The House passed it's version of the payroll tax cut, which Obama threatened to veto, then the Senate passed their version, which Obama favored, and there has been quite a bit of back and forth rhetoric buzzing around the Internet after word came down the pike that the House would not pass the Senate's version.
Senate majority leader Harry Reid is refusing to call the Senate back to town to re-open negotiations, stating "I will not re-open negotiations until the House follows through and passes this agreement that was negotiated by Republican leaders, and supported by 90 percent of the Senate."
That rhetoric is moot at this point because the Senate and Obama's favored version isn't workable, according to experts from the policy-neutral National Payroll Reporting Consortium, Inc, who say the "two-month payroll tax holiday passed by the Senate and supported by President Obama cannot be implemented properly."
ABC News links to the letter the NPRC wrote to key leaders of the relevant committees of the House and Senate explaining to them the problem with the bill the Senate passed.
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.”
Worth noting the House's version would have extended the payroll tax cut through the end of last year while the Senate's version kicks the can down the road for only two months when the issue would have needed to be revisited again.
An update from National Review Online informs us that the National Association of Wholesale-Distributors has also written to Congress telling them they "concur with the conclusion of the NPRC."
“A two-month extension of the current reduced payroll tax rate,with the implicit rise in that rate in the first quarter of 2011, would exacerbate and escalate the uncertainty about fiscal policies that has inhibited business activity and slowed economic recovery and job creation for the last several years,” the letter states.
The level of incompetence being shown in the Senate regarding this bill that cannot even be implemented properly in the short time frame it is set up for instead of a long term solution, makes one wonder why American taxpayers are even paying these clowns.
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