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House speaker John Boehner is set to sign an offer from Obama to accelerate negotiations. Republicans in the House of Representatives have capitulated in the showdown over the payroll tax, handing Barack Obama an important victory going into election year. Under pressure from other senior Republicans for blocking a bill that would extend tax cuts to millions of Americans, the House speaker, John Boehner, is backing away from his insistence that any deal must cover a full year. A deal agreed by Republicans and Democrats in the Senate on Saturday covers two months, to allow further negotiations in January. It...

Sen. John McCain, D-Ariz., lit into President Barack Obama today for failing to produce an agreement on extending the payroll tax cut, The Hill reports. The Senate passed a compromise two-month extension Saturday, but the House rejected it Tuesday amid objections from conservatives who want a one-year extension. Obama needs to exhibit leadership to break the stalemate, McCain told CNN. The president has merely told the House to pass the Senate bill. "Previous presidents I've served under ... would be calling them [members of Congress] over to the White House, looking them in the eye and telling them, 'We need...

Officials from the policy-neutral National Payroll Reporting Consortium, Inc. have expressed concern to members of Congress that the two-month payroll tax holiday passed by the Senate and supported by President Obama cannot be implemented properly. Pete Isberg, president of the NPRC today wrote to the key leaders of the relevant committees of the House and Senate, telling them that “insufficient lead time” to implement the complicated change mandated by the legislation means the two-month payroll tax holiday “could create substantial problems, confusion and costs affecting a significant percentage of U.S. employers and employees.”

RICHMOND, Va. -- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Thursday he would tell his caucus to get "noisy" if he were trying to game out the dispute on a payroll tax cut with President Obama. Asked about the standoff by a voter, the Republican presidential candidate also called the senators "arrogant" over their refusal to negotiate. “I would have all of my members on talk radio back home demanding the senators come back. And I could say 'How can the senators arrogantly go home." Gingrich, who has previously said he doesn't know what John Boehner is going through because President...

Just across from National Journal. Our dumb national nightmare is over. House Republicans on Thursday crumpled under the weight of White House and public pressure and have agreed to pass a two-month extension of the 2 percent payroll-tax cut, Republican and Democratic sources told National Journal…The House will pass the two-month extension with a technical correction to the language designed to minimize difficulties businesses might experience implementing the short-term, two-month tax cut extension. In exchange, Reid agreed to appoint several Senate Democrats to start negotiating with the House on a full-year payroll-tax holiday extension, which is right in line with...

I have been listening to a lot of debate on the radio about the payroll deduction cut. I just recently heard the Won on the radio going on about how some guy will miss his pizza night. Why can't Boehner and McConnel, instead, come out and say, "We'll cut the income tax rates by 2 percent and reinstate the payroll tax rate so Social Security can remain funded and K.Z. can still have his pizza night with his daughters. Better yet, we'll cut the income tax rate 4% and they can have pizza night twice a week." Why do they...

“It’s not helping,” a veteran Senate Republican strategist said of the House GOP fight against the Senate package. “Senate Republicans are tired of paying the price for the lack of legislative thoughtfulness in the House.” The political operative said incumbents such as Sens. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.) could pay the price.

Congressional aides say House GOP to accept short-term payroll tax cut extension Just Headlines

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- House Republicans have agreed to pass a two-month extension of the 2% payroll-tax cut, National Journal reported Thursday, citing Republican and Democratic sources. House Republican leaders insisted earlier Thursday on passing a one-year extension, while President Barack Obama urged them to agree to a two-month deal. Without action by Congress, the payroll tax reverts to 6.2% on Jan. 1 from its current 4.2% rate