PAYROLL TAX CUT; A POSSIBILITY.

The payroll tax cut proposal is still in contention, and the United States Congress is about to break for the holiday season, with no decision on its outcome.

President Barack Obama wants to have members of Congress to stay on the matter and to arrive at making the measure passed, otherwise the tax burden of ordinary working people will begin to go up as early as January 1st, 2012.

Meanwhile, the Senate has rejected a Democratic plan as well as a Republican plan, with the Democrats requesting a surtax of 1.6% on people earning $1 million dollars or more a year. While the Republican plan tend to reduce government workforce by 10%, among other things.

Showing that the conservatives aim of cutting the size of government was influential in the Republican plan, and the liberal side of the Democratic Party, which has the support of the Trade Unions and opposing such act would stand its ground; and therefore the situation would remain unmoved, with no compromise of any kind.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, has announced another version of the bill in a meeting that was held behind closed doors, and it was very different from the one from the White House.

He was saying that, "they’ve already cut spending, changed the culture of the Capitol and stopped Obama’s agenda in its tracks." (Politico 12/09/11).

His plan also has the attachment of the controversial Keystone pipeline that the Obama administration has given the State Department the responsibility to handle. The president has objected to it as being part of the payroll tax cut initiative.

Speaker Boehner's bill would definitely pass in the House, but it would not make any inroads in the Senate; and so the impasse would continue.

However, where would that leave the country? Should politics as usual prevail in Washington D.C., while the fate of millions of households was in the balance, whether the unemployment benefit, which formed part of Obama's proposal, would be extended?

Though, the breadwinners in those families were out of work, they would want to cater to their members, in terms of making the holiday season worthwhile for them. Should they be denied that privilege?

As said yesterday, that Congress should reconsider, as the spirit of the season demanded that goodwill should be extended to all citizens, and therefore a compromise was within its reach to have the payroll tax cut to become a possibility in the next few days.

It must shove politics aside and act without any hesitation whatsoever.