House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., blasted President Donald Trump for signing an executive order on Saturday to extend the temporary suspension of payroll taxes, although she praised former President Barack Obama for doing the same thing back in 2010.
After Trump signed his order deferring payroll taxes, which fund Social Security and Medicare, through the end of the year, Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., accused the president of “endangering” the well-being of senior citizens.
But Pelosi supported this same kind of unilateral payroll tax reduction when Obama was president—not once, but three times.
In 2010, Obama announced a payroll tax cut, from 6.2% to 4.2%, that was supposed to “create jobs and boost economic growth.”
Pelosi hailed the measure as a “victory for all Americans,” and supported congressional efforts to extend that tax cut a year later.
And when Congress extended the cut again, in 2012, Pelosi claimed that it was “necessary because our economy and our people need this boost.”
She even went on to argue that the tax cut would not endanger Social Security and Medicare.
“The [Social Security and Medicare] trust fund can handle that,” Pelosi told PBS.
Trump has similarly defended his executive order, arguing that the Americans affected by the coronavirus shutdown need all the help they can get.
But Pelosi has hypocritically dismissed the president, threatening to take him to court if necessary.
“The president’s meager, weak, and unconstitutional actions further demand that we come to an agreement,” she said.
The president, however, made it clear that unless Democrats return to the negotiating table and pass a bill to help struggling Americans, he will continue to take executive action.
“If Democrats continue to hold this critical relief hostage, I will act under my authority as president to get Americans the relief they need,” he said last week.
