Payroll tax bill heads to Obama’s desk (Politico)

February 17, 2012

By Seung Min Kim

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.

Aside 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.

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