In case anyone's not clear about this...

[edwardmurphy]

"Eliminate the payroll tax" literally means "completely defend Social Security and partially defund Medicare." If those are programs that you and yours use or hope to use you might want to have a word with your elected representatives.

[Kurieuo]

Eliminate or cut?

[edwardmurphy]

From political historian Heather Cox Richardson's daily brief:

Another of Trump's memos relies on the law that gives the Treasury Secretary leeway to delay tax filing and collection in case of disasters. Trump directs the Treasury Secretary to defer payroll taxes for workers making less than about $100,000 a year, starting on September 1. Members of both parties disliked this idea, but it has long been one of Trump’s favorite provisions. He insists it will inject money into the economy, although there is argument over that.

The taxes would still be due, just not until next year. But Trump appears to want to end them altogether. Trump’s lawyer Jenna Ellis tweeted “This is actually the biggest news of the day: President Trump said that if he is re-elected, he will look into terminating the payroll tax permanently!”

It is the payroll tax that funds Social Security and partly funds Medicare.

Currently he wants to defer the payroll tax. That makes no sense, since the people who are working can afford to pay it and the people who are unemployed aren't paying it anyway. Plus we'd still have to pay it later, so the most sensible thing for employed people to do would be to bank it now so they don't get killed by a double bill later.

His ultimate goal is to kill the payroll tax entirely, which would completely defund Social Security and take a bite out of Medicare.

Apparently he walked his plan back this morning, so I guess enough Republicans and AARP lobbyists called enough of their elected representatives. That doesn't mean it's not still a second term goal, though. It just means that he doesn't see it as a position he can take right before the election.