WASHINGTON, February 18 2012(AFP): The US Congress approved a compromise bill Friday extending a payroll tax cut and jobless benefits through 2012, ending a bitter fight over a measure aimed at boosting the tepid US recovery.The measure sailed through the House of Representatives and the Senate with broad bipartisan support, despite grousing on both sides of the aisle over concessions made in a deal reached the day before. The House voted 293 to 132 in favor, and the Senate quickly followed with a yes vote of 60 to 36. The bill now goes to the White House for President Barack Obama’s signature. He has made passage of the extension through the end of the year a top priority, but the measure had long been stalled in a deeply divided Congress over how to pay for it. “Americans are waiting and watching,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on the Senate floor shortly before the vote. “Our economy is still fragile. It is crucial we prevent a tax increase on 160 million Americans. These are working Americans,” he said. “It also protects the safety of millions of Americans who can’t find work.” The plan extends a cut in the Social Security tax rate — from 6.2 to 4.2 percent — for another 10 months, and unemployment benefits through 2012. It will mean a salaried worker making an annual $50,000 will be getting about $1,000 more in take-home pay over the course of the year. The measure also puts off cuts in payments to doctors by Medicare, the national health insurance program for the elderly, until after the November elections. The cost of the package has been estimated at $150 billion. Senate and House negotiators crafted a compromise Thursday that would pay for the bill in part with the proceeds of auctions of broadband spectrum, rather than spending cuts or tax hikes on the rich. Unhappiness with the agreement among some members was evident in the House, with both conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats expressing opposition to provisions of the bill. “I will be voting ‘heck no’ for this conference bill,” said Phil Gingrey, a Republican from Georgia who objected to the lack of spending cuts. Some Democrats decried the fact that a provision to pay for the bill with a tax hike on Americans making over $1 million a year had been dropped. Reid, however, hailed the “bipartisan cooperation” that led to the rare agreement among leaders better known for unrelenting conflict with the country entering a presidential election year. “We don’t have to have a fight on everything,” he said. “We need to come together.” House Speaker John Boehner grudgingly supported the bill, praising it for preventing a tax hike on working Americans and the provisions for the broadband spectrum actions. “But le’s keep in mind that aside from the spectrum provisions that have long been a part of the Republican jobs plan, this is an economic relief bill — not a growth bill. “The only reason the provisions at the core of this measure are even necessary is because the president’s policies have failed,” he said. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called the compromise a “victory for the middle class,” while lamenting it did not include a tax hike on the rich. The path to a compromise opened last week when Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, dropped his party’s longstanding demand that the extension be paid with spending cuts elsewhere. Democrats gave up their push for higher taxes on the rich to pay for the measures, agreeing instead to use the proceeds from auctions of broadband spectrum, in high demand with the growth in use of mobile devices. The New York Times reported that the auctions were expected to yield about $25 billion, with $15 billion going to cover the cost of extending unemployment benefits. Dave Camps, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and chief Republican negotiator of the compromise, defended it as a “significant victory for those of us concerned about the national debt and the culture of deficit spending that has gripped Washington for far too long.” “All government spending in this agreement is fully paid for, and not with one dime of higher taxes,” he said, urging Republicans to vote in favor. Representative Sander Levin, the ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, highlighted the bill’s importance to US economic growth. “We’re recovering, and this bill would provide a boost to continue that recovery,” he said, adding that it prevents spending cuts that would have been harmful.
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