Image over substance has been the bane of tax policy discussions for years, and never more than in the current last minute agreement of the House to extend the payroll tax cut for two months. Oddly, it was the Republicans who wanted to extend it for a year instead. Their purpose was to take the issue off the table during the presidential campaign so the Democrats wouldn't keep hitting them over the head on the subject. Somehow, the Democrats and media made them out to be obstructionists holding up a tax cut. Few in the public understood what was going on, and the media didn't explain it to them.

One could only watch with contempt as commentators on CNN last night carried on about the politics of the issue without once pointing out the obvious: the payroll tax cut is a Social Security fund buster. The Social Security tax not collected from people who already have jobs is added right onto the budget deficit in Social Security. This is the kind of entitlement irresponsibility that is bankrupting Europe and that the Congressional elections of 2010 supposedly were fought over.

What might have happened if the public had been told the truth? "Do you think the temporary reduction of payroll payments to Social Security should be extended, even if it means--as it does--that the Social Security System goes even deeper into debt?"

This tax cut ranks right up their with the $200 rebates the Bush Administration handed out just as the recession started. They are short term politics at its worst. The cost is 100 billion dollars in the budget, but even more in lost government credibility.