User:Woozle/debate/2020-05-20

1. TrumpCo's proposal for a tax-cut to raise worker take-home pay by 7.6% is a good idea.
   1. This is because both of the following are true:
      1. Anything that gives workers more take-home pay during this time of crisis is a good idea.
      2. This plan will result in higher take-home pay for workers.
   2. The proposal causes great harm because it is funded by eliminating Social Security and Medicare contributions for its duration.
      1. Either Medicare and Social Security will start to run into financial trouble because of the missing funds, or replacement funds will have to be found somewhere else.
         1. Finding the money elsewhere could mean draining funds which otherwise could be used to provide aid.
   3. The proposal brings only a minor benefit.
      1. The proposal only benefits those who are currently employed -- the people least in need of emergency assistance -- and benefits the unemployed not at all.
      2. The amount of benefit is pretty small, even for them.
   4. There are many better ways of funding aid to those in need.
      1. For starters, we could raise taxes quite a bit on those who are profiting most from the crisis, such as Amazon.
2. (GOP future) Republicans argue: Social Security and Medicare are running out of money and must be cut to help balance the budget.
   1. This was the direct result of Republican irresponsibility.
      1. Republicans exploited a crisis to make deeply harmful funding cuts, which we are now undoing.
         1. The cuts were harmful for reasons given in points 1.2, 1.3, 1.4.
3. (Dem future) Republicans argue: Democrats are raising taxes again, which is bad; you need to vote for us so we can stop them.
   1. The only tax being "raised" is just a restoration of one very harmful tax cut made by Republicans.
      1. The cuts were harmful for reasons given in points 1.2, 1.3, 1.4.
4. (either future) Republicans should be condemned for taking the actions which caused this.
   1. The Republicans exploited a global crisis for their own selfish ends.
      1. Their actions were a sneaky, dishonest attempt to destroy a couple of popular and important programs they dislike.
         1. Medicare and Social Security are very popular with the American people generally.
         2. Medicare and Social Security are very important to maintaining an equitable society.
5. (either future) Any action that does not restore permanent funding to those two programs would also be irresponsible and sneaky.
   1. These programs are overwhelmingly popular with the American people.
   2. These programs are part of a necessary social safety-net.
   3. There are no legitimate reasons for dismantling them.

Post (in progress)

This comes from a Democratic fundraising email I received yesterday from [url=https://socialsecurityworks.org/]Social Security Works[/url]: > Just today, Trump's director of the National Economic Council [url=https://twitter.com/Brendan_Duke/status/1262751563069616130]called for the complete elimination of payroll contributions[/url] for Social Security AND Medicare until the end of the year!

> Here's the truth: A temporary cut to Social Security and Medicare's funding is an election-year trap for Democrats. If Trump wins re-election, he's already signaled that he'd like to eliminate that funding permanently. And if a Democrat is elected President, Republicans will blast the new President for raising taxes—which is actually just allowing Social Security and Medicare funding to return to normal levels.

The first thing I try to do when checking a claim made by any partisan entity is to check their given sources and/or look for sources regarding whatever it is they seem to be talking about, in order to find **what was actually said or done** -- because fundraising emails aren't exactly known for their careful attention to nuance and precision.

The source they cited was [url=https://twitter.com/Brendan_Duke/status/1262751563069616130]a Tweet[/url] on May 19 from [url=https://twitter.com/Brendan_Duke]Brendan Duke[/url], who is apparently a senior policy analyst with the [url=https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/democrats/democrats]Joint Economic Committee Democrats[/url], in response to [url=https://twitter.com/carlquintanilla/status/1262728161567047680]CBS News anchor Carl Quintanilla's Tweet[/url] (earlier on May 19) saying -- > KUDLOW SAYS TRUMP WANTS TO SEE 7.6 % PAYROLL TAX CUT

-- and citing Reuters as the source but not linking to any particular article.

Searching for `kudlow payroll tax social security medicare`, I found a Reuters article from May 15, [url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-tax/trump-wants-payroll-tax-holiday-to-mitigate-coronavirus-economic-pain-kudlow-idUSKBN22V1X3]Trump wants payroll tax holiday to mitigate coronavirus economic pain: Kudlow[/url] which clarifies what's going on: > White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump wants a payroll tax holiday for U.S. workers in the hopes of staunching economic pain caused by the coronavirus pandemic. > “We’ve offered a payroll tax holiday so that you come back to work (and) those folks will get a higher after-tax wage - 7.6% higher,” Kudlow told reporters at the White House.

So this is not a 7.6% cut in payroll taxes as CQ's Tweet states but in fact complete (though temporary) elimination of the payroll tax altogether, as stated in the SSW email I received. (CQ's confusion is understandable, as Kudlow himself seems to have gotten confused later on and referred to it [url=https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/kudlow-says-trump-wants-large-payroll-tax-cut-to-ease-economic-pain/ar-BB14j2N9]on Fox Business News[/url] as "a 7.6% cut in their payroll tax".)

A bit of research suggests that "payroll tax" is [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Insurance_Contributions_Act_tax]pretty much exactly what funds Social Security and Medicare[/url], two "socialist" programs which the Right has always hated -- so yes, Trump's proposal would seem to be a plan to de-fund Social Security and Medicare for some number of months.

Backing up a bit, though, anyone who only heard the original plan might see the logic like this: [zrl=https://hub.toot.cat/photos/woozle/image/7e38531ddab2c1b4ab6cae67f597171364223dfc668b8f04e8b499f6dd73bb79][zmg=640x100][/zmg][/zrl] We have a claim (top line), followed by my best guess at the motivation to which TrumpCo are hoping to appeal by proposing it.

Armed with the knowledge about where the money is coming from, however, we quickly see that there's a problem: [zrl=https://hub.toot.cat/photos/woozle/image/b24d928def62ebb0e9554beff3806c946d0d6687e4b44dd89558fa5e3dd5f2aa][zmg=640x272][/zmg][/zrl] [i](Rule note: a claim is only held to be **true** if there are no true claims against it. In this case, there are three counterclaims against it. I probably shouldn't have put them all under the umbrella claim of "it's actually a pretty terrible idea", but I wanted to make the narrative clear.)[/i]

So, fast forward to SSW's hypothesized futures.

If a Republican is elected, they will be able to argue that Social Security and Medicare "are in trouble" -- but of course we will be able to clearly show that this was because [i]they[/i] cut the funding for those programs, using the crisis as an excuse.

If a Democrat wins, they will of course restore the payroll tax -- perhaps increasing it somewhat (an obvious solution would be to eliminate the cap so everyone is paying the same share, instead of those with lower incomes paying disproportionately more). Republicans will frame this as "tax-and-spend liberalism" or whatever -- but again, we will be able to show that we're just trying to undo the damage they did under cover of crisis.