The payroll tax cut

The payroll tax cut to the employee is a nostrum that giving money to people helps the economy.  If it worked, we should do more of it and this would become an absurdity. Giving money away by the government does not improve the economy. All it does is take money from the social security trust fund which is essentially equivalent to raising the public debt. That some Republicans would support the continuation of this cut is astonishing. It is mere politics to curry voter favor.  We should be concerned with those who don't have a job and not those who do.

Cutting the payroll tax to the employer in these times of high unemployment is a poor incentive for the employer to hire.  As above, it also increases the national debt.  A better incentive, which has zero initial cost, would be to give the employer a holiday on his unemployment tax rate.  In other words, he could take the risk of hiring somebody and if business demand did not pick up and he had to lay that person off, the action would not increase his unemployment rate.