WASHINGTON — Capitol Hill negotiators officially unveiled hard-fought compromise legislation to prevent 160 million workers from getting slapped with a payroll-tax hike, even as the top Republican in Congress said the $143 billion measure won’t do anything to help the economy.
The measure is a top election-year priority for President Barack Obama and generally won backing from his Democratic allies in Congress. But it’s getting only grudging support from House Republicans and even less from Obama’s GOP rivals in the Senate, where party negotiators shunned the measure and its $89 billion impact on the budget deficit over the coming decade.
“Let’s be honest; this is an economic relief package, not a bill that’s going to grow the economy and create jobs,” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.
But after losing a fight over the legislation at the end of last year, Republicans were determined to clear it off of the political agenda and focus voters on Obama’s record rather than their battles with him.
“It was impossible to break through on the politics,” Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., said.
The measure is expected to pass both the House and Senate today, and Obama has promised to sign it right away.
The legislation would extend through the end of the year a 2 percentage-point cut in payroll taxes that would fatten a typical bimonthly paycheck by $40. It also would renew jobless benefits that deliver about $300 a week to people out of work for more than six months.
And it would head off a steep cut in reimbursements for physicians who treat Medicare patients, at a cost of $18 billion, financed in part by cuts to a fund created under Obama’s 2010 health care law that awards grants for preventive care and by curbs on Medicaid payments to hospitals that care for a disproportionate share of uninsured patients.
About $15 billion in revenues came as free money to be raised by auctioning off parts of the broadcast television airwaves to wireless companies.
The provision also requires newly hired federal workers to contribute 2.3 percent more of their salaries toward their traditional defined benefit pensions, raising $15 billion over the coming decade.
It also would prevent welfare recipients from using electronic benefits cards to withdraw money at ATMs in strip clubs, casinos and liquor stores.
