Don't worry, it's not just you! EVERYONE is confused about what is going on with the payroll tax cut extension bill. Here's an attempt to put it in English:
- The original House bill HR 3630 (360 pages), introduced by Ways and Means Chairman, Dave Camp, on December 9, was far reaching. It contained a 1-year extension and some policy changes for the payroll tax cut, unemployment insurance (UI), physician standard growth rate (SGR), and flood insurance (and some policy changes to these programs). It also contained Keystone Pipeline expedited permitting procedures, broadband spectrum auction, some legislative stays on pending regulations, and several other provisions. HR 3630 passed the House on December 13 and was sent to the Senate.
- The Senate majority disagreed with the House bill and "amended" it by deleting basically all of its text and inserting its own amendment (34 pages) that provided a 2-month extension of the payroll tax cut, unemployment insurance, physician standard growth rate (SGR), and flood insurance, expedited Keystone Pipeline consideration, and several other provisions. HR 3630 passed the Senate on December 17 and was sent back to the House.
- According to reports, the House Leadership did not want its Members to have to vote against the Senate bill, but did not agree with a 2-month extension, so instead voted on HRes 501 (5 pages) laying out its priorities. This resolution describes the issues (a lot of "whereas"es), and lays out the approach the House majority wants to see: extend payroll tax holiday through 2012, extend and reform UI, implement a 2-year SGR fix, find other cuts, expedite Keystone pipeline consideration, capital assets expensing, and new boiler MACT rules. (Apoloogies for the acronyms.) HRes 501 passed the House on December 20.
- The House also voted on H.Res 502, which disapproved of the Senate amendment to HR 3630 and requested a conference to resolve differences. HRes 501 passed the House on December 20.
So isn't this weird for the House to send HR 3630 to conference without passing it? Yes. Usually a conference committee is set up to resolve differences between different bills that passed both chambers. In this case, the only documents for a conference committee to work from are the last version of HR 3630 that passed the Senate and HRes 501 laying out House priorities.
(Update: Our CTO and co-founder Josh tauberer points out that the House actually DID pass the original HR 3630, so the conference could technically be resolving those two bills, with HRes 502 simply the instruction to go to conference on those two bills. That makes a lot more sense.)
The Game of Chicken:
So now the House is telling the Senate to come back and appoint conferees and have a conference to come up with a new bill that would have a longer-term fix.
The Senate is telling the House that it won't come back and the House should just pass HR 3630 as amended by the Senate (the 2-month fix.)
People are weighing in on HR 3630 with POPVOX:
- (For the most part) those who oppose the current HR 3630 (the 2-month Senate fix) are supporting the House majority — and in favor of the Senate coming back to conference on a new bill.
- Those who support the current HR 3630 support the 2-month Senate version and are telling the House to pass it in its current form.
This situation is challenging. If you are looking to measure how sentiment may have changed as the bill itself made its way through the process, you should look to the line graph on the bill report. Most input on HR 3630 has come in over the past 24 hours, and therefore relates to the current version. Update: That means that letters on this bill will be sent first to Representatives in the House, since HR 3630 is pending in the House.
Hope this helps — if you have additional questions, please add them in comments and we will try to get them answered for you.
