After a week of intense partisan maneuvering, the Senate deadlocked Thursday night on a pair of plans to extend a payroll tax cut that expires at the end of the year, leaving a trail of partisan finger pointing on both sides.
Democrats first failed to get 60 votes to start debate on their plan that would extend and expand the payroll tax cut; the vote was 51-49 with three Democrats breaking ranks and joining all Republicans in voting against the bill.
Republicans then were unable to muster 60 votes to start work on their plan that would extend the tax cut combined with budget savings measures to produce $110 billion in deficit reduction.
The rhetoric reached a crescendo with a statement from President Obama, who accused Republicans of voting to "raise taxes" on working Americans by blocking consideration of the Democratic plan.
"I will continue to urge Congress to stop playing politics with the security of millions of American families and small business owners and get this done," Mr. Obama said in a written statement.
Republicans were having none of that, accusing Democrats of dragging their feet on plans to both extend the tax cut and find a way to reduce the size of government.
"Like Democrats, we think struggling American workers should continue to get this temporary relief for another year," said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
The difference though was that while Democrats were able to garner a bare majority for their bill at 51-49, Republicans were by no means united behind their plan, as it lost on a vote of 78-20, mainly because of a lack of agreement over how to pay for the measure.
"When are we going to admit that we are broke?" asked Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) after the votes - as he opposed the payroll tax cutting plans from both parties.
This week's battling was a bit of Legislative Kabuki Theater, as now that the issue has had its test votes in the Senate, the theory in the hallways is that will allow both parties to start really negotiating a final deal before Christmas.
Next week will likely bring evidence of that work, as the Congress still must figure out deals on a series of issues:
- Payroll tax cut extension
- Extension of long term jobless benefits
- Renewal of so-called "tax extenders," business and personal tax breaks that expired at the end of this year
- Patch for the Alternative Minimum Tax
- Another short-term extension of the Medicare "Doc Fix"
- Final work on eight unfinished budget bills. It's still not clear whether that will be lumped into one giant bill and jammed through right before Christmas. The goal is to be done in the next two weeks. That will take a lot of heavy legislative lifting.
