WASHINGTON — Congress is cooking up a holiday tax hike!
House Republicans are aiming to shoot down the Senate’s two-month extension of a payroll tax cut as soon as today, outraging senators from both parties who thought it was a done deal.
“The House Republicans’ plan to scuttle the deal to help middle-class families is irresponsible and wrong,” fumed Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.).
But the House’s Tea Party Republicans rallied behind Speaker John Boehner’s stand against what he called the “short-term fixes and gimmicks” in the Senate deal.
“This is a ‘Braveheart’ moment. You, Mr. Speaker, are our William Wallace,” Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), a member of the Tea Party Caucus, said on the Fox News Channel.
A vote scheduled for last night was postponed after a long, closed-door meeting of House Republicans.
The delay sparked speculation that they didn’t have enough votes to kill the measure, but GOP leaders remained adamant that the Senate would return from vacation to redo the legislation.
The big losers in the showdown could be the 160 million Americans who will each pay about $1,000 more in Social Security payroll withholding next year if the tax break expires Dec. 31.
The bill also extends long-term jobless benefits set to expire next year for nearly 2 million unemployed.
Boehner (R-Ohio), who said thje lack of a concrete deal would make job creators ‘’skittish,’’ demanded the Senate return from its Christmas vacation to work out a one-year extension of the tax cut that both sides say they want.