[chimeracoder]

> If a company has a huge sale for 1 month and everything is temporarily 50% off, we don't call it a 100% "price hike" the next month.

No, but if they had that "sale" for over 10 years, rather than one month, then you might call it a price increase.

[jere]

You do realize the payroll tax cut only lasted 2 years, right? Not only that, but I'm fairly certain it was enacted partly to counteract the recession, which by definition should only be temporary.

In the context of historically low taxes (the top rate used to be 94% and is now 35%), I think the sale analogy is much more apt.