Trump has repeatedly said he wants to terminate the payroll tax. And yes, he may be too stupid to realize that it means he’s eliminating the funding stream for Social Security and Medicare, but his Freedom Caucus Tea Party henchmen, led by Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, certainly aren’t. They know exactly what they’re doing, filling his head with this nonsense.
Sure, he will say “don’t worry, I’m going to take care of the Seniors” and all his accomplices will have to tell him is that they’ll find the money somewhere else in the budget, but we know that’s impossible. He doesn’t.
Anyway, he’s said it over and over again:
Last night, Trump doubled down on his plan to make the payroll tax cut permanent if he’s reelected.
- TRUMP: “After the election, on the assumption that it would be victorious for an administration that’s done a great job, we will be ending that tax. We will be terminating that tax.”
On Saturday, Trump vowed three times to make the payroll tax cut permanent if he won reelection.
- TRUMP: “If I’m victorious on November 3rd, I plan to forgive these taxes and make permanent cuts to the payroll tax. So I’m going to make them all permanent.”
- TRUMP: “But if I win, I may extend and terminate. In other words, I’ll extend it beyond the end of the year and terminate the tax.”
- TRUMP: “And this is deferral payroll tax obligations. So this is your payroll tax obligations, which we’re going to end up terminating eventually, right?”
In April, Trump said twice that he wanted to permanently cut the payroll tax.
- TRUMP: “I would love to see a payroll tax cut. There are many people that would like to see it as a permanent tax cut — payroll tax cut.”
- TRUMP: “I mean, there are a lot of people — I’m one of them — that would have liked to have seen the payroll tax cut as a permanent cut.”
In March, Trump was privately encouraging Republican lawmakers to permanently eliminate the payroll tax cut.
- Wall Street Journal: “Following the meeting, Mr. Trump told reporters he had discussed stimulus measures with Republicans, but offered few details. Mr. Trump wants to suspend the payroll tax through Dec. 31, an administration official said, though he has also said privately he wants the tax to be permanently eliminated.”