watch out for the GOP

     Speaker John Boehner with other Republican representatives just agreed to extend Social Security payroll tax cuts as it was highly opposed by Democratic congressmen.  This legislation does not raise taxes or destroy job opportunities, but protects Social Security.  Democrats argued that this bill only helped benefit the wealthy, and Harry Read claimed that the GOP was trying to impress tea party supporters.  Congress then voted on extending tax cuts but not yet increasing the tax on wealthier citizens to give their share in improving America.  A jobs program that Obama wanted to be dealt with in September includes significant parts of Obama’s plan to create new jobs.  Payment cut to doctors who have Medicare patients would be avoided.  Republicans also want an almost 200 billion dollar oil pipe to be built of 1700 miles which would pass by rare environmental habitats.  The pipe would start in Canada and travel all the way to the Texas Gulf Coast.  This deal will be settled in 2012.  A trillion dollars is set aside to fund a majority of government agencies but there are still negotiations to where exactly this money will go.  Democrats want an income tax on wealthy Americans, but Republicans do not agree, however a House bill passed that stopped higher pension for a year, and Medicare expenses for citizens about eighty thousand dollar income.  The GOP’s plan does not seem promising in protecting the struggles families face today.  This affects the Republican primaries highly.  The GOP represents all of the candidates and if the popularity of the Republican Party is not in good spirits then the movement to vote for a Republican president goes down the drain.  The GOP has to accomplish something with the president, and since they have the majority in the House, they must be able to settle some deals and improve their approval rating in congress.  The article is unbiased since it GOP and Obama have caused gridlock in Washington.  The GOP has offered impractical ideas and there no sense of compromise between the two parties in the House to offer helpful suggestions.

The Tennessean

GOP pushes oil pipeline, tax cut 

through House                                         

 Dec. 14, 2011  

Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, is joined by Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, talking to reporters after passage of legislation to extend Social Security payroll tax cuts. / J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Defiant Republicans pushed legislation through the House on Tuesday night that would keep alive Social Security payroll tax cuts for some 160 million Americans at President Barack Obama’s request — but also would require construction of a Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline that has sparked a White House veto threat.

Passage, on a largely party-line vote of 234-193, sent the measure toward its certain demise in the Democratic-controlled Senate, triggering the final partisan showdown of a remarkably quarrelsome year of divided government.

The legislation “extends the payroll tax relief, extends and reforms unemployment insurance and protects Social Security — without job-killing tax hikes,” Republican House Speaker John Boehner declared after the measure had cleared.

Referring to the controversy over the Keystone XL pipeline, he added, “Our bill includes sensible, bipartisan measures to help the private sector create jobs.”

On a long day of finger pointing, however, House Democrats accused Republicans of protecting “millionaires and billionaires,” and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., derided the GOP-backed pipeline provision as “ideological candy” for the tea party set.

After the House vote, the White House urged Congress on in finishing work on extending the tax cuts and jobless aid. Press Secretary Jay Carney issued a statement that didn’t mention the pipeline but renewed Obama’s insistence that the legislation be paid for, at least in part, by “asking the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share” in higher tax levies.

Lawmakers “cannot go on vacation before agreeing to prevent a tax hike on 160 million Americans and extending unemployment insurance,” he said.

Voting in favor of the legislation were 224 Republicans and 10 Democrats, while 179 Democrats and 14 Republicans opposed it.

Jobs program

At its core, the measure did include key parts of the jobs program that Obama asked Congress to approve in September:

The Social Security payroll tax cuts approved a year ago to help stimulate the economy would be extended through 2012, avoiding a loss of take-home income for wage-earners.

An expiring program of unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless would remain in place, although at reduced levels that the administration said would cut off aid for 3.3 million.

A threatened 27 percent cut in payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients would be averted, a provision Republicans added to appeal to conservatives but one that the White House and Democrats embrace, too.

While the tax and unemployment provisions were less generous than Obama sought, he and Republicans clashed principally over steps to cover the estimated $180 billion cost of the measure, and on the proposed 1,700-mile Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada through environmentally sensitive terrain in Nebraska to the Texas Gulf Coast.

Obama recently delayed a decision on granting a permit for the pipeline until after the 2012 election.

The payroll tax legislation was one of three major bills that Congress was struggling to finish before adjourning for the year, and by far the most contentious.

A measure covering Pentagon spending was ready for passage, and, separately, negotiators said they were close to a deal on a $1 trillion measure to fund most government agencies through the end of the budget year.

That deal was in limbo, though, with Obama and congressional Democrats using it as leverage to keep House Republicans at the table negotiating a final compromise on the tax and unemployment measure.

It was the final showdown of a year that once brought the government to the brink of a shutdown and also pushed the Treasury to the cusp of a first-ever default.

Obama and most Democrats favor an income surtax on million-dollar earners to pay for extending the Social Security tax cut, but Republicans oppose that, saying it is a violation of their pledge not to raise taxes. Instead, the House bill called for a one-year pay freeze and higher pension costs for federal workers, higher Medicare costs for seniors over $80,000 in income, as well as other items to cover the cost.

Obama’s veto message focused on economic issues, accusing Republicans of putting the burden of paying for the legislation on working families “while giving a free pass to the wealthiest and to big corporations by protecting their loopholes and subsidies.”