Payroll Tax Cuts: the House Revolt Against Senate Compromise (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | A couple of days before Christmas, the Republican Party has fully embraced the role of the political Grinch.

After Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R.-Ky., rallied 39 of the 47 Senate Republicans to help a bipartisan bill to extend payroll tax cuts, unemployment benefits, and avoid cutting the reimbursement rate for doctors who accept patients on Medicare, pass through the Senate 89-10, the GOP led House voted 229-193 against the measure, Tuesday, according to the Washington Post.

The House vote prompted the White House to launch a social media campaign asking middle-income earners to explain how the tax increase would affect them.

Their claim was that passing the bill would inject new uncertainty into the American economy, as they would have to grapple with the issue in two months again anyway.

From their decision it is apparent that the GOP believes that leaving millions of Americans uncertain over whether the next two weeks will bring a tax increase, or the cessation of their unemployment benefits, is a better alternative to wondering how the most unpopular Congress in recent history will deal with the problem two months from now.

The same, tired argument that prevented the deficit-reduction "super committee" from reaching a compromise was the sticking point again. GOP leaders wanted to fund the payroll tax cut by freezing federal salaries, laying off federal employees, and increasing Medicare premiums for upper income seniors; while Democratic lawmakers proposed funding the measure by giving families earning over $1 million a year an income surtax.

Once again the two sides are at an impasse over what the government should and shouldn't pay for.

Unfortunately one of the few things the two sides agreed on was covering $36 billion of the payroll tax cut bill by increasing the fees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac charge lenders for guaranteeing loans.

House Majority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, didn't shy away from the blame game that's become par for the course in Washington, claiming that his party had "done [their] work for the American people," and that "it's up to the president and Democrats in the Senate to do their work as well."

House Republicans dismissed their fellow party members who accepted the temporary compromise as "lazy" for not demanding that their own extension bill be passed. Though their bill would extend the payroll tax cuts for an entire year, the Republican-backed initiative was also an attempt to force the White House to decide whether or not to ship Canadian oil to the Gulf Coast via the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline.

Both sides seemed to believe that they could scare the other into agreeing with their stipulations using the pressure of a deadline and fear of reaction from a disenchanted public.

However, President Obama summed up the sentiment of many Americans towards a Congress who has no members jeopardized by anything the bill they defeated with his statement that "The American people are weary of it, tired of it. They expect better."

Follow Phillip Warlove on Twitter: @WarloveRevolit

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111222/pl_ac/10731597_payroll_tax_cuts_the_house_revolt_against_senate_compromise

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