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Comment by greenyoda | Hacker News Reader

Everyone knew that the 2% cut in the Social Security tax was a temporary measure designed to boost the economy. The fact that it's expiring as planned is not a surprise, and hardly newsworthy.

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Everybody knew that the Bush top-bracket rate cuts were temporary, too. And yet the entire argument revolves around extending them. Nobody is arguing that we should extend the lower rates on payroll. That is remarkable.

It's interesting how temporary tax cuts always seem to expire, but temporary taxes never seem to.

Add to this temporary spending programs. GWBush's last year added ~$1 trillion in "emergency" spending, growing federal spending by an astounding ~50%, and SOMEHOW four years later it's turned into entitlements and the like, part of the permanent spending baseline.

(This is the same baseline-based math which calls a reduction in the rate of spending growth some sort or another of a "devastating cut", naturally, though you'll see more ostentatious examples of this rhetoric with California's recent education-policy games than you will at the national level.)

Well, there seems to be universal agreement that the "temporary" tax cuts for the non-rich should be made permanent. With which I disagree; if we want to have an expensive welfare state and police the world, we should have the honesty to pay for it.

Unfortunately, this is wishful thinking in American politics. There is no such thing as a temporary tax cut. In the eyes of Americans, there are only two kinds of changes to taxes: cuts and raises. A temporary tax cut is nothing more than a tax cut followed by a tax hike in the view of our wisest statesmen. This gives license to pundits to accuse Obama of raising taxes--because the cuts are not permanent. I remain dumbfounded that some believe that taxes should decrease monotonically from year to year, no matter the circumstances.

There were certainly new taxes created under Obama, such as the tax on medical devices that was part of Obamacare.

That's not the point I'm making. I'm only talking about the temporary payroll tax decrease. His opponents will say that he's raising the payroll tax, when it is really only expiring.

It's not newsworthy that your paycheck may be substantially lighter in a couple of weeks?

Not if you already knew about it.

Correct, if you already know something then it is likely not news.

I reckon most people -- myself very much included -- 1) weren't aware of the tax change in 2010, and 2) definitely didn't have its expiration on their calendars.

It's actually the thin end of the wedge for cutting social security entirely, in my opinion. Once people are comfortable with the concept of 'adjusting' social security for 'emergencies', it becomes more palatable to overhaul it entirely.

I don't think most people even knew that there was a 2% cut in the Social Security tax, much less the fact that it was temporary. I mean, let's face it: very few people follow politics with any kind of intellectual vigor. Sound-bites are easier to digest than actual details like this, which is why their coverage in the news has value.

People may not follow politics, but the do follow their paychecks.

Maybe. But how many of them are likely to notice a 2% increase on a tax that is already just a few percentage of each paycheck as it is?

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