If you've finished drying your tears over Trump appointees in the executive branch being cruelly shown the door just months after Trump's 30-year-old body man led a purge of the executive branch and tried to burrow in his own people by moving them into career positions, please make room in your heart for another pack of these assholes whining about actually having to pay their taxes. The horror!
Politico has a story this morning about the nasty jolt Trump appointees are getting when they discover that magical MAGA reelection math doesn't add up.
It all started back in August, when Trump decided that the best way to buy himself another four years was to set fire to Social Security. So he signed an executive order declaring a payroll tax holiday and promised that vacation would last forever if Americans would just give him another four years.
Remember when we had a leader who talked like this?
And the payroll tax — we'll be terminating the payroll tax after I, hopefully, get elected. We'll be terminating the payroll tax, so that will mean anywhere from $5,000 to even more per family, and also great for businesses and great for jobs. A lot of people will be very happy to hear that. A lot of the great — certainly, conservative economists will be great to have — they think that's the greatest thing we can do. That's better than the payments; that's better than anything else.
When asked how Social Security would continue to function without regular infusions of cash, he responded "we're going to have tremendous growth, we have tremendous growth."
Hey, let's never do that again!
Anyway, conservative economists were not, in fact, "very happy to hear that." Because they didn't even need to whip out their pocket calculators to work out that Social Security would go bankrupt if we kept taking money out without putting anything back in. And in case anyone was confused, Social Security's own actuaries confirmed that the program would be broke by 2023 if we were foolish enough to stop putting money in the till.
Literally no one believed that a Democratic Congress would forgive five months of payroll taxes the president had tried to bribe voters with, which meant that employees would get stuck making a lump sum payment in 2021 if employers opted into this harebrained scheme. So pretty much everyone ignored the maniac in the White House, with the entire private sector collecting payroll taxes exactly as they'd done before. And so the only, uh, beneficiaries of this largesse were people who couldn't refuse the gift.
Which brings us to ...
Trump appointees in the executive branch making less than $8,000 per month, who were automatically enrolled in this boondoggle as President Flopsweat tried to prove that his dumb plan would actually work. And now that they're out on their ears because their guy lost, they have to repay the money.
Let's be clear that this was extra cash that showed up in these people's paychecks in September, October, November, and December of last year. They took the money when it was very clear that they'd have to pay it back some time . And federal employees who are still on the job are now having it automatically deducted from their paychecks so that it will all be repaid by the end of the year. But those who have left government service are being told to pay up pronto, and they're mad as hell.
Well, they're mad as hell anonymously . Because no one would ever criticize the Dear Leader on the record, of course.
"I thought it was a good plan — I don't think it got the traction it deserved," one former appointee told Politico. "I just wish I had the option to opt-out."
What a shame that more people didn't get to participate in this awesome program I'm super pissed about being forced to participate in!
It's a hot take, but not as hot as blaming Joe Biden for bailing out Americans instead of forcing everyone to play magical thinking math games.
"I just think it's really hypocritical that the Biden administration, which is spending trillions to send people checks in the mail, are demanding that former government employees who went into the office every day are now being forced to give back hard-earned money for a program that I did not opt into in the first place," another told reporters.
Cue the tiny violins for Trumplanders having to pay back the money they pocketed a few months ago. Or we can just let the cicadas play them out.
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH.
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"Circle of Life" and all that.....
There are disabilities that aren't readily visible....but review his claim nonetheless.