Lawrence Summers, back at Harvard after a stint as an economic aide to President Obama, suggests extending the two percentage point reduction in the payroll tax currently in place to three percentage points and also having it apply to the employer's share of the payroll tax. At least I think that's what he's suggesting. Here's the sentence: "Stimulus should be continued and indeed expanded by providing the payroll tax cut to employers as well as employees. Raising the share of payroll from 2 per cent to 3 per cent is desirable, too."
It's not clear to me whether he means three percentage points each from the employer's half and from the employee's half or three percentage points total. Either way, it's something to remember the next time you hear Democrats denounce Republicans as irresponsible for proposing tax cuts at a time of deficits.