Free Republic

Asked if Americans will wake up January 1 to a tax increase because Congress failed to act on the issue, McConnell responded: "That isn't going to happen, and obviously we'll reach an agreement." Later in the interview, McConnell declared that extending the payroll tax cut "has bipartisan support." Another conservative Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, agreed that a compromise would emerge but said he doubted it would include the oil pipeline provision. "At the end of the day the payroll tax will get extended as it is now," Graham said on NBC's "Meet the Press," adding: "The pipeline's...

Republicans in the House of Representatives said on Friday they will attach a bill designed to speed approval of the Keystone pipeline to payroll tax cut legislation House Speaker John Boehner hopes to pass this month. The move is designed to ratchet up the heat on President Barack Obama, whose administration has put the Keystone XL pipeline on hold pending a study of a new route, pushing a decision past the 2012 presidential election. When complete, the pipeline would deliver some 700,000 barrels a day of oilsands crude from the Canadian province of Alberta to refineries on the U.S. Gulf...