The Obama tax cut spin

I just watched Fox New’s Shepard Smith grill Austan Goulsby, Obama’s senior economic advisor on Obama’s tax cut. When Smith called Goulsby on the “tax cut for 95% of Americans” lie and mentioned that 45% of Americans don’t pay income taxes, Goulsby got defense and spit out that all working Americans pay payroll taxes (the latest camoflage word for Social Security taxes).

Smith called it a “redistribution of wealth” and Goulsby got defensive again. The rebate wasn’t coming from other tax payers, it was a refund of payroll taxes.

So Smith asked Goulsby if Obama was going to cut payroll taxes and Goulsby answered that a cut in social security taxes would adversely affect the “Social Security Trust Fund” (whatever that is), but that Obama would refund ($500?) to low income workers. So that if their tax balance on April 15th is $0, they’d get a ($500?) check from the IRS, which is supposedly a rebate on their Social Security taxes.

Smith ended that line of questioning at that point, but there’s a big question hanging over that statement. If Obama admits he can’t reduce payroll taxes, where is the money coming from for the rebate? Since the low-income taxpayer didn’t pay taxes and the $500 can’t come from his Social Security taxes without adversely affecting the “trust fund”, the money is coming from other taxpayers – taxpayers that did earn enough to pay taxes.

So it is, indeed, redistribution of wealth, no matter how the Obama camp twists themselves into pretzels.