By Ben Weyl, CQ Staff

There were hopes when the fall began that a deficit reduction proposal from the joint “supercommittee” would be a speedy vehicle for jobs-creation measures. But the panel’s inability to reach a deal leaves congressional leaders in need of a different way to break a partisan standoff over the best way to stimulate economic growth.

The high unemployment rate resulting from a lagging economy has become a more potent political issue than the budget deficit, and the Obama administration and both parties in the House and Senate have already shifted their emphasis to jobs. Leaders in both chambers are prepared to offer jobs-creation agendas when the House and Senate reconvene this week.

Senate Democratic leaders plan at least a procedural vote this week on extending and expanding the Social Security payroll tax reduction, scheduled to expire at year’s end. The vote would be the latest Democratic effort to advance a component of the broad $447 billion jobs package (S 1549) proposed by the White House. But Republican opposition is almost certain to doom any extension offered on President Obama’s terms that the cost be offset by an income tax hike for those making more than $1 million a year.

Senate Democrats have tried to take up the president’s package both as a whole and as individual components designed to preserve the jobs of teachers, emergency responders and construction workers. But they have been unable to muster 60 votes for those proposals.

Senate Republicans have offered a jobs agenda that includes a balanced-budget constitutional amendment, a presidential line-item veto, a corporate income tax cut, a lower tax rate for corporate overseas earnings brought into this country and an expansion of offshore oil drilling.

The Republican majority in the House has passed bills that the GOP says would preserve and create jobs by rolling back or heading off unnecessary regulation.

The only piece of Obama’s jobs package to gain bipartisan support is a new law (PL 112-56) providing tax credits to companies that hire veterans, and repealing a requirement that government agencies withhold taxes from payments to contractors. That bill advanced because its cost was offset with an extension of current fees on Veterans Affairs home loans rather than with a tax increase.

The Social Security payroll tax cut was part of last December’s tax agreement (PL 111-312) that extended the George W. Bush-era tax rates through 2012. The employee-paid share of the Social Security tax was temporarily reduced, from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent. Obama now wants to reduce the payroll tax to 3.1 percent for workers, at a cost of $175 billion, and cut the employer share in half through 2012 for each employer’s first $5 million in wage costs.

The Senate’s likely rejection this week of an extension does not necessarily mean that the payroll tax cut will not eventually be renewed. The persistently high unemployment rate and concerns that the economy might again slow and fall into recession could spur lawmakers to find a bipartisan way to pass an extension.

House Republicans plan to continue passing bills from their regulatory relief agenda. Votes are scheduled this week on GOP-sponsored bills to counter a National Labor Relations Board rule change designed to speed union elections (HR 3094), require more consideration of the costs of federal regulations (HR 3010) and give the Small Business Administration more authority to blunt the impact of federal regulations on small firms (HR 527).

tors. That bill was able to advance because its cost was offset with an extension of current fees on Veterans Affairs home loans rather than with a tax increase.

The Social Security payroll tax cut was part of last December’s tax agreement (PL 111-312) that extended the George W. Bush administration tax cuts through 2012. The employee-paid share of the Social Security tax was temporarily reduced from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent. Obama now wants to reduce the payroll tax to 3.1 percent for workers at a cost of $175 billion, and cut the employer share in half through 2012 for each employer’s first $5 million in wage costs.

The Senate’s likely rejection of an extension this week does not necessarily mean the payroll tax cut will not eventually be renewed. The persistently high unemployment rate and concerns that the economy might again slow and fall into recession could spur lawmakers to find a bipartisan way to pass an extension.