Fifty-two million dollars. That’s what the expiration of the payroll tax cut will cost Bend (Oregon).
(I’ll use round numbers, to make it easier for Tea Baggers and Republicans to understand) Assuming twenty-five thousand (25,000) families in Bend averaging fifty thousand (50,000) dollars a year earnings losing forty (40) dollars per week in income. Forty (40) dollars per week times fifty-two (52) weeks in a year equals two thousand and eighty (2,080) dollars lost per year, two thousand and eighty (2,080) dollars not spent in the local economy. Two thousand and eighty (2,080) dollars lost per year times twenty-five thousand (25,000) families in Bend equals fifty-two million (52,000,000) dollars not spent in the local economy. Fifty-two million (52,000,000) dollars not spent in Bend Oregon’s local economy.
Fifty-two million (52,000,000) dollars a year is what Oregon Representative Greg Walden(R, Eastern and Central Oregon) and the Tea Baggers have cost Bend. Fifty-two million (52,000,000) dollars a year.
Addendum: I ran the numbers for the region. There are roughly two hundred fifty thousand (250,000) people on The High Desert, or roughly sixty-two thousand five hundred (62,500) families in Central Oregon – from Warm Springs to Gilchrest/LaPine, Black Butte to Post, an area roughly the size of Vermont. Two thousand and eighty (2,080) dollars lost per year times sixty-two thousand five hundred (62,500) families on The High Desert equals one hundred thirty million dollars (130,000,000) dollars not spent in the Central Oregon economy. In a region with the nation’s highest per capita unemployment, highest per capita food stamp use, highest per capita homelessness.
The tax cut means Social Security for about 12,000 High Desert elders will have to be borrowed from China, or else not paid.
It’s a simple equation: Social Security can’t pay money out unless money is paid in. Sure, we can cut FICA taxes – but only if we also cut Social Security.
$52 million will be the cost to the Social Security Trust Fund. This is not a “tax cut” it is an irresponsible premium reduction on the survival insurance for elderly Americans. It is playing into the hands of those who say Social Security doesn’t work. We need a real tax cut. We should close military bases around the world and spend that money here.