PAYROLL TAX, PEACE, JOY & GOODWILL.

The payroll tax cut fight is not exactly over yet, but if it is looked on as a boxing match, the winner is President Barack Obama.

He was able to sign the two month extension of the legislation in the White House before he left for his Holiday break in his native Hawaii.

He has had the full support of the nation behind him, which was a rare sight to see in a confused political situation in Washington D.C. that seemed to have polarized America.

The struggle over the debt ceiling and deficit reduction, which led to the formation of a Super Committee, has gone on for too long, and the shadow of it has been allowed to permeate every deliberation of the United States Congress, to the extent that nothing would ever cause the Democratic Party and the Republican Party to reach a single agreement.

The gap was too big for liberals on one side and conservatives on the other to be bridged, not that both parties did not have the country's best interest at heart, they wanted to do so in their own, but separate ways.

However, when President Obama, Sens. Reid and McConnell with Speaker John Boehner put their heads together, what was strange in American politics recently occurred, that the two factions, Democrats and Republicans, would be able to compromise on a great number of issues facing the country, despite all their differences.

It must be obvious that an astounding amount of hard feelings was going on in the Republican Party, and the frustration of many of its Congressional members would be directed against the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner, to the point of threatening his position as Speaker.

Yet, to many, he did succumb to the pressure of the American people, who have been aggravated by the conduct of Congress that it was not doing the job that the whole country expected of its members.

They were engaged in too much disagreement for them to see their way clear to deal with the issues affecting the people that voted them there, owing mainly to party dogma. Its (Congress's) approval rating has hit the lowest point of 14%; and there was no sign in sight that the members were seriously doing anything about it.

There were only deadlocks and gridlocks, stalemates and impasses, stand off after stand off, and with such attitude nothing could be achieved, the people surmised; hence, the low approval numbers that were getting worse as each day went by.

The Holiday season has never come at the right time as now, for lawmakers to have a respite that they so much needed, to enable them to break away from the tedium of grand standing and abject stubbornness by Democrats as well as Republicans in Washington(ian) debates.

It would be the hope of all Americans that they would come back next year with a renewed kind of verve to continue with their work.

They, as our military men and women, must always be congratulated and appreciated; because, come to think of it, they were all volunteers serving the citizens of this country.

2012 is an election year, and it is bound to be hectic, and that is why this year's spate of uncompromising stances are to be put behind, for the nation to have a new beginning, and be able to tackle its problems in a spirit of cooperation transcending all idealism.

Peace, joy and good will to all men (and women).