it when it can. It's happened before.

It should never happen!

republicans in one of their previous budgets (prior to us winning control of the House) claimed their budget proposal was balanced, but only because they took $500 Billion (and another larger amount later) from future social security payments. Where? I don't hear anything about this outrage.

Employers continued to pay the full amount of their contribution.

been a while but the point he did it. Cut the taxes. It's happened before.

Obama should not have screwed around with social security either, it set a precedent that it's acceptable to raid the program. If Democrats are going to start getting wishy-washy when it comes to Social Security we may as well throw in the towel. As sure as hell the word "defer" will turn into "no new taxes".

Although the story is mostly, "This person suspects Republicans of being no good, and requires that something be done to prevent them from being able to actually show that they're bad in this way." Twice-displaced suspicion.

Because it would weaken Social Security's future or because it would mean that the corporations got away with something? I'm not sure where the outrage is. Because ...

At the same time, OASDI payments should be increased. Which would not just remove money from the fund that pays for OASDI, but reduce the interest earned on that money. Weakening Social Security's future. So we can't weaken Social Security. Instead, let's weaken it.


Now, the businesses are getting money to keep people on the payroll. It provides payroll support. It's less cash flow and more cash flow-through. Are state/federal/payroll taxes taken out of that amount? (If so, then Governor Cuomo overlooked a federal source of state revenue, because some of those $ wind up in the states' coffers.)

But regardless, if a business is borderline and relying on the payroll support, is an 7.65% tax, essentially employer-contributed overhead, on that cash flow really going to help that business? If I have a payroll of 10 people making $36k/year, that's going to mean I'm going to be working to funnel 30,000/month at them, and paying about $2,300 for them. Not a huge amount, but between the effort and the taxes, I might just say, "Nah, low skilled workers, not that into them. I can spend $0, I can spend $2,300." Might be willing to wait until the crisis is over, but pay up front? Maybe not.

I know rawstory lives on click bait. The bill does nothing to "attack" social security. It merely allows employers to defer their payments until next year, which is completely reasonable since the only option most employers would have otherwise would be to fire employees. But this moderate response to the situation we're in won't stop rawstory and their pretend writers to come up with something inflammatory to rile up the masses and generate clicks.