In a rare burst of bipartisanship in a bitterly divided Congress, lawmakers hoped to unveil the measure Wednesday night so it could be voted on Friday in the House and then quickly pass the Senate.
The legislation would continue a 2 percentage-point cut in the Social Security payroll tax, renew jobless benefits averaging about $300 a week for people languishing for long periods on unemployment rolls, and protect doctors from a huge cut in their Medicare reimbursements.
Obama was getting his licks in before the agreement was announced.
"I'm glad to see that Congress seems to be . . . making progress on extending the payroll-tax cut so taxes don't go up on all of you and 160 million working Americans," he said at an appearance at a lock factory in Milwaukee. "It will make a real difference in the lives of millions of people."
The measure carries a price tag of roughly $150 billion over the coming year, partly financed through requiring federal workers to contribute an additional 1.5 percent of their earnings toward their pensions. That provision, bitterly fought by federal unions, would generate $15 billion over the coming decade.
Auctions of portions of the communications spectrum to wireless companies would net another $15 billion or so - even after $7 billion is set aside to construct and run a new public safety network for emergency first responders.
Extending the payroll-tax cut and renewing long-term jobless benefits were key planks in Obama's jobs program, which was announced in September but has been largely ignored since. The measures are intended to help the economy by giving people more money to spend, fattening a typical bimonthly paycheck by $40 or so and giving the unemployed critical cash that most of them turn around and spend immediately.
The measure also includes a key adjustment to the badly broken Medicare payment formula for doctors, which would otherwise impose a 27 percent cut March 1 under a 1997 budget law. The $20 billion cost would be covered in part by cuts to a fund created under Obama's health-care law that awards grants for preventive care and by curbs on Medicaid payments to hospitals that care for a disproportionate share of uninsured patients.
House Speaker John A. Boehner (R., Ohio) said the legislation would probably be voted on by the end of the week. GOP leaders had jump-started the talks over the weekend by dropping a demand that the tax cut be paid for with spending cuts. On Monday, Republicans upped the ante by threatening to advance the payroll-tax cut on its own - and leave jobless benefits and the Medicare fix behind.
