It's an idea that conservatives should rally behind. The intellectual work for a cut in the payroll tax -- amounting to an instant raise for millions of American workers and relief for employers torn between layoffs and going under -- is well underway. Lawrence Lindsey wrote about it for us here. Lindsey's American Enterprise Institute colleague John H. Makin has a longer paper here.
When you study the current congressional plan closely, you quickly realize it's unlikely to have a major stimulative effect on the economy and will probably lead to a larger national debt without real investment in national infrastructure and growth in aggregate demand. Which means it's probably going to lead Obama into the stimulus trap.
The problem is that Republicans are out of power and conservatives seem to have a disposition toward pouting. But that needn't be the case. They could rally behind an alternative stimulus bill that permanently cuts the payroll tax and combines spending on road- and bridge-building with repairing and expanding the American military. This would put them on the side of the American worker and the American soldier. Sounds like a good place to be as the age of Obama begins.
