With just a month left before the one-year payroll tax break expires, Senate Democrats are trying to get Republicans to agree to extending it, to be paid for with a 3.5 percentage point surtax on income above $1 million. The catch is that the surtax would be permanent.
This is the kind of thing that lends credence to Republican accusations that Democrats are simply waging class warfare and demonizing the successful. Harry Reid et al. are asking us to believe that they are terribly worried about the grand or so middle class households would lose in one year if the payroll tax increases, yet totally unconcerned about raising top earners’ lifetime taxes by millions and millions. In other words, that a payroll tax cut for one year now is worth much higher taxes on the upper brackets forever.
