Former Sen. Rick Santorum, looking tan and vital on Fox News' Greta Van Susteren program, managed to move beyond the social issues agenda he has stressed in the campaign for the Iowa Presidential caucuses to point out why any extension of the payroll tax cut is unwarranted: the payroll tax is actually the support people pay for Social Security. "Cut" it and all you do is add to the increasing failure to hold down entitlement spending. Already the payroll tax doesn't cover Social Security expenditures; the "cut" only makes deficits worse. By intentionally increasing the Social Security system's deficit you also disconnect Social Security further from a retirement scheme and turn it into welfare.

Meanwhile, the drop from 6.2 to 4.2 percent in payroll tax is not noticed by people who benefit from it and and it does nothing directly to create new jobs. If the supposed idea is to stimulate spending, which supposedly boosts the economy, then why not cut the tax out altogether; wouldn't that "stimulate" the economy even more? And since the tax cut already has been in place for a year, where is the evidence that it has done any good so far?

Making sense on this issue, the indefatigable Santorum finally may draw enough attention to himself to start to rise in the serious consideration of Iowa voters. His chief competitors for the conservative Christian vote are probably Rep. Michelle Brachman and Gov. Rick Perry, and the endorsement of two leading conservative Christian leaders recently probably moves him ahead several points. Conservative Christian voters so far have been ineffective in Iowa this year because they are divided.