🚀 go-pugleaf

Another train-wreck between truth and error.  Or is that the sound
of another somnolent voter's preconceptions crashing into the abyss?

   >  : From the viewpoint of the employer, tax that they pay direct for
   >  : Social Security is just as much a cost of the employee as  are wages.
   > 
   > That is EXACTLY right.  Moreover, SO is the cost that "employeEs" allegedly
   > pay for their own social security.  That money, despite the lie being
   > told in the relevant window of every paycheck, goes directly from the
   > employer to the government, so the employeE is NOT paying it.(assorted other drivel deleted)

In article <30DC7B77.E52@interramp.com> Brian Stretch <bstretch@interramp.com> writes:
 :   George, think about it:  if an employer fires an employee, does he save just 
 :   the money the employee receives or that money plus all the employee-tied 
 :   taxes?

He saves all the taxes, too.  The existence of the taxes magnifies
the employeR's financial incentive NOT to hire the employee.  That
is why the taxes have to go, and why Republicans who claim to favor
job-creation also have to want payroll-deducted taxes to be abolished
in principle.

 :  If the employer is paying money to the government that he wouldn't 
 :  have to if he wasn't employing the employee, then that money is coming out of 
 :  the worker's hide. 

That is a crock of shit.
 :
 :    Honestly, Mr. Greene, your critical thinking skills need serious help.  What's 
 :   scary is that it's people like you who run university economics departments. 

Contemptuously, Mr. Stretch, you are in no position to be advising me on
that. I only majored in logic.  I only got 790 on the GRE logic part.
That may be less than you, but it is hardly enough to need serious help.
I am speaking as an expert.

If the employer is paying money to the government that he wouldn't
have to pay if he weren't hiring the worker, then the worker is not
getting the money either way, so neither he nor his hide is involved.
The line you are TRYING to articulate has the underlying presumption
that if the government were not taxing "the worker", then the worker's
nominal wage would remain the same, so the worker would take home more,
so he has a right to be mad at the government for taking taxes out
of his (the worker's) hide.  But as you yourself point out below, THAT
is NOT happening.
 
 :   Guess why companies are going thru such great lengths these days to survive 
 :   with as few employees as possible?  Big Brother has made it too damn expensive 
 :   to employ people! 

I appear to have violated the maxim about having a battle of wits
with an unamred person: what you have just stated above was MY
point.  YOU were arguing the OPPOSITE!  Critical thinking skills
INDEED.... IF the government's cutting the worker's taxes is going
to result in NO CHANGE in the employee's nominal wage, is going to
result in the employee's KEEPING the full value of the tax cut
(which almost all American employees, what fools these mortals be,
continue to think it would), then abolishing these taxes would result
in NO SAVINGS to the employer, so this debate would have no relevance
to downsizing whatsoever.  If you actually think payroll-deducted
taxes on  worker's salaries ARE related to downsizing, then you have
to be viewing them as an expense to the employeR, NOT the employEe,
which was my point.  Employees are going to continue to suffer from this
until they realize that it is their employer's ox and not their own
that is being gored here, and vote accordingly.  And it will be
conservatives like you and Alan Keyes that they will have to vote
against, to get anything done about it.