Letter: Tax cuts won’t fix the economy

Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2002 | 9:05 a.m.

To me the proposal made both by Democrats and Republicans to suspend part of the payroll tax for a certain period is an exercise in contradictory stupidity.

At a time when Republicans are pushing a plan to take $2 trillion out of the Social Security revenue stream, which will require cuts in both current and future benefits, this payroll tax "holiday" will simply exacerbate the problem. Also, because the Social Security surplus is used to finance part of the deficit, it will raise the deficit by about a $100 billion or so next year.

I don't know whether they intend to repay this payroll tax money to Social Security or how, but you can bet it won't be by raising income taxes on wealthy taxpayers. So once again the elderly will take an immediate hit, as will future retirees.

Once again, it is sheer stupidity to take more money out of a system which is claimed to be in financial difficulty! Maybe the "coming crisis in Social Security" is really just a big hoax after all.

Tax cuts in general have, so far, been ineffective in fixing the economy, so what good is a few billion more going to do? It is high time that tax cuts of all kinds are scrapped and the "pump is primed" by spending projects, which always works.

DANIEL OLIVIER