Yes, it is an increase in tax. It is going from 4.2 to 6.2 percent effective January 1. Perhaps it should have never been decreased to begin with, Social Security should have never been implemented all those years ago to begin with, so depends on how far back you want to go. Everyone that gets a pay check in January will be seeing a 2% decrease in their check as compared to December 2012. It's going to hurt a lot of people who didn't have that 2% to spare. And whatever it is they have to cut, buying that new pair of shoes, or going out to eat, etc... is going to hurt the economy overall. It's no better today than it was 2 years ago when they supposedly decreased for the 'good of the economy'.
An actual tax increase would be over 6.2.
You had a tax break for 2 years.
You can spin it whatever way you want, call it whatever you want, the reality is that your paycheck is going to contain 2% less this month and going forward than it did last month, and most people cannot afford to absorb that cut right now. To try to say it isn't an increase in what you're paying to the government because it's going back up to what it was 2 years ago is ridiculous, but that's all the left has these days. I saw a quote that if the dems and the left didn't have entitlements on their platform, they'd have no platform at all. That's all they stand for, and the more saps that they convince to rely on them, the more power they accumulate year after year until this country ceases to exist as a free state. The bottom line is that when people see their paychecks this month, they're not going to be happy, and they're not going to give a damn that it was cut two years ago and raised again for 2013.