Sen. Lindsey Graham (File)

The clock is ticking on a current two-percent payroll tax break that is set to expire on December 31.

Republicans and Democrats are still haggling over the extension of the tax cut, which would insure an average American family seeing nearly $1,500 in additional take-home pay. In a recent interview with Greenwood affiliate WLMA,  U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham said at issue is how the tax break would be funded. Graham says the present proposal would hurt a Social Security system (which is funded largely by the payroll tax) that is already running out of money.

Instead, Graham said he would like to see a compromise proposal introduced that would give a “targeted tax credit” for wage earners that make $100,000 or less annually.

Graham says he would not want to fund the payroll tax by taking money from the Social Security Trust Fund because millions of seniors depend on Social Security and more people are being added to the rolls each year. He disagreed with the proposal being pushed by Democrats that would include raising taxes on the top wage earners, who he said are the nation’s job creators.

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Rep. Jim Clyburn

The congressional deficit-reduction “super committee” has less than a month to bang out an agreement that would reduce the federal defict by at least $1.5 trillion over the next decade. 6th District Congressman Jim Clyburn is one of six Democrats on the 12 member group which also includes six Republicans.

In an interview Wednesday with Columbia affiliate WVOC, Clyburn says the reductions cannot all be spending cuts, saying it would prove ruinous to the economy.

If the super committee doesn’t meet its deadline, a number of automatic cuts would go into effect for the 2013 fiscal year. The vast majority of the back-up plan cuts would fall on discretionary spending, with half of the $109 billion yearly cuts coming from defense spending. Social Security and Medicaid would remain untouched. The third major entitlement program, Medicare, would be cut a maximum of 2 percent, or about $11 billion in the fiscal year 2013 budget.

Clyburn says the deal that the super committee is attempting to hammer out would include several forms of deficit reduction. While a number of critics have expressed doubt that the bipartisan committee will agree on a plan before the deadline. Clyburn says he remains hopeful.

AUDIO: Clyburn says debt reduction cannot involve only spending cuts