Correction Time!
I’ve long complained that Obama’s purported plans to uncap the payroll tax was a horrible, very bad, no good idea. My basic complaint was that there’s no social scurity crisis, so raising the marginal tax rates to around 50% on the rich seemed like a poor response to a non-problem. Also, of all taxes, the payroll tax is arguably the worst. Why should the working rich be punished while the idle rich sit around unaffected?
Well, budding superwonk Josh Patashnik catches this bit from Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee’s op-ed in the WSJ:
Sen. Obama does not support uncapping the full payroll tax of 12.4% rate. Instead, he is considering plans that would ask those making over $250,000 to pay in the range of 2% to 4% more in total (combined employer and employee). This change to Social Security would start a decade or more from now and is similar to the rate increases floated by Sen. McCain’s close adviser Lindsey Graham, and that Sen. McCain has previously said he “could” support.
Although Patashnik goes on to lambast conservatives who said that Obama would totally uncap the tax by saying that they “lack either basic mathematical proficiency or intellectual honesty.” I’ll defend myself by noting that the Obama campaign hasn’t been aggressively correcting those (including most of the press and commentariat) who have been saying that Obama plans to totally uncap the payroll tax. This seems more like a canny move to the center, rather than merely clarifying what they policy has always been.
Well, that’s sort of been the entire campaign to this point hasn’t it: vague, not really correcting anyone on what they say about his policy plans, and then when they see what strategy is necessary, finally come out saying one thing or the other. Pretty convenient.
Haley1018
August 14, 2008 at 2:04 pm