One New Year's resolution that has already come to bear was the depressingly intense congressional avoidance of the so-called fiscal cliff. Cheers all around, right? Bipartisanship abounds, huh? Well, before you get your good-natured panties in a dancing twist, we just thought it our duty to remind you that just because the middle class has been "saved" from peril, that doesn't mean that you'll be able to save any actual money. In addition to the fantastic addition of $74 billion for earmarked, pork-flavored tax breaks for race cars and film development, the deal stands to cost Floridian taxpayers some $6.5 billion due to the failure to extend the 2010 deduction in the Social Security payroll tax, according to University of Central Florida number cruncher Sean Snaith in the Tampa Bay Times.
That payroll tax will jump from 4.2 percent to 6.2 percent, which will probably affect just about everyone reading this free paper. According to the latest Census numbers, Orlando's median income per household is $46,123, which means Orlando's median house of horrors will pay an additional $922.46.
But you don't make that much, do you? So, if you're a stock boy at the Gap making $20,000 a year, you'll be out $400. If you're, I don't know, a bleached blond mouthpiece making somewhere in the mid-30s, you can expect to lose around $700. It's like a furlough week, only nationally sponsored! You're welcome.
