The Boston Globe (owned by the NYT) Tries To Turn Chicken Shit Into Chicken Soup

[unhappycamper]

Benefits across the income spectrum
By Megan Woolhouse and Katie Johnston Chase
Globe Staff / December 8, 2010

There is something for almost everybody in the plan.

~snip~

The biggest benefit comes from maintaining the cut in income taxes, but reduced payroll taxes will also add to families’ income. The plan would reduce taxes workers pay into Social Security to 4.2 percent from 6.2 percent. In Massachusetts, workers paid $3.9 billion in Social Security taxes in 2008, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

For a couple earning $70,000 a year, that would lower their payroll taxes by about $1,400 a year, said Chuck Marr, director of federal tax policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington think tank.

Some of those savings would be offset by the end of a stimulus tax cut, which expires at the end of this year. Factoring that in, that same couple earning $70,000 would end up with about $600 more a year. “People’s paychecks are going to go up, and spending should rise,’’ Marr said.

To Donardo Marcellus, a 24-year-old engineer from Randolph, the tax savings do not amount to much. “I guess I could use it for extra gas or something,’’ he said.

[cali]

1. and the NYT published a scathing editorial on the same

subject this morning.