WashingtonWatch.com Digest – December 27, 2011

WashingtonWatch.com Digest – December 27, 2011

Posted by Jim Harper, December 27, 2011 at 10:00 am

This is the WashingtonWatch.com email newsletter for the week of December 26, 2011. Subscribe (free!) here.

On the Blog: The Payroll Tax Holiday

On the eve of Christmas eve, Congress passed a two-month extension of 2011′s “payroll tax holiday.”

What is the “payroll tax holiday” anyway? And what was all the hullabaloo about it? We reviewed the tape in a post entitled: “The Payroll Tax Holiday, Extended at the Holiday.”

Featured Item

Last week, the House and Senate passed H.R. 3765. President Obama is expected to sign the bill.

In addition to extending the payroll tax holiday for two months, passage of the bill will extend unemployment compensation, increase physician payments in the Medicare system, increase Federal Housing Administration mortgage fees and payments, and provide for presidential consideration of an oil pipeline called the Keystone XL pipeline.

Passage of H.R. 3765 will cost about $200 per U.S. family, increasing each family’s share of the national debt by about $30.

H.R. 3765
To extend the payroll tax holiday, unemployment compensation, Medicare physician payment, provide for the consideration of the Keystone XL pipeline, and for other purposes
Costs $206.04 per family

What People Think

H.R. 3765
33% For, 67% Against

Vote on this Bill

Displayed below are new, updated, and passed items with their cost or savings per family.

New Items

S. 323
The First State National Historical Park Act
Costs $0.14 per family

S. 1268
The Interagency Personnel Rotation Act of 2011
Costs $0.03 per family

H.R. 3765
To extend the payroll tax holiday, unemployment compensation, Medicare physician payment, provide for the consideration of the Keystone XL pipeline, and for other purposes
Costs $206.04 per family

You can read the rest of this article at: http://www.washingtonwatch.com/blog/2011/12/27/washingtonwatch-com-digest-december-27-2011/