Congress takes up payroll tax after GOP retreat
Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) holds a news conference to announce that he and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had negotiated a deal on the payroll tax cut that was set to expire at the end of the year at the U.S. Capitol, Dec. 22, 2011 in Washington. / Getty
WASHINGTON - Capping a full retreat by House GOP leaders, Congress will convene Friday in hopes of approving a stopgap measure renewing payroll tax cuts for every worker and unemployment benefits for millions — despite serious opposition among some tea party Republicans.
Friday's unusual session, if all goes according to plan, will send a bill to President Obama to become law for two months and put off until January a fight over how to pay for the 2 percentage point tax cut, extend jobless benefits averaging around $300 a week and prevent doctors from absorbing a big cut in Medicare payments.
Those goals had been embraced by virtually every lawmaker in the House and Senate, but had been derailed in a quarrel over demands by House Republicans for immediate negotiations on a long-term extension bill. Senate leaders of both parties had tried to barter such an agreement among themselves a week ago but failed, instead agreeing upon a 60-day measure to buy time for talks next year.
The decision by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to cave in to the Senate came after days of criticism from Obama and Democrats. But perhaps more tellingly, GOP stalwarts like strategist Karl Rove and the Wall St. Journal editorial board warned that if the tax cuts were allowed to expire, Republicans would take a political beating that would harm efforts to unseat Obama next year.
Friday's House and Senate sessions are remarkable. Both chambers have recessed for the holidays but leaders in both parties are trying to pass the short-term agreement under debate rules that would allow any individual member of Congress to derail the pact, at least for a time.
House tax deal vote needs unanimous consent
"Every single one of them would have to sign off on it," explains CBS News congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes. "That's a tall order, because there are many House Republicans who, as you can imagine, are very angry, who feel they caved too quickly. If any one of them objects they'll have to come back and vote next week."
The developments were a clear win for Obama. The payroll tax cut was the centerpiece of his three-month, campaign-style drive for jobs legislation that seems to have contributed to an uptick in his poll numbers — and taken a toll on those of congressional Republicans.
Obama, Republicans and congressional Democrats all said they preferred a one-year extension but the politics of achieving the goal, particularly the spending cuts and new fees required to pay for it, eluded them. All pledged to start working on that in January.
"There remain important differences between the parties on how to implement these policies, and it is critical that we protect middle-class families from a tax increase while we work them out," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said.
House GOP arguments about the legislative process and what the "uncertainty" of a two-month extension would mean for businesses were unpersuasive, and Obama was clearly on the offensive.
"Has this place become so dysfunctional that even when we agree to things, we can't do it?" Obama said. "Enough is enough."
The top Senate Republican, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, was a driving force behind Thursday's agreement, imploring Boehner to accept the deal that McConnell and Reid had struck last week and passed with overwhelming support in both parties.
Meanwhile, tea party-backed House Republicans began to abandon their leadership.
"I don't think that my constituents should have a tax increase because of Washington's dysfunction," freshman Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., said.
If the cuts had expired as scheduled, 160 million workers would have seen a tax increase of $20 a week for an average worker earning about $50,000 a year. And up to 2 million people without jobs for six months would start losing unemployment benefits averaging $300 a week. Doctors would have seen a 27 percent cut in their Medicare payments, the product of an archaic 1997 cut that Congress has been unable to fix.
Even though GOP leaders like House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., promised that the two sides could quickly iron out their differences, the truth is that it'll take intense talks to figure out both the spending cuts and fee increases required to finance the measure.
Just hours before he announced the breakthrough, Boehner had made the case for a yearlong extension. But on a brief late afternoon conference call, he informed his colleagues it was time to yield.
"He said that as your leader, you've in effect asked me to make decisions easy and difficult, and I'm making my decision right now," said Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., paraphrasing Boehner's comments.
Kingston said the conference call lasted just minutes and Boehner did not give anyone time to respond.
There was still carping among tea party freshmen upset that GOP leaders had yielded.
"Even though there is plenty of evidence this is a bad deal for America ... the House has caved yet again to the president and Senate Democrats," Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., said. "We were sent here with a clear set of instructions from the American people to put an end to business as usual in Washington, yet here we are being asked to sign off on yet another gimmick."
Almost forgotten in the firestorm is that McConnell and Boehner had extracted a major victory last week, winning a provision that would require Obama to make a swift decision on whether to approve construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would bring Canadian oil to the U.S. and create thousands of construction jobs. To block the pipeline, Obama would have to declare that is not in the nation's interest.
Obama wanted to put the decision off until after the 2012 election.
House Republicans did win one concession in addition to a promise that Senate Democrats would name negotiators on the one-year House measure: a provision to ease concerns that the 60-day extension would be hard for payroll processing companies to implement.
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but conservatives willfully forget all this and just keep repeating the lie "Hey, Republicans wanted a year deal!"...leaving out the fact that they had a communist chinese oil sale pipeline thrown in there...unbelievable.
WHY WAS AN OIL PIPELINE ATTACHED TO A MIDDLE CLASS TAX CUT?
Republicans are desperately trying to spin the situation to make it seem as if THEY are the ones who want this tax cut and the dems are the one holding it up....but if that were the case, WHY ATTACH A DAMN PIPELINE TO THEIR "ONE YEAR AGREEMENT????"
There's really no explanation for this...the put it in there because they knew it wouldnt pass...as they did not want it to pass.
The Captains of Industry have been replaced by todays global capitalists. Abundantly wealthy and armed to the teeth with Washington lobbiests they politically powerful. They regard the American working class as a commodity, except when they see the American working class as a "Target Market" for the consumption of their goods and services. The very same that are produced overseas by foriegn workers. What makes this all possible is a representative government that has to "relent" and take an action to protect the majority of the American working man and woman with a great deal of opposition. For the past few months the great Republican Horse and Pony Show has served to distract the American People,the republivan debates take the forefront in the news while the Congress gets second billing. This Country should be more concernred with who they elect to the House and Senate than who becomes the next President. Congress should repeal Lobbying,NAFTA, impose tarrifs on imports,tax capitalists that enjoy the rewards of sending jobs overseas for "huge" labor cost savings and costly labor safety regulations. The Congress should make it a crime to employ illegal immigrants and create new immigration laws And how about those off shore banks. The middle class is footing the majority of the bill though the payroll taxes and income taxes on money earned in the US and counted in the US and witheald in the US without benefit of off shore banking style tax evasion.
The Tea baggers name themselves after the Boston Tea Party. The first tax revolt. "Taxation without reresentation is tyranny", look where it has gone . The middle class is "over taxed with representation" The Tea Baggers would see extreme poverty for the American People,sooner than a social agenda that would help create jobs Americans with taxes on the wealthy. A trickle down economy is a false hood. The idea of making the rich richer in order to crate jobs is as absurd as being nice to Jihadist nations so they will be nice to us.
Before there was a Boston Tea Party there was The Boston Massacre. A mild revolt by jobless American Colonials driven by hunger and poverty, they were shot dead " the shot heard round the world" But American History will tell us it was the Boston Tea Party that provoked the revolution. A tax!!! on Tea ?? Well if the King taxed a poor mans tea he must have been taxing the wealthest Colonials a agreat deal more. I do believe that John Hancock was at the time the richest man in America.... It would seem to me that the Tea tax issue made the whole idea of an unfair tax on the poor man a better way of the wealthy Colonials enlisting poor men to fight in a rebellion against the King of England and his taxes on the rich.I mean Tea!
how were the dems going to pay for the three year deal Mr. "informed"?
Didn't know there was any 3-year plan in the works, but the Dems were going to pay for the payroll tax cut by taxing the millionaires and billionaires a slight surcharge, like the vast majority of Americans wanted them to do!
23 Polls Say People Support Higher Taxes to Reduce the Deficit
http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/2341/23-polls-say-people-support-higher-taxes-reduce-deficit
=====
Poll: Most back raising taxes on millionaires
Six in ten Americans believe Congress should raise taxes on Americans earning more than $1 million per year, according to a new CBS News poll, while only 35 percent oppose such an increase.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57345810-503544/poll-most-back-raising-taxes-on-millionaires/
Nice cherry-picking of the data, but what I've come to expect from you fox/rush parrots!
Why not tell us what the DJIA and the S&P both did during the bush presidency (they both lost), and what they both did the past 3 years under President Obama (they both gained).
As a matter of fact, since I'm much more accustomed to the DJIA than the S&P, the DJIA soared 226% under Clinton; plummeted 27% under bush; and soared again from 8,000 on Jan. 20th, 2009, to 12,262 today, for an increase of 53% under Obama, or a return of 17+% per year!
The stock market has historically always done better under Democratic presidents than republican president:
Stocks -- Bush vs. Obama
Republicans - positive 1.7 percent annually
Democrats - positive 10.7 percent annually
Fact: Through 1998, US stocks performed higher by nine percentage points annually under Democrats than Republicans. If this study were to be updated, the gap would widen further.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-37744468/stocks---bush-vs-obama/?tag=mwuser
I just pointed out the DJIA gains/losses during the last 3 Presidents, and historically, over the past 100 years, Democratic Presidents have presided over much better stock market results than republican presidents -- by huge amounts!
Just try to swallow the FACTS mikey, instead of spinning them!
Suppose you tell us exactly which economist told your 3rd grade class that whopper, or more accurately, which fox/rush pundit.
Like I said before, and you failed to debate the issue, the creator of "supply-side" economics back during the reagan years, Bruce Bartlett, clearly shows how terrible 10 years of the bush tax cuts have been:
"These incorrect ideas led to the enactment of many tax cuts that had no meaningful effect on economic performance. Many were just give-aways to favored Republican constituencies, little different, substantively, from government spending. What, after all, is the difference between a direct spending program and a refundable tax credit? Nothing, really!"
Supply-Side Economics, R.I.P.
"The supply-siders are to a large extent responsible for this mess, myself included. We opened Pandora's Box when we got the Republican Party to abandon the balanced budget as its signature economic policy and adopt tax cuts as its raison d'etre. In particular, the idea that tax cuts will 'starve the beast' and automatically shrink the size of government is extremely pernicious.
Indeed, by destroying the balanced budget constraint, starve-the-beast theory actually opened the flood gates of spending."
http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/1168/supply-side-economics-rip
=====
Come back after you educate yourself on real economic policies, and how bad "supply-side" economic lunacy has been for America, and why it has only increased budget deficits for the past 10 years and opened the flood gates to spending starting in 2001!
Sorry, but 10 years of tax cuts with BORROWED MONEY is total insanity!
YOU doth protest too much!!!
First, if you want the states to handle anything, you need to convince a majority of our federal legislators to pass legislation to that effect, and with today's totally dysfunctional Congress -- good luck!
Secondly, if you really are the 'lifer' you pretend to be, I seriouly doubt you could have any more than 10 years maximum paying into the SS fund, and with that capped at 6.2% for $105K per year, I say your $450K is a damn pipe dream of the delusional kind!
Go fish!
Go fish!
Nice cherry-picking of the data, but what I've come to expect from you fox/rush parrots!
Why not tell us what the DJIA and the S&P both did during the bush presidency (they both lost), and what they both did the past 3 years under President Obama (they both gained).
As a matter of fact, since I'm much more accustomed to the DJIA than the S&P, the DJIA soared 226% under Clinton; plummeted 27% under bush; and soared again from 8,000 on Jan. 20th, 2009, to 12,262 today, for an increase of 53% under Obama, or a return of 17+% per year!
The stock market has historically always done better under Democratic presidents than republican president:
Stocks -- Bush vs. Obama
Republicans - positive 1.7 percent annually
Democrats - positive 10.7 percent annually
Fact: Through 1998, US stocks performed higher by nine percentage points annually under Democrats than Republicans. If this study were to be updated, the gap would widen further.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-37744468/stocks---bush-vs-obama/?tag=mwuser
this is really rich...the Republicans are trying to turn this into a debate about the damn PIPELINE!!! What does this pipeline have to do with tax cuts for the middle class? Why did Boehner attach this to the bill knowing people wouldnt want to agree with it right away????
Yes, nothing but republican riders on legislation, or toxic pills by the far-right extremists taking the republican party over the cliff!
...and I'm sick of hearing people say "lets cut government"...ok, what are you going to cut? Republicans say this over and over but fail to come up with something significant that they would cut...the GOP did what 50% of America wants? So 50% of America wants to see their taxes go up? Nice try.