House Passes Bill to Extend Bush-Era Tax Cuts

Democrats and Republicans have reached a compromise to extend tax cuts for the richest Americans.

It’s a rare victory for Barack Obama. Despite opposition from his own party as well as dissent among Republicans, the president managed to broker a deal on a piece of legislation that had threatened to derail the current session of Congress. Thursday night the House passed an $858-billion bill to extend Republican-backed tax cuts for the rich, but in exchange Obama got the GOP to concede to also extending unemployment benefits. The bill was passed in the Senate earlier this week. Republicans had vowed to block all other business in the Senate unless the tax cuts were extended, and the passage of the bill paves the way for Obama to push through legislation repealing the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.