No, the bill the Senate passed is more complicated than that.

Dive into Quickbooks then and see if you can get it to work. What you need to do is apply a 4.2% rate to wages under $18,350 in January and February, and a 6.2% rate that applies to wages over $18,350 but below $110,100 in January and February, and a 0% rate to wages above $110,100 in January and February. Then For March thru December, you need to specify a third rate, TBD, for wages under $110,100, 0% above that limit. The three paired amounts (wages paid and tax withheld for each category) then need to be reportable to fill out quarterly tax forms that have yet to be designed.

No you can't do that, because then tax filers would need to be able to document what their income was during the first two months of the year. They couldn't file taxes until after February, the employer would have to issue a new form, the IRS would have to design the form, they'd have to redesign the 1040, et al. You realize all of this requires lead time, right?

"Payroll tax" is often used to refer to the Social Security tax, when one wishes to obscure the nature of the tax (ie that it funds the Social Security program). "Withholding tax" is more normally used to refer to federal income tax based on the income tax tables.

What the Senate bill did on the Social Security tax was set a limit of $18,350 (1/6 of 110,100, the limit for the entire year) for the first two months of the year that the 4.2% rate applies to. 6.2% applies above that limit. After the first two months of the year, rates are yet to be determined.

So instead of a simple calculation involving a single rate and a single wage limit for the employee portion for the entire year, we have three rates, two for the first two months and one for the last 10 months, and two limits that apply. For reporting the quarter totals (Form 941) employers would need to report the total wages for the first two months below $18,350, and the total wages above $18,350 along with the total wages for the third month in the quarter.

I would be very surprised if any payroll software were capable of handling this calculation for the Social Security tax right now. Up until now, there was no reason to build such a ridiculous calculation into your payroll software.

It seems like to me that it used to be that politicians, or at least their staff, had some inkling of the real world effect of changing tax policy, and the need for lead time for the IRS and SSA not to mention software vendors to adjust to these changes. At the worst, changing tax rates, calculations or reporting requirements should be done at the end of quarter if not the year.

News reports suggest to me that the only sticking point between the Senate and the House is how to fund the bill. The two month time frame apparently came about because that the Senate and House only agreed to funding sources that totaled enough to continue the tax break for that period of time.

Actually, wouldn't half of the people be dumber than the "median" person?

That was my initial thought, the alleged theft occurred on the moon, so I think the US Government should bring action against the astronaut in a lunar court.

Oddly enough, I read on Wikipedia (so it must be true!) that some Democrats wanted President Polk ("The Napolean of the Stump") to annex all of Mexico instead of signing the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago. I think that would make a very interesting alt-history scenario!

I'll second this, but add a third option:

3. After watching the 2005+ series, if you don't have enough time to watching everything in order starting with Tom Baker, watch at least his first season, which includes stories with three recurring villain races. Then if you are interested in the classic episodes but don't want to slog through them in order, skip around based on a theme, say all of the Dalek episodes in order, or regeneration stories (last and first episodes when the actor portraying the Doctor changes). Some of the episodes and seasons are tied together with a theme (Season 16: Key to Time, Season 23: Trial of a Timelord, Keeper of Traken/Logopolis/Castrovalva form a sort of trilogy). Others are notable for certain reasons (e.g. City of Death was filmed in Paris and written by Douglas Adams and will seem familiar if you've read Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency). There are a few multiple doctor episodes (The Five Doctors, The Two Doctors, The Three Doctors) that are worth watching. Watch at least one episode from each of doctors 4-7. Check out the only Eighth Doctor (Fox TV movie) because like or not, that's all there is for the eighth doctor (and they did get Sylvester McCoy back for the first 20 minutes to include the regeneration sequence).

Before the energy crisis in California, energy prices were cheaper under the so-called "deregulation" scheme that brought on the crisis. Deregulation is over. Now with the regulation that is in place, the absurd tiered rates and equally absurd baseline usage levels, we pay up to around .44/kwh when we get into the higher tiers. So I feel that we are being ass raped right now.

The problem is too much of the wrong type of regulation. You quite simply can't build nuclear in California. There's actually a law in California against it until the feds figure out the disposal issue. Yucca Mountain is going nowhere, so there we are. There's actually a group trying to get a nuke plant going in central California that thinks it's found a way around the letter of the law prohibiting nuclear power plants: they want to build a nuclear powered desalination plant to clean up the water on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. If they have some leftover electricity to sell then they will. Even if they win on the technicality that nuclear powered desalination plants are not prohibited, it will be at least ten years before they get through all of the red tape and maybe start building something.

Maybe nuclear possible in some other states. California does buy "green" hydro energy from British Columbia who in turns buys coal and gas generated electricity for their own power needs. So I guess if Washington or Oregon built some nukes, they could stop using their own hydro power, ship it down to California, and use the nuclear power.

Apparently California is still doing crazy shit, buying laundered electrons from British Columbia.