Americans won’t be fooled

Joseph Schillmoeller, Las Vegas

Friday, Dec. 23, 2011 | 2:01 a.m.

Democrats sometimes think it takes very little to fool the American public. Let’s look, for example, at the latest hubbub about the “payroll tax holiday.”

Democrats claim that Republicans are going to hurt the economy because they won’t agree to a two-month extension of the “payroll tax holiday” (which, of course, is not really a tax but contributions to Social Security — but that’s another story). The Sun’s Wednesday editorial says Republicans have injected a bunch of items that are unpopular.

A closer look shows that to be untrue. The Keystone pipeline has wide ranging support from one end of the political spectrum to the other, including solid union support.

In fact, the creation of 20,000 union jobs and the dues generated from those jobs can’t be considered good things for Republicans. Most of those dues will go to support Democratic candidates. The House bill also puts in place higher Medicare payments for affluent seniors. Certainly Democrats like the idea of the “rich” paying more than the poor. This also can’t be considered a politically motivated move for Republicans.

So why are Democrats refusing to extend the “payroll tax holiday” to a year? Simple: Democrats like the issue and think they can box Republicans in and make them look bad. Nothing more, nothing less — pure political maneuvering. It’s exactly the kind of thing the American people are tired of ... and are not being fooled by any more.