GOP Divided Over Payroll Tax

Apparently not everyone was on the same page in the House meeting this morning, when Speaker John Boehner said he would pass President Obama’s payroll-tax cut but push harder for other GOP policies. Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) told The New York Times that “most people standing up to speak were troubled” by Boehner’s announcement. “There was a divide between the rank and file and the leadership,” he added. One of the concerns raised by Republicans in the room was that the tax cut would undermine the Social Security Trust Fund. Another was that it would be terribly costly, and that Congress could easily be in the same boat about all of this at the end of next year.