The Rent Is Too Damn High

And now, so is your payroll tax.

How much is the payroll tax going up, and who will be impacted?

Workers’ share now returns to 6.2 percent. Just about all of the country's 160 million wage earners will be affected, according to Joseph Rosenberg, a researcher at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. The Wall Street Journal has a handy calculator that tells you exactly how much more you'll have to pay in payroll taxes.

Because the payroll tax is capped, it will affect wage earners at $113,000 and below only. This is a 2% tax hike on the people least able to afford it coming during a period of stagnant growth and generally shitty employment numbers.

Worse yet, the "fiscal cliff" aversion doesn't actually accomplish anything other than set the stage for another round of bickering a few months from now.  And once we get there, the President and the Republicans in Congress will both emphasize their desire to complete the European-style "austerity" package by, what they will no doubt term "offsetting" these tax increases with spending cuts.  Which means the very benefits you are now paying more for will be slashed. 

This is what the President calls "everyone having some skin in the game." But what it amounts to in practice is most Americans just plain getting skinned.

Happy New Year! And go fuck yourself.