Congress easily passed a sweeping package that would extend the payroll tax holiday for 160 million Americans until the end of the year, sending President Barack Obama a middle-class tax cut that was considered one of his top domestic priorities.
The vote in the lower chamber was 293-132. On party lines, 91 Republicans and 41 Democrats opposed the package. The Senate quickly cleared the bill on an 60-36 vote less than an hour after the House voted. In that chamber, 30 Republicans and five Democrats, as well as independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, rejected it.
Continue ReadingAside from allowing workers to keep a little more of their paychecks, the bipartisan deal also extends jobless benefits and pushes off a scheduled 27 percent pay cut to doctors who treat Medicare patients. The agreement, led by the two top tax writers in Congress, came on the cusp of a weeklong congressional recess but well before those programs were to expire at the end of this month ? marking a rarity for a legislative body that constantly ran up against the brink of deadlines.
?I said then, I say now: Everything doesn?t have to be a fight,? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters Friday afternoon.
Obama has promised to sign the bill ?right away.?
?There are a number of positive aspects to this agreement, including preventing a tax increase on hardworking Americans and the spectrum initiative, which will help create jobs, spur innovation and economic investment, and support public safety,? Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement.
The turning point in the arduous negotiations came Monday when the top three House Republican leaders ? Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) ? announced they were willing to extend the payroll tax cut without offsetting its $100 billion price tag. The cost of the full package approved by the House, including the jobless benefits and ?doc fix,? is roughly $143 billion.
Last-minute snags in the negotiations, such as disagreements over spectrum auctions and a late-night protest from Democrats on targeted federal pension funds, tripped up the talks but the majority of conferees finally signed off on the agreement Thursday afternoon.
The agreement had the blessing of all 13 House negotiators and the four Senate Democratic conferees, but the three Senate Republicans ? Jon Kyl of Arizona, John Barrasso of Wyoming and Mike Crapo of Idaho ? did not sign the deal. The lawmakers grumbled Thursday that they were frozen out of the negotiations. All three senators ultimately voted against the agreement.
The agreement?s path to Obama?s desk was never going to be smooth. A swath of the Republican conference, as well as many Democrats, opposed the payroll tax cut because the money generated from the tax contributes to the Social Security trust fund. Democrats ? particularly those who represent districts near the nation?s capital ? despised the additional contributions that future federal workers will have to pay into their pensions.
A furious House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) took to the House floor Friday morning to lambast the provisions in the deal that calls for federal employees hired after Dec. 31 to pay an extra 2.3 percent into their pensions.
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