It’s done. The Payroll Tax Cut has been passed, leaving most Americans heaving a small sigh of relief and President Obama looking like a winnah.
There’s nothing wrong with that, but Bernie Sanders, who voted against the measure in what amounted to a token protest, would like to remind us that Republican demands that the cut be fully funded, mean that its passage was tied to the diversion of
“substantial sums of money from the Social Security Trust Fund, which is of such enormous importance to the American people.”
That’s right; the Republican effort to weaken Social Security in order to support their case for privatization has once more had its way.
I don’t think this is a case of Republican perfidy. The payroll tax cut is, actually, a cut in the tax that funds Social Security. It was Obama’s idea, and it does reduce funding of Social Security as a way to stimulate the economy. This is a case where Bernie disagrees with the Obama Administration; he’d rather see stimulus measures that don’t touch Social Security.