RightChange: Senator Reid and Obama REFUSE to Pass The Payroll Holiday They Originally Wanted

President Obama asked for a year-long payroll holiday.  The House passed a year- long payroll compromise. Then the Senate Democrats changed the rules completely and passed a temporary 2-month extension last weekend and left town for their holiday recess.  The House is causing a standstill in Washington right now, and for good reason.  Two payroll system groups have already said a temporary tax holiday will be costly on employees and employers while causing “substantial problems.”  For some strange reason President Obama and the Democrats are demanding the House to pass the two-month extension anyway.

From the Washington Times:

“House Democrats tried Wednesday to force a vote on the Senate’s two-month extension of the payroll-tax cut, but Republicans gaveled the House closed to prevent them from having a chance, as top GOP leaders huddled down the hall to try to figure a way out of the mess.

The House was set to hold a pro forma session, but two top Democrats, Reps. Steny H. Hoyer and Chris Van Hollen, demanded to be recognized to try to force a vote on the two-month extension. House Republicans have blocked that deal, which is strongly backed by President Obama, and are holding out for an extension that covers all of 2012.

Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican who was serving as the presiding officer, banged his gavel to close the session Wednesday morning even as the two Democrats were demanding to be recognized.

“You’re walking out, you’re walking away, just as so many Republicans have walked away from middle-class taxpayers,,” Mr. Hoyer shouted after Mr. Fitzpatrick as he marched off the floor, leaving the two Democrats, both from Maryland, to themselves in the cavernous chamber.

Down the hall in his office, House Speaker John A. Boehner gathered top Republicans to try to figure out a path forward.

“We’re here. We’re ready to work,” Mr. Boehner, Ohio Republican, told reporters before that meeting. “We’re looking for our counterparts to sit down with us so that we can do what the president, bipartisan leaders in the House and Senate all want, and that’s to extend the payroll-tax cut for one year.”

The Democrats can whine all they want but if House Republicans pulled a stunt like this, they would be on all of the talk shows exclaiming, “Republicans want Middle Class families to die.”  Senate Democrats should get back to Washington and pass the bill they originally asked for.

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