Thank for the useful feedback on this, I should have remembered that some payroll taxes are split. Nonetheless no one here seems to really disagree that the proposal in the usual form is more Laffer Curve/anti-social welfare stuff. With regard to Reich's liberal; variant, Marta says: > And what about the fact that some level of unemployment must be maintained and the disabled have traditionally been in that segment of the population -- permanently unemployed. Marta But the disabled aren't usually considered part of the reserve army of the unemployed because they often can't work without reasonable accommodation, so it's not an effective threat to a non-disabled worker to say, Take what we give you and like it, or we'll fire you and hire a disabled worker who'll work for less! Even if the disabled worker would work for less, the additional costs of accommodation might even out the expenses. >Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes are split between the worker and >the employer. Workers pay FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act, for you >trivia buffs)=6.2%, capping off at $87,000 (a regressivity in the FICA tax), >Medicare 1.45% at any salary amount. Employers pay 6.2/1.45 as well. > >This is one of the reasons independent contractor use has mushroomed so >much; since they are not employees, there is no obligion on the part of the >employers to pay their share of the employmen t taxes--the IC has to pay both >halves through the year and then get a deduction for 1/2 of them come tax >time. > >> Note also that payroll taxes come from workers' salaries, not employers' >profits, > >snip > >Alan Jacobson -- Marta Russell Los Angeles, CA http://www.disweb.org <hr size=1>Do you Yahoo!? <a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/mail/mailsig/*http://mailplus.yahoo.com">Yahoo! Mail Plus</a> - Powerful. Affordable. <a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/mail/mailsig/*http://mailplus.yahoo.com">Sign up now</a>