The House voted 234 to 193 to pass the GOP-written H.R. 3630, including a payroll extension alongside significant curtailing of EPA regulatory authority, expedited approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project, federal pay freezes, privatization of national flood insurance program, broadband spectrum sales, medicare premium increases for everyone making $80,000 or more, doctor-owned hospital expansions (leading to more unnecessary and expensive testing and procedures), drug-testing and means-testing for receipt of benefits under the unemployment compensation insurance program (because some 2600 millionaires got about $8,000 apiece in 2010 through the insurance program when they lost their jobs) along with curtailment of the time period for those benefits even in the midst of a still dampened growth economy, and other "ideological candy" (using Senator Reid's term for the Republican agenda encapsulated in the bill).
Now it is on to the Senate, where Reid says there will be substantial amendments. Actually, they should take out everything and start over with a clean bill for extension of unemployment compensation and the payroll tax cut, funded by a millionaire's surtax and an increase in the capital gains tax rate (transitioning towards complete elimination of the preference). There's not much that's worth retaining in the House version.
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