"We should cut payroll taxes deeply and permanently, both for employers and employees. Extending current cuts for workers now is a necessary first step. But we should also deepen them, adding cuts to employer payroll taxes to stimulate jobs, and phasing in new taxes on sources other than labor that can permanently replace payroll tax revenues. Giving cuts to employers and making them permanent would provide the certainty businesses need to get off the sidelines and hire. Of course, the big question is, which revenues could both parties agree on to offset the payroll tax? A study by the bipartisan group Get America Working! identified 25 revenue sources that could offset payroll tax cuts. A permanent cut in the payroll tax, offset by new sources of revenue, would be a first step to fundamental tax reform. As unemployment and economic uncertainty drag on, and the consequences close in, it’s time we took it."

Eugene A. Ludwig Chief Executive of the Promontory Financial Group and former Comptroller of the US Currency under President Bill Clinton