Great Idea, They'll Hate It

Kevin Drum comes up with a very good solution to our stimulus impasse.

Actually, I think there's an easy solution to this quite aside from automatic stabilizers like extended unemployment insurance, which will automatically come down as the recession eases. And that solution is: a temporary payroll tax holiday paid out of the general fund. At this point, if we're going to pass a second stimulus I think it needs to be something that takes effect quickly, and a payroll tax holiday is about the fastest possible stimulus you could ask for. What's more, it's pretty effective, since the benefits primarily go to middle and working class families, who are more likely to spend it than rich families. And making it credibly temporary isn't hard either. Just set it on autopilot with a gradual phaseout: maybe a full holiday for two quarters, followed by a 75% holiday, a 50% holiday, and finally a 25% holiday. Or something like that. That would be easy to stick to and would avoid the problem of withdrawing all the stimulus at once just as the economy was starting to seriously pick up steam.

Would Republicans agree to this? Probably not. But some of them might, and public opinion would probably be pretty favorable even among the tea partiers, who prefer tax cuts to deficit reduction by a margin of 49%-42%.

Republicans would "probably not" agree to this, he says.  That is so terribly precious.

Hey K-Drum, bro?  What part of "Republicans will never, never, never agree to anything that will help the economy and allow President Obama to take credit for passing something usefully bipartisan before the midterm elections" do you not get?

Now January rolls around, I guarantee you a payroll tax holiday is the first damn idea you'll see out of the GOP, but if Obama and the Democrats suggest it, the Republicans will filibuster the hell out of it.