Chris Van Hollen: “I am on the floor today to discuss a question of fundamental fairness to members of our Armed Forces and to Federal…”

“I am on the floor today to discuss a question of fundamental fairness to members of our Armed Forces and to Federal employees. I think we all may recall a few months ago when President Trump ordered the Department of the Treasury to establish a system to push businesses, companies, and employers around the country to defer the collection of employees' payroll taxes. Those are the taxes that go to Social Security and Medicare. The key word here is ``defer'' because this is really a shell game. Any moneys that businesses do not pay into Social Security and Medicare now are going to have to be paid by those Federal employees right after the holidays, starting in January. And many employees around the country were at first confused. They thought they were getting a payroll tax holiday, but that is not the case. The reality is, whatever they didn't pay in the form of payroll taxes now and in the past couple months they would be required to pay back right after those holidays. And when businesses looked at this and when workers and employees around the country looked at this, they overwhelmingly rejected it. They said they didn't want to participate.…”