House Abandons Brave Fight To Raise Taxes on Workers, Passes Extension

It's a FESTIVUS MIRACLE, kids, get ready for it: Barack Obama and Harry Reid and millions of Americans wanted A Thing, and the House Republicans finally just agreed to give it to them! It was not easy! House Republicans passed the two-month payroll tax cut extension with a fun "unanimous consent" vote that didn't force Representatives to actually vote up or down but just to shut up and not say anything for roughly as long as it took John Boehner to say on the House floor, "Bill passes if it's quiet for the next ten seconds." Even this part about the shutting up was very hard for some of the teabagger freshmen, but luckily there's Twitter, for yelling. Hooray!

But John Boehner still just needs to clarify that it pained him to do something nice for America:

“I’ve talked to enough members over the last 24 hours who believe that, ‘Hey, we don’t like this two month extension [but] if you can get this fixed, why not do the right thing for the American people, even though it’s not exactly what we want.”

Come on, John Boehner, the Republicans have still enjoyed a pretty banner year in inexplicable meanness, don't feel so bad!

So what does the average American worker win, Bob? A $50k-per-year worker will get to keep $20 more per week than if the tax cut had expired. Good! Although... given how badly the payroll extension fight damaged the House Republicans, it might have been a worthwhile sacrifice for America to trade the $20 a week each in exchange for the much better holiday gift of the end of the current Republican party. [ AP / TPM ]