baloney sandwich Johnny Coldcuts to the White House to make him understand.

But now, facing a double-dip Great Recession largely of his own design, suddenly he's willing to confront all sorts of disturbing scenarios, such as the bizarre notion that when taxes are reduced, economic activity increases.

The staff-level discussions are in preliminary stages. But with the unemployment rate expected to rise again in new jobs numbers due out Friday, such a move could serve both to spur hiring and to combat Republican charges that Obama’s tax policies would hurt small businesses.

More spending on infrastructure – particularly transportation projects – is also under discussion, sources said. But a person familiar with the talks said it would be easier for a package consisting purely of tax cuts to “avoid the stain of a ‘bailout’ or ‘stimulus’ label.”

I had a number crunching blogger run the numbers for me, and he said that the "Stimulus" of around $900 billion could have paid for a full and complete payroll tax holiday for employers for 2 1/2 years, or a full payroll tax holiday for both businesses and employees for 1 1/4 years.

$300 billion is... well, it's a lot less, isn't it?

Meanwhile Mike Pence says extend the Bush tax cuts for everyone. And then some.

"Well, we're going to stay focused on Election Day. But I think before that, we're going to continue to demand that this administration and this Congress make it clear that no American will see a tax increase in January of next year," Pence said during an appearance on CNBC.

"So the first thing that we will do is try to preserve the tax relief of 2001 and 2003 for all Americans — for all small businesses and family farmers. But we also want to look at the kind of across-the-board tax relief, the kind of tax relief that will encourage capital formation, to get this economy moving again," the Indiana Republican and potential presidential candidate added.

On Twitter, Steven Hayes is writing to Gibbs, confronting him with Obama's past declarations that raising taxes during a recession would be disastrous.

posted by Ace at 05:58 PM

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