House Speaker Says Payroll Tax Bill Won't Add Jobs

WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Speaker John Boehner says he supports a compromise bill extending payroll tax cuts and benefits for the long-term unemployed, but he says it's not going to help the nation's economy.

The Ohio Republican spoke to reporters Thursday, hours after bipartisan congressional bargainers announced agreement on the legislation.

Boehner says the accord extending the tax cuts and jobless benefits is a fair agreement.

But in a shot at President Barack Obama, who proposed both measures as part of his jobs program last fall, Boehner says the bill won't strengthen the economy or create jobs.

Congressional leaders hope to push the deal through Congress by Friday. But Boehner said lawmakers are still trying to resolve an issue over drafting legislative language and did not say whether votes could happen by Friday.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

Democrats are mostly satisfied with a compromise bill extending payroll tax cuts and benefits for the long-term unemployed through 2012, and it should be pushed through Congress quickly, the party's House leader said Thursday.

The remarks by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi came hours after a post-midnight announcement by the two lead negotiators, Rep. David Camp, R-Mich., and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., that only technical issues and the drafting of legislative language remained.

The bill would assure a continued tax cut for 160 million workers and jobless benefits for several million others, delivering top election-year priorities to President Barack Obama and edging a white-hot political battle a big step closer to being resolved.

Congressional leaders have said they hope for congressional approval by Friday, a goal Pelosi, D-Calif., said she supports.

"I don't think the American people can wait another day," she told reporters.

Pelosi also said that while Democrats were hoping parts of the roughly $150 billion measure could be paid for with savings from winding down wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, "I don't see a scenario where our members would vote against it."

Though there were hints that last-minute problems might still crop up, negotiators were bullish that work on the legislation was virtually complete, saying that only technical work remained.

"It's a very good deal for the country," said Baucus, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee.

"We're moving forward," said Camp, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee.

The temporary payroll tax cut and extra unemployment coverage initially ran into GOP resistance, some of which lingers.

But Republicans have largely concluded that it would be politically damaging to oppose the package, particularly in this presidential and congressional election year. That contrasted with their attitude in December, when House Republicans refused to back a bipartisan Senate bill providing a two-month extension of the tax cuts and jobless benefits while bargainers completed a yearlong deal - only to retreat under barrages of criticism from Republicans and conservatives around the country.

Underscoring that they had learned the consequences of seeming to block a middle-class tax cut, House Republicans removed the major hurdle to the legislation earlier this week when they agreed that the payroll tax cut - comprising about two-thirds of the measure's cost - would not have to be paid for with spending cuts.

The bargainers spent Wednesday trying to extinguish last-minute brushfires as some members of Congress sought changes in a tentative agreement that aides had described Tuesday.

Chief among the late disputes was a proposal to save around $15 billion - about half the $30 billion cost of the bill's extended jobless benefits - by requiring federal workers to contribute an additional 1.5 percent of their pay to their pensions.

Democrats, including Sen. Ben Cardin and others from Maryland, home to many government employees, resisted that plan, holding up a final handshake among congressional bargainers. The provision was ultimately changed to target the boost only at newly hired federal workers, requiring them to contribute 2.3 percent of their salaries toward defined benefit pensions.

There was little controversy over the main thrust of the bill.

A 2-percentage-point cut in the 6.2 percent Social Security payroll tax, which is deducted from workers' paychecks, would run through 2012. For a family earning $50,000 a year, the cut saves $1,000 annually.

Extra unemployment benefits for people out of work the longest would be extended for the same period, and a 27 percent slash in federal reimbursements for physicians who treat Medicare patients would be averted.

Unless Congress acts, the tax cut and added jobless benefits would expire, and doctors' Medicare payments would be reduced - all on March 1.

In a GOP win, the bill would phase down the current maximum 99 weeks of jobless coverage to 73 weeks in the hardest-hit states by autumn, though most states would get no more than 63 weeks.

Besides increasing new federal workers' pension contributions, more savings were supposed to come from government sales of parts of the broadcast spectrum to wireless companies. The spectrum auction was supposed to raise about $15 billion - even after $7 billion would be spent for a new communications network for emergency workers.

The government's main welfare program would be continued through this year. Republicans won a provision barring welfare recipients from using their electronic cards to withdraw cash from teller machines in liquor stores, strip clubs and casinos.

The $20 billion price tag for preventing the cut in doctors' Medicare reimbursements would be covered partly by trimming a fund Obama's health care overhaul created to help prevent obesity and smoking. There would also be reductions in Medicaid payments to hospitals that treat high numbers of uninsured patients.

Dropped from the final compromise were proposals to renew expiring business tax cuts; a GOP plan to require unemployment recipients to work toward high school equivalency diplomas; and another Republican provision, aimed at illegal immigrants, requiring low-income people to have Social Security numbers before they can get checks from the Internal Revenue Service for the children's tax credit.

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Associated Press writer Andrew Taylor contributed to this report.

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