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Tampa Bay Online is reporting today that the House of Representatives has voted 229-193 to reject the Senate’s proposal for a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut. 

The article reports:

The House vote, 229-193, kicks the measure back to the Senate, where the bipartisan two-month measure passed on Saturday by a sweeping 89-10 vote. The Senate then promptly left Washington for the holidays. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., says he won’t allow bargaining until the House approves the Senate’s short-term measure.

OK. Let’s take a look at this. The Republicans in the Senate need to be taken to the woodshed on this one. First of all, a two-month extension of a tax policy is totally ridiculous. Companies need time to program their payroll software, they need some certainty in the future to allow them to plan expenses. The Republicans in the Senate fell right into the hands of the Democrat politicians on this one. Harry Reid left town in order to avoid negotiations. He knew that the House would reject this bill–this is the Democrat way of avoiding the Keystone Pipeline and blaming the Republicans for the middle class tax increase that is coming.

There will be no payroll tax cut extension. In itself, that is not horrible. (Don’t panic. I am not for higher taxes, I just don’t like the way this was done). The payroll tax cut comes out of the “Social Security Fund” (which is nonexistent)–not the general fund. The payroll tax cut ensures the demise of Social Security sooner rather than later. Raising taxes on millionaires, increasing the cost of mortgages, etc., has no impact on the money not collected because of the payroll tax cut–those things impace the general fund–not the social security fund.

Unfortunately, this battle is totally about politics and the American people are the losers. The correct answer to the entire situation would have been for Congress to pass a real budget–which it has not done for almost three years and proceed from there.