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‘Dumb and dumber’: DC plays the blame game

Is there a solution to the sequester battle? Washington Post columnist Matt Miller thinks he found one in the payroll tax.
/ Source: The Cycle

Is there a solution to the sequester battle? Washington Post columnist Matt Miller thinks he found one in the payroll tax.

With the clock ticking, both sides are blaming the other for the $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts that will occur on March 1. President Obama is taking his message to the people by talking to local news outlets about the automatic spending cuts. Meanwhile, Speaker Boehner published an op-ed where he said, “Mr. President, we agree that your sequester is bad policy. What spending are you willing to cut to replace it?” So with Congress in recess just nine days before we hit the deadline, it seems increasingly likely we will hit the sequester.

Washington Post columnist Matt Miller pointed out how “this is a situation of dumb and dumber.” He’s offering his own solution. “If we can’t avoid the sequester,” Matt said, “at the same time they should re-enact the payroll tax, a cut that they let expire at the beginning of the year.” Letting the payroll tax expire at the beginning of the year it raised taxes $120 billion a year on working Americans.

Matt continued, “If they would enact something again, they could make it as big or bigger than the sequester cuts that are about to take effect. And that could offset, or more than offset, the macro-economic downside that we are about to face from the sequester.”