Congress sends payroll tax cut bill to Obama

WASHINGTON — Congress on Friday approved legislation renewing a payroll tax cut for 160 million workers and jobless benefits for millions more, backing the main items on President Barack Obama's jobs agenda in a rare burst of Washington bipartisanship.

The Senate approved the $143 billion measure on a bipartisan 60-36 vote minutes after the House approved it by a sweeping 293-132 vote. Obama is expected to sign it shortly after returning from a West Coast fundraising swing.

Under the bill, workers would continue to receive a 2 percentage point increase in their paychecks, and people out of work for more than six months would keep jobless benefits averaging about $300 a week, steps that Obama says will help support a fragile recovery from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

It would also head off a steep cut in reimbursements for physicians who treat Medicare patients.

The tax cuts, jobless coverage and higher doctors' payments would all continue through 2012.

Passage of the legislation hands Obama a victory over objections from many Republicans who oppose it but were eager to wipe the issue from the election-year agenda.

It also clears away a political headache for House Republicans, who blocked a two-month extension of the tax cut and jobless coverage in late December, only to retreat quickly under a buzz saw of opposition from conservative and GOP leaders from around the country.

With that history, Republicans seemed ready to get the fight behind them and change the subject for the rest of this election year.

"We're dumb, but we're not stupid," McCain told reporters after he voted. "We did not want to repeat the debacle of last December. It's not that complicated."

"I think everyone learned a lot from the end-of-the-year stuff," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "Everything doesn't have to be a fight." Republicans, Reid added, have "opposed virtually everything we've tried to do."

"I think they came to the conclusion that that hasn't worked out very well," Reid said.

Opposition was stronger in the Senate, where Republicans voted against the measure by a 2-1 margin. Five Democrats and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., opposed the measure, while 14 Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, backed it.

In the House, however, a solid majority of Republicans backed the measure despite reservations about its $89 billion impact on the budget deficit over the coming decade.