Yesterday was officially payday for me, and thanks to direct deposit I saw that the 2% hike in the payroll tax is already in effect (it’s a shame payday couldn’t have been on 12/31). So if you’re making $110,100 a year in salary, you’ll be paying $2,202 more a year. And if you’re making $500,000 a year, you’ll be paying $2,202 more a year (or about .04% more). And if you’re making all your money in capital gains or investments, you’ll be paying $0 more. Seems fair, doesn’t it?

Republicans are now saying that they’ve “taken care” of the revenue side of things, and now it’s time to cut spending (in fact, according to the CBO, rather than cut the deficit, this bill will add $4 trillion in debt over the next 10 years). So we’ll see what they come up with to cut. I doubt it’ll be military spending, and there’s really not a whole lot left to cut after that. Except for Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security, of course. Medicare and Medicaid account for about 23% of the budget, Social Security 20%, and Defense is about 19%. Assuming we’ll never seem them raise the cap on the payroll tax (which would be a pretty easy fix for Social Security, in my opinion), I don’t see them doing anything more than making deep cuts. Whether that means cutting benefits, raising the eligibility age, or both, we’ll have to see. Medicaid will probably get big cuts, because nobody cares what poor people think (and it just makes things harder for the non-profit hospitals that have no choice but to treat the indigent and swallow the costs).

Oh well, I guess we’ll see what happens.