In 1976, Congress restored the federal unemployment insurance trust fund and added a "temporary" 0.2 percentage points to the 0.6 percent tax rate. The surtax pays for extended unemployment benefits when state payments run out after 26 weeks. The increase was supposed to expire in 1997, but has been extended five times. Most recently it was to expire last year, then was extended to 2007. But Washington critics are finally asking why this "temporary" tax hasn't been allowed to die.

• The unemployment tax takes 0.8 percent of the first $7,000 earned -- supposedly employer paid, it's almost always shifted to the employee.

• The fund has grown from $4.9 billion in 1987 to $19.1 billion last year.

• The 1997 extension -- the third-largest increase in the peculiarly named Taxpayer Relief Act -- will cause the fund to grow to $41.6 billion by 2003.

• But like Social Security payroll tax revenue, unemployment tax revenues aren't really placed in a trust fund; what isn't used to operate the system is replaced with government bonds and spent as general revenue.

Critics charge that repealing the temporary unemployment tax would mean companies and workers keeping $8.1 billion over five years. Unemployment is near its 28-year low. A recent Heritage Foundation study found that even in the 1990-91 recession, extended benefits were hardly used.

Two bills are now in Congress to repeal the unemployment tax increase.