The U.S. Senate approved Saturday a two-month extension of payroll-tax breaks and unemployment benefits, providing a measure of relief in a struggling economy but far less than the full-year extension that leaders of both parties had wanted.
The overwhelming 89-10 vote reflected a bipartisan desire to block a New Year’s tax increase, but it belied deep differences between the parties over tax and spending policy that will persist when Congress is forced to take up the issue again early next year.
Lurching toward the end of a bitterly partisan year, the Senate also passed a $1 trillion spending bill to finance most of the government”“a last-minute measure to keep the government from shutting down.