Pipeline, payroll tax votes

Someone in Washington seems to have gotten the message.

As late as Wednesday, the air was full of the usual threats to “shut down the government” unless Republicans accepted a largely symbolic Democratic surtax on “the rich” — and also abandoned their plan to allow the private sector to create 20,000 new jobs by instructing federal regulators to OK a Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline that’s already passed environmental muster.

But then, Thursday evening, congressional negotiators signed off on a $1 trillion spending plan for federal agencies.

Mind you, that’s still too much — especially when 40 percent will be borrowed. And because the basic budget deal was severed from debates over the pipeline and extension of a reduced rate for payroll withholdings, those issues remain unresolved.

President Obama says continuation of a reduced, 4.2 percent payroll tax rate for 160 million Americans is vital during these hard times. So the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed the extension Tuesday night, 234-193.

Initially Wednesday, Politico was reporting “The GOP bill is dead on arrival in the Democratic Senate.” By late Thursday, though, a senior Democratic aide told The Washington Post an agreement had been secured to continue the withholding tax reduction for at least two more months, at a cost of $40 billion.

That’s not shocking. For 50 years now, Congress has easily reached “bipartisan consensus” on higher deficit spending. But is more debt really what Americans want when they ask the members to “work together”?

The Republican House didn’t add just the pipeline. Their measure also scales back expensive new air pollution rules of minimal usefulness. It includes a one-year pay freeze on federal employees, blocks the incremental ban on the incandescent light bulbs most Americans prefer, and — from the supposedly doctrinaire and intransigent GOP — imposes a means-tested tax hike, increasing Medicare premiums for rich Americans.

Those who seek real economic recovery should not back down on the House provisions for the pipeline and against costly and unnecessary new “air quality” rules. This fledgling recovery needs lower taxes and less counterproductive regulation — not more.