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By a vote of 229 to 193, House Republicans yesterday narrowly succeeded in blocking a two-month federal budget bill passed by the Senate without actually voting against the legislation. In a maneuver FireDogLake writer David Dayen called, “smarmy,” Republicans rejected the bill while sending it to a committee for revision in collaboration with the Senate. Dayen writes this allows House Republicans to avoid going on-record as effectively voting in favor of cutting unemployment benefits and raising taxes, on hundreds of millions of Americans during the holidays. The Senate bill would have extended the payroll tax cut and long term unemployment benefits through February. It was overwhelmingly approved in the Senate by a vote of 89 to 10. House Republicans are now at odds with their counterparts in the Senate, and observers say the House has gone rogue because of a reckless loyalty to Tea Party politics. After the vote, Speaker of the House John Boehner issued a letter to President Obama. He declared support for extensions of the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits, and urged the President to call the Senate back from recess, “so we can provide the American people the economic certainty they need.” Just after leaving ceremonies marking the end of operations in Iraq yesterday President Obama remarked on the situation, castigating the House saying, “This is not a poker game. [t]his shouldn’t be politics as usual.” He called on the House to accept the compromise Senate bill. House Republicans want a year-long deal on the $1 trillion federal budget. In recent weeks they attempted to trade approval on the payroll tax cut extension for approval from Democrats and Obama of the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Already written into the draft omnibus spending bill is a rider that prevents the energy department from funding enforcement of increased energy standards for incandescent light bulbs in 2012, a regulation Republicans said prevented freedom of choice for consumers.

GUEST: David Dayen, political writer at FireDogLake.com

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