Congress may be on holiday but they still managed to get something done. And by something, I mean nothing. But they want to pretend that they did something so we’ll let them have their moment.
The House and the Senate passed a bill that would extend the payroll tax cuts for a lousy two months. You already know how I feel about this. It’s a stupid, stupid move.
Apparently, the plan is for the Democrats to claim victory on this one, having made House Speaker Boehner (K-OH) look bad as he fought within his own party and then to bring it up again in January. In a lame attempt to flex some muscle after the fact, the House also voted to create a conference committee to discuss extending the payroll tax cuts for the full year. So to be clear, they voted to create a committee to talk about a bill that they didn’t vote for in the first place. That’s some efficient use of their time, right?
And they didn’t have to lift a finger to do it. The Senate and the House both used a procedure known as unanimous consent to pass the bill since most of Congress is already home for the holidays. Under existing rules:
A Senator may request unanimous consent on the floor to set aside a specified rule of procedure so as to expedite proceedings. If no Senator objects, the Senate permits the action, but if any one Senator objects, the request is rejected. Unanimous consent requests with only immediate effects are routinely granted, but ones affecting the floor schedule, the conditions of considering a bill or other business, or the rights of other Senators, are normally not offered, or a floor leader will object to it, until all Senators concerned have had an opportunity to inform the leaders that they find it acceptable.
The House has a similar procedure.
This is the second time this year a bickering Congress has resorted to procedural moves to resolve an issue while they scurry off to vacation (remember the airline tax?).
The bill also extends jobless benefits by two months and delays the pay cuts to Medicare physicians (the “doc fix”).
The move, as it stands right now, saves the average American a total of $166, or put another way, about two hours’ pay for a member of Congress (assuming a standard 40 hour work week for 50 weeks).
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