In the next month or so Congress will be asked to extend the payroll tax cut to the end on the year. The republicans were hurt with their opposition to the extension. Have they learned anything from that?
The payroll tax cut only affects the middle class because the tax has a cap of $107,000. This tax cut is good because these are the people who need the money most right now to get the economy going again. The bad thing is that we are destabilizing the Social Security System. Right now the SS system is the only government program that is not bankrupt. There is a $2.4 trillion surplus in the SS trust fund and the rest of the government is taking funds from the trust fund to run the rest of government. When we are told that the SS funds from the tax cut will be repaid from the general fund, it is just book keeping, there is no money in the general fund to repay SS.
Social Security has it's own funding source and if the money in the trust fund were protected, the program should remain stable until 2037. If the cap were raised to $250,000 Social Security would remain stable indefinitely.
If Congress does not extend the Payroll Tax Cut it should pump an equivalent amount of money ($252 billion) into the economy to benefit the poor and middle class. The best way to do that, is to give jobs to the 15 million people now out of work.
There are many ways to create jobs. We do need $2.4 trillion worth of infrastructure that needs to be repaired. Tax cuts to businesses if they hire will help, but neither of these will help those that need help the most. The chronically unemployed probably don't have the skills or education to rebuild our infrastructure, and businesses won't hire them if there are more qualified applicants.
The government should train and educate those in need. If the government expanded programs like the following the chronically unemployed could once again become productive tax paying citizens and they can get off their reliance on government programs:
• The School Improvement Corps could create thousands of construction and maintenance jobs by funding positions created by public school districts to do needed school rehabilitation improvements.
• The Park Improvement Corps would create hundreds of thousands of jobs for youth between the ages of 16 and 25 through new funding to the Department of the Interior and the USDA Forest Service's Public Lands Corps Act. Young people would work on conservation projects on public lands include restoration and rehabilitation of natural, cultural, and historic resources.
• The Student Jobs Corps would creates hundreds of thousands of part-time, work study jobs for eligible college students through new funding for the Federal Work Study Program.
• The Neighborhood Heroes Corps would hire hundreds of thousands of teachers, new police officers, and firefighters.
• The Health Corps would hire at least tens of thousands of health care providers, including physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, and health care workers to expand access in underserved rural and urban areas.
• The Child Care Corps would create hundreds of thousands of jobs in early childhood care and education through additional funding for Early Head Start.
• The Community Corps would hire hundreds of thousands of individuals to do needed work in our communities, including housing rehab, weatherization, recycling, and rural conservation.
Of course the Republicans with their new found fiscal concerns, would want to pay for all of these programs. Texas also got most of it's job creation through government programs, and paid for many by taxing resource extraction. Perhaps we could do the same?
The mining laws haven't changed since 1872. We are essentially giving away all of our natural resources found on public lands to international and in many cases foreign corporations. Why can't we charge what those companies pay to private landowners, and also demand the same site restoration? This would probably pay for giving millions of people jobs.
http://www.montanariveraction.org/1872.m...We are endangering our coastal communities and the environment by expanding offshore drilling, even though emergency cut off valves have still not been fixed. Perhaps the oil companies should also pay more to cover the potential for more BP oil disasters?