Friday, December 02, 2011

Story offers facts about the payroll-tax cut, a big issue for pocketbooks and next year's politics

Weekly newspapers (and those dailies that don't subscribe to The Associated Press) and other rural news media, take note: There's a big pocketbook-and-politics story out there that your readers, viewers and listeners need to understand: The fight over extending the Social Security payroll tax cut, which expires Dec. 31.

In the Senate yesterday, each party's version of a tax-cut extension failed to muster the needed 60 votes, and most Republicans voted against their own party's version, an embarassment to Republican Leder Mitch McConnell, who had predicted the opposite. The votes set the table for "more serious negotiations over how to cover the cost of the tax cut," Lori Montgomery and Felicia Sonmez of The Washington Post report.

The negotiations will be hand-in-glove with public-relations efforts from both parties, which will surely obscure the facts in an effort to win votes next year, so we wanted to let you know about a good analysis of the issue that anyone can publish, with a few basic conditions. It's from ProPublica, the non-partisan, non-ideological, investigative news agency that has won prizes for its work and is overseen by Paul Steiger, former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal.

ProPublica reporter Miriam Wang answers some basic and important questions: What is the payroll tax — and how big has the cut been? How much has the cut helped the economy? And what do economists say would happen if it’s not extended? For the story, click here.

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