Reid lays payroll tax-cut trap for Republicans

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) attacked Republicans on Tuesday morning for their anticipated opposition to President Obama's payroll tax cut extension bill, which the Senate will likely take up later this week.

Reid reminded Republicans that they usually support tax cuts of any kind and even quoted his counterpart, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), in speaking out in favor of the payroll tax cut in previous years.

"In 2009, Sen. McConnell went on to say that, 'Republicans, generally speaking, from Maine to Mississippi, like tax relief,' " said Reid. "Yet Republicans already appear poised to block this legislation."

The plan, proposed by Obama, would cut payroll taxes to 3.1 percent as well as halve the 6.2 percent tax paid by employers on the first $5 million of their payroll. Overall, the plan is expected to cost about $248 billion and would be paid for by charging a surtax on Americans who earn more than $1 million annually.

Republicans opposition to the bill, however, is focused on the pay-for mechanism, a "surtax on millionaires," which applies a 3.25 percent tax on modified adjusted gross income over $1 million, or $500,000 for a married individual filing separately. This tax would take effect in 2013.

Similar pay-for mechanimsm have sunk fragments of the Obama jobs bills already taken up by the Senate earlier this year.