Senate Votes to Extend Payroll Tax Cut

WASHINGTON — In the ultimate cap to a year of last-minute, half-loaf legislation, the Senate voted overwhelmingly on Saturday to extend a payroll tax cut for two months, with the chamber’s leaders and the White House proclaiming victory, even as they pushed the issue of how to extend the tax cut and unemployment benefits into the new year.

In the unusual Saturday vote, the Senate approved a $30 billion package to extend unemployment benefits, a payroll tax holiday for millions of American workers and avoided cuts in payments to doctors who accept Medicare through February, when Congress will once again be locked in battle over whether and how to further extend those provisions.

The agreement - should it get through the House — mirrors a series of 11th-hour deals devised by the 112th Congress that appear to solve an impending crisis, but simply push the issues forward, most notably the agreement last summer to raise the debt ceiling. That created a 12-member Congressional committee whose job was to complete the deficit-reduction goals that Congress failed to achieve. That group achieved nothing, necessitating the legislation that Congress is wrangling with now.

A failure to even extend a modest tax break for 160 million Americans for a single year — something both sides would love as political feather’s in their election-year caps — is particularly remarkable in a Congress charged with far more significant items.

“Today is an important day for our country,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, as he explained from the Senate floor Saturday why his chamber would be voting on a bill, conceived Friday in private between Senate leaders to extend the tax cut for only two months. “We are doing today exactly what the founding fathers thought we would do,” and passage of the bills is “an accomplishment important for the American people.”

The measure, which passed 89 to 10, would also speed the decision process for the construction of an oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

While this provision is necessary to win over Republicans who opposed the tax break, the White House moved furiously to portray that concession, which President Obama threatened to veto just a week ago, as a boon for Democrats, because the legislation calls for a tight deadline on the approval process, easing his ability to stop the project more quickly.

“This is an important step towards enacting a key provision of the President’s American Jobs Act and a significant victory for the American people and the economy,” said Dan Pfeiffer, White House communications director, late Friday. “Because as independent analysts have said, failing to extend this tax cut would have had a damaging effect on our recovery and job growth.”

But Democratic aides said this concession would have the effect of killing the project because the Obama administration has said it would not grant approval on a truncated timeline.

Republicans, who have spent much of the year saying that tax breaks for Americans should not require offsets, also celebrated.

“The main thing that Republicans were fighting for and got,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, also on the Senate floor, was the Keystone provision. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill reduces the deficit by about $3 billion.

With House members back in their districts and not expected back in the Capitol until next week, it was not clear that the legislation will even pass muster in that chamber. Many Republicans are loath to give President Obama another few months — overlapping his State of the Union address — to beat up on their party over the extension of the payroll tax cut, which many rank-and-file members dislike in principle.

While House Speaker John A. Boehner and other Republican leaders in the House were briefed on the Senate plan Friday, they could not commit the support of the Republican conference. “We have not signed off on anything at this point,” said Kevin Smith, a spokesman for Mr. Boehner, “and no decisions will be made until we talk to our members.”
(nytimes.com)

Putin's approval falls to year's low: Russian poll

MOSCOW - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's approval rating has dropped to its lowest level of the year in the first opinion poll published since his ruling party suffered an election setback and he faced the biggest protests of his 12-year rule.

A poll conducted on December 10-11 and released Friday showed 51 percent of Russians approved of how he has done his job, down from 61 percent in a November 28-29 survey and 68 percent in January, state pollster VTsIOM said.

The poll highlighted discontent and fatigue with the 59-year-old leader as he prepares for a presidential election in March which he is widely expected to win, but not as easily as seemed likely a month ago and perhaps not in the first round.

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, suggested the decline was the result of "emotional overload" among Russians following the election and said his approval rating would swiftly recover.

"On the whole Vladimir Putin's rating remains on quite a high level, while there are fluctuations," Interfax news agency quoted Peskov as saying.

"These days are characterized by an emotional overload linked to the post-election period. But the real state of affairs indicates there are grounds to expect an increase in the premier's rating in the very near future."

Tens of thousands of people protested last Saturday to call for the rerun of the December 4 parliamentary election which opponents say was rigged to benefit the ruling United Russia party. Many protesters also said they were fed up with Putin.

Political analysts say Putin angered many Russians when he revealed a plan to switch jobs next year with President Dmitry Medvedev, the protege he steered into the Kremlin when he was barred from seeking a third term after his 2000-2008 presidency.

The decision, revealed at a September congress of United Russia, deepened feelings of disenfranchisement among Russians who believe they have no influence in a political system dominated by Putin and his party.

FIRST-ROUND VICTORY IN DOUBT?

Voters sharply reduced United Russia's parliamentary majority on December 4 but opponents say that even the party's return of 49.3 percent was inflated by fraud. International monitors also said the vote was slanted to favor United Russia.

In a marathon question-and-answer session televised live nationwide Thursday, Putin said he believed the results were in line with public opinion and made clear he would not bow to protesters' demands for a new election.

Speaking to reporters after Thursday's call-in show, Putin said the plan to make Medvedev prime minister after the presidential vote remained in place, and call United Russia's result a clear victory despite the diminished majority.

Putin had charged Medvedev with leading United Russia into the election and hinted a poor performance might make him turn to someone else to head the government if he is elected president.

The VTsIOM poll put Putin far ahead of the pack in the presidential election, with 42 percent of respondents saying they would vote for Putin. Next was Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, will 11 percent.

The poll provided no clear answer to what is shaping up as the main question about the presidential vote: Can Putin win more than 50 percent of the votes, securing victory in the first round and avoiding a run-off against the closest competitor.

While fewer than half the Russians surveyed said they would vote for Putin, some of the politicians offered as choices are not running for president, 11 percent said they would not vote and 15 percent were undecided.

Medvedev's approval rating also fell sharply in the VTsIOM poll, to 51 percent on December 10-11 from 60 percent on November 28-29 and 66 percent in January.

VTsIOM, which surveyed 1,600 people in 138 locations nationwide, and said the poll's margin of error was plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
(Reuters.com)

Gingrich, Hunstman debate affably in N.H.

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Newt Gingrich took a respite Monday from battling with Mitt Romney for the top spot on the GOP campaign totem pole to engage in something more to his liking: an affable foreign policy debate with Jon Huntsman.


The event between the former Utah governor and former House Speaker at St. Anselm College in Manchester, billed as a Lincoln-Douglas style debate, was more of a friendly discussion between a former ambassador and former professor.


At one point, Huntsman praised Gingrich for being "a great historian" - a kinder description than he offered at a Sunday media availability, when he dismissed Gingrich as a "professor" to Huntsman's superior "practitioner."


Disagreements were downplayed. When asked about dealing with a nuclear-armed Iran, Huntsman reiterated his standard answer: "All options need to be on the table."


Gingrich, on the other hand, advocated regime change, "because there's no practical scenario in which you can take out their nuclear weapon systems without them rebuilding them."


"A movement which recruits its own children to learn how to be suicide bombers," Gingrich said, "and sends them into a bus station or into a mall or into a restaurant to blow themselves up in order to kill you, is a movement which with nuclear weapons would use them in a heartbeat, because there's no effective deterrent."


Gingrich added: "If you are an Israeli prime minister, and you remember the Holocaust, and you think about the death of millions of Jews, and you look at the idea that two or three nuclear weapons is a holocaust -- Israel is a very small country, very urban population; no more than three nuclear weapons would be required to equal a holocaust -- and you say to yourself, 'Am I going to take the risk of presiding over the second holocaust, which would mean for all practical purposes virtually the end of Judaism,' you're not going to take the risk."


In remarks to reporters following the debate, Huntsman defended his decision not to engage Gingrich further on Iran.


"Well, he spoke to regime change; I spoke to a missed opportunity in terms of fall of 2009 where he missed an opening with the so-called Persian Spring," Huntsman said. "I think we're talking about the same thing in that regard."


Huntsman declined to address a question about whether he agreed with Gingrich's claim during the debate that if Israel was destroyed by nuclear weapons, it would end Judaism on the planet. But the former Utah governor said he appreciated the debate's format.


"We ought to have more like it," he said. "In fact, I'd like to challenge the other candidates to a similar sit-down; I'd like to challenge Gov. Romney to a sit-down like this. I think it's great for the voters, here in New Hampshire particularly, because we've got a primary right around the corner."


Making good on his remarks, Huntsman's campaign subsequently released a copy of an invitation it sent to Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades asking the former Massachusetts governor to engage in a similar debate. There was no immediate response from Romney's campaign.
(cbsnews.com)

Russia to investigate electoral fraud in wake of protests

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has ordered an investigation into the allegations of fraud in the country's disputed elections earlier this month.

The move comes after the biggest protests in over a decade across Russia, which saw tens of thousands of people gather near the Kremlin and thousands more rally in 50 cities across the country.

The unrest was sparked over widespread allegations of ballot-box stuffing in parliamentary elections held on December 4.

Protesters have demanded the government set a new election date by December 24 and the opposition has called for the chairman of the country's electoral commission to be sacked.

Mr Medvedev is rejecting calls for a new election, keeping a low profile and avoiding appearances on camera since the ballot.

But in an apparent acknowledgement of the protesters' concerns, he announced via Facebook that he will order an investigation into the widespread allegations of vote rigging.

That is not enough for many protesters, who are worried the United Russia party stole the election.

"I think it is inadequate. We support the rally. I'm sure that we were all fooled yet another time with the election," one demonstrator said.

"I'm sure that all the percentages that United Russia received are overstated and the fact that our authorities are opting out of this, it's horrible. But what can we do about it?"

Some demonstrators say they saw vote rigging first hand in the parliamentary vote.

"Almost at once we could identify people who were heading towards polling booths with stacks of voting ballots to put into the ballot box. Naturally I knew these things happened but I didn't expect to see it at my polling station," one witness said.
Putin's power

The protesters are also concerned over prime minister Vladimir Putin's decision to run for the presidency next year.

Mr Putin served as president from 1999 until 2008, but handed over to then prime minister Dmitry Medvedev because the constitution barred him from a third term.

Russian opposition MP Ilya Ponamaryov says Mr Putin always loomed large in the background and the protesters are worried about his return.

"This whole thing started in September when Mr Putin and Mr Medvedev decided to trade places without asking the rest of the population," she said.

"It was that time when people decided that we will come to the polling station and by voting against United Russia, we would express our disapproval of their decision."

Dmitry Oreshkin, an independent political analyst, says the president's call for an investigation may not be enough to satisfy the protesters.

"The public opinion is that everyone understands that there was fraud or a majority understands it," he said.

"In such a situation what the president should have done instead of posting on Facebook is to create a commission to include officials from the polling stations, members of the party structures that were monitoring the election, members of the press and members of social organisations that have a right to monitor the elections and recount the votes. It is not that complicated."

Mr Oreshkin says the president needs to be much more specific about the investigation if he hopes to mollify the protesters.

"He didn't say to whom he gave the order. Did he give orders to a firefighting squad, to an ambulance or maybe to the emergencies ministry?" he said.

"After all, it should have been stated. It is either the prosecutors or it is the investigative committee or is it the Central Elections Commission?

"If it is the elections commission, this means it is investigating itself at a time when people are expressing their mistrust of it. So I think it is an ineffective move.

"I think that the president will receive more critical remarks from the internet community than voices of support."
(abc.net.au)