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Despite bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for extending a temporary payroll tax cut for the rest of 2012, lawmakers have yet to close the deal.

The reason? Same ol’, same ol’.

With just 28 days left before the current two-month Band-Aid version expires, the sticking point for lawmakers is how to pay for an extension — the very same reason that tripped them up when they tried to negotiate a full-year extension in December.

Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, told the House Budget Committee on Wednesday that he estimates that extending the payroll tax cut for another 10 months will cost $100 billion.

The measure is expected to be part of a larger package that also extends emergency federal unemployment benefits and prevents a scheduled pay cut to Medicare physicians.

Bush tax cuts: The real endgame

The payroll tax cut, if extended, would affect 160 million U.S. workers. It would reduce how much they pay into Social Security, thereby increasing their take-home pay. While normally they would have to pay 6.2% on the first $110,100 of their income for this year, the measure would reduce that to 4.2%. So a person making $50,000 would pocket an extra $1,000 a year — or $83 a month — as a result.

That reduced 4.2% rate was in effect for all of 2011 but is set to expire by March 1, barring any action by lawmakers.

Not everyone in Congress is in love with the idea of extending the measure. But there seems to be less argument about how doing so could help the economy in the short run.

"Extending the payroll tax cut through the end of the year will increase output and increase employment," Elmendorf told lawmakers payday loans.

Congress = Uncertainty, Inc.

He didn’t offer specific numbers during the hearing. But in a briefing on Tuesday, he estimated that extending the payroll tax cut for 2012 could add 0.25% to the gross domestic product by the end of the year and reduce the unemployment rate by one- to two-tenths of a percent..

A similar economic effect could result from extending the unemployment benefits. Doing so could boost economic growth this year by 0.25% and create 250,000 jobs by the end of 2012, Elmendorf said.

That’s because in both cases the money would go largely to people who are likely to spend most if not all of it. That, in turn, can spur demand for products and help bolster employment.

The select group of lawmakers designated to negotiate a final payroll tax cut deal will meet for the third time on Wednesday. There’s no telling when they may conclude a deal but one constituency is hoping for some clarity soon.

As they were last year, payroll tax administrators are hoping Congress resolves the issue once and for all, according to Michael O’Toole, senior director of government relations of the American Payroll Association.

"Payroll systems and the federal payroll tax reporting scheme are not set up to accommodate more than one employee Social Security tax rate in a calendar year, let alone within the same quarter," he said. 

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U.S. economic growth may not top 2 percent this year and a third round of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve would have little effect, said Martin Feldstein, a professor of economics at Harvard University.

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A government watchdog says U.S. taxpayers are still owed $132.9 billion that companies haven’t repaid from the financial bailout, and some of that will never be recovered.

The bailout launched at the height of the financial crisis in September 2008 will continue to exist for years, says a report issued Thursday by Christy Romero, the acting special inspector general for the $700 billion bailout. Some bailout programs, such as the effort to help homeowners avoid foreclosure by reducing mortgage payments, will last as late as 2017, costing the government an additional $51 billion or so.

The gyrating stock market has slowed the Treasury Department’s efforts to sell off its stakes in 458 bailed-out companies, the report says. They include insurer American International Group Inc., General Motors Co. and Ally Financial Inc.

If Treasury plans to sell its stock in the three companies at or above the price where taxpayers would break even on their investment _ $28.73 a share for AIG, $53.98 for GM _ it may take a long time for the market to rebound to that level, the report says. AIG’s shares closed Wednesday at $25.31, while GM ended at $24.92. Ally isn’t publicly traded.

It will also be challenging for the government to get out of the 458 companies as the market remains volatile and banks struggle keep afloat in the tough economy, it says.

Congress authorized $700 billion for the bailout of financial companies and automakers, and $413.4 billion was paid out. So far the government has recovered about $318 billion. The bailout is called the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

“TARP is not over,” Romero said in a statement. She said her office will maintain its commitment to protect taxpayers for the duration of the program.

Treasury spokesman Matt Anderson said the department “has made substantial progress winding down TARP and has already recovered more than 77 percent of the funds disbursed for the program, through repayments and other income.”

“We’ll continue to balance the important goals of exiting our investments as soon as practicable and maximizing value for taxpayers,” Anderson said.

The government has unwound its investments in four of the companies that received the most aid: Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Chrysler Group LLC and Chrysler Financial, the automaker’s old lending arm.

On Wednesday, Treasury announced that it had sold the final batch of securities under its $368 million Small Business Administration loan program under TARP.

In Romero’s quarterly report to Congress, she said her office has uncovered and prevented fraud related to TARP. Investigations by her office have resulted in criminal charges against 10 people and three convictions, the report notes.

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Ever since oil was discovered in the North Sea off the British coast in December 1969, the Scottish National Party claimed it for Scotland.

Now in power and closer than ever to a referendum on whether to break from the U.K. after more than 300 years, the SNP government in Edinburgh led by Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond is counting on tax revenue from the oil industry as a key pillar of the economy along with financial services.

Builders began work on fewer houses than forecast in December, capping the worst year on record for single-family home construction and signaling recovery in the industry will take time.

Housing starts dropped 4.1 percent to a 657,000 annual rate last month, reflecting a slump in multifamily dwellings, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. Building permits, a proxy for future construction, were little changed.

Four years after housing helped spark the last recession, falling home prices and ongoing foreclosures are hampering an industry-wide recovery. For all of 2011, work was started on 428,600 single-family homes as construction competed with the surfeit of previously owned dwellings.

The Greek government and its creditors return to the negotiating table this week to revive stalled talks on a debt swap as German Chancellor Angela Merkel places pressure on both sides to forge a deal.

Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said two days ago that talks with the Institute of International Finance will resume on Jan. 18. The Washington-based IIF, which represents banks holding the bonds, said on Jan. 14 there is a

With the worst recent financial record in the industry and poisonous labor relations, American Airlines wasn’t a very attractive target for buyers.

That view is changing now that American and parent AMR Corp. are reorganizing under the bankruptcy process at the same time that most other airlines have returned to profitability. Mergers have reduced competition and helped drive up fares.

Suddenly, American Airlines is in play. US Airways Group Inc. has hired advisers to study AMR, according to a source familiar with the situation, and reports say that Delta Air Lines Inc. and buyout firm TPG Capital are also weighing bids. None of the companies would comment.

Industry insiders expect every major U.S. airline to take a look at AMR. Despite losing money every year since 2008 and missing out on the airline merger mania of the past few years, American is still the world’s third-biggest carrier by passenger traffic. In bankruptcy, AMR could shed billions in debt, reduce its costs and still afford new planes _ a trifecta that has caught the eye of rivals.

“Everybody has to be thinking about how to deal with AMR in two years,” said Darryl Jenkins, a consultant who has worked for airlines on previous mergers. “They will be the most efficient carrier with a new fleet. They’re going to be very desirable.”

AMR’s CEO has said the best course for American is to remain independent. But if another airline makes an offer that sounds good to creditors and the bankruptcy judge, then it could make more sense for AMR to simply sell itself.

Wolfe Trahan & Co. analyst Hunter Keay put the chances of AMR emerging from bankruptcy as a stand-alone airline at no better than 20 percent. He thinks that with Delta’s access to borrowing and US Airway’s connections to deep-pocketed TPG, there could even be a bidding war for AMR.

Several other airlines or other suitors could pursue AMR. Each combination would carry its own pros and cons:

_ US Airways would get needed size. In the last few years, it failed in bids to buy or merge with Delta and United and now finds itself the nation’s fifth-largest airline.

“The combination that makes the most sense is US Airways with American because they both need a bigger presence to appeal to business travelers,” said Saranthi Syth, an analyst for Raymond James Financial Inc.

The US Airways hub in Philadelphia could help American expand service from the eastern U.S. to Europe and take pressure off American’s trans-Atlantic bottleneck at New York’s Kennedy Airport, said Bob McAdoo, an airline analyst for Avondale Partners.

Other analysts, however, said US Airways wouldn’t offer much help in key markets such as Asia, where American is weaker than United and Delta. Its hubs, including Charlotte, N.C., and Phoenix, are in the kind of secondary cities from which American has been retreating. And such a deal would merge two airlines with already poor labor relations and pilots represented by different unions.

US Airways has not yet discussed a merger directly with American, but has hired investment adviser Jim Millstein and Barclays Capital to study how a deal might look, a source with knowledge of the situation said free online credit report. This person requested anonymity because the status of the airline’s examination of American has not been publicly disclosed.

_ Delta would love to get American’s routes in Latin America, but analysts think a combination of these two would be too big to win regulatory approval without major divestitures _ both are already big in New York, for example. That has some experts thinking that Delta is only interested in cherry-picking parts of AMR if it is broken up.

_ United Continental Holdings Inc., the world’s biggest airline, would benefit by adding American’s operations at London’s Heathrow Airport. But a United bid would face the same _ or even tougher _ regulatory scrutiny than a Delta offer, and the company is still busy absorbing Continental. But few would be surprised if United is intrigued.

“If Delta is going to take a look at AMR, United will take a look at AMR,” said Sterne Agee analyst Jeff Kauffman.

_ TPG Capital would have one advantage: not being an airline, it would presumably face fewer regulatory hurdles. It has worked amicably with AMR and its new CEO. But it’s not clear how a buyer that’s not an airline will help boost AMR revenue and some analysts don’t believe TPG will be a serious bidder in the end.

American’s labor unions, despite a history of poor relations with management, are wary of a takeover. James C. Little, president of the Transport Workers Union, which represents American’s mechanics and other ground workers, said he fears that a buyer would send aircraft-overhaul work overseas. American employees do most of that work in the U.S., while rival airlines have outsourced it.

For now, at least publicly, American Airlines is taking the position that it would prefer to remain independent.

New CEO Thomas Horton, in a letter to employees two weeks after the bankruptcy filing, said “opportunists” might try to buy the company while it’s down but that “the best path for American is the one that leads us back to the top.”

McAdoo, the Avondale analyst, thinks American will most likely remain independent because its labor unions and new CEO might prefer that to being bought by another airline that has its own unions and CEO.

“Here’s a guy (Horton) who just got promoted to CEO,” McAdoo said. “Is he going to want to give up that title, and pair up with a company where he isn’t the CEO?”

Gordon Bethune, a former Continental Airlines CEO who evaluated offers for Delta during that airline’s bankruptcy, said AMR greatly helped its chances of remaining independent by filing for Chapter 11 when it still had $4 billion in cash _ enough to buy time.

“They don’t need financing,” Bethune said. “They don’t need to go begging and get involved with somebody they don’t want to get involved with.”

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When Eric Pierart takes in the chaotic wiggling of thousands of hens caged in his renovated barn, he’s reminded of how tough it is for Europe to unite on anything.

And how much time it takes.

A dozen years after the European Union set Jan. 1, 2012 as the date to eliminate the most cramped cages to improve the living standards of egg laying hens, half of the 27 European Union nations have failed to fully comply _ a flop seen as a metaphor for Europe’s current state of disarray.

“In all, they have been talking about it for 30 years,” complained the ruddy-cheeked Pierart, who adhered to the new rules.

“Now, it shows that common ideas for everyone are still hard to come by.”

Such is the way of the EU, where legislation seeps through layers of political and institutional granite in 27 nations at barely a trickle. And it affects a lot more than just the happiness of chickens.

Take the global economy.

For nearly two years, the world has been crying out for immediate and drastic measures to combat a debt crisis that has threatened to trigger a worldwide depression.

For nearly two years, the world has come away frustrated with explanations that Europe is not a legislative superhighway.

Now the fate of the lowly laying hen is again underscoring how slow a process it is to get everyone in the quilt of nations that is the European Union to unite on a common cause.

Many chicken farmers who made the heavy investment on time are now at a competitive disadvantage from laggards who didn’t. Pierart says he spent some euro1.5 million ($1.9 million) on new equipment for 100,000 chickens.

In this chicken-and-egg situation, it’s hard to pinpoint who’s ultimately to blame.

Some fault the glacial pace of continentwide legislation, as well as the EU’s poor checks, controls and enforcement.

Others point the finger at the perceived bad faith of some EU nations, seen as turning a laudable ideal into a logistical mess.

“If it is already so difficult for this, then how tough is it for 27 nations on much bigger issues?” Pierart asked.

It’s all deepened well-worn stereotypes that have long dogged the European Union _ about how the less affluent south and east skirt the rules, about how upright nations like Germany end up paying for it all, and about the bloated EU institutions that seem unable to do anything about it.

Those institutions, often identified simply as “Brussels”, can be a soft target. Fix something, and they’re accused of meddling. When things goes wrong, they’re accused of inaction or incompetence.

“It’s an absolute joke,” said Ian Plant, the owner of Plants Eggs in England’s Lincolnshire, who, like Pierart, made the switch on time.

“This is such a serious situation that someone at the end of the day has to get to grips with it.”

Even EU Consumer Policy Commissioner Dalli has said the hen imbroglio is undermining the EU’s credibility.

His office said that 14 member states are still not complying with the rules, including France, Italy, Poland and Spain.

That has particularly irked Britain, which has deep animal rights traditions and often seizes on any perceived slight from the European Union easy payday loans.

“It is unacceptable that after the ban on battery cages comes into effect around 50 million hens across Europe will still remain in poor conditions,” said British Agriculture Minister Jim Paice.

The European Commission says the total stands at 46 million hens still kept in illegal battery cages out of 330 million, or roughly 14 percent.

The new rules require cages to boost living space per hen to at least 750 sq. centimeters (115 sq. inches) from at least 550 square centimeters (85 square inches), among other measures.

“We have all had plenty of time to make these changes,” Paice said. “It would be unthinkable if countries continuing to house hens in poor conditions were to profit from flouting the law.”

The European Commission says it will be sending inspectors and starting legal proceedings against the recalcitrant nations as soon as possible. But those, too, can be lengthy, and meanwhile member states are left to deal with the potentially unfair competition as best they can.

“It can go all the way to the European Court of Justice,” said EU Commission spokesman Frederic Vincent, referring to the EU’s highest court. “It can lead to penalties.”

To many farmers, though, that is too little too late.

And animal welfare activists are equally frustrated. The cock-up with the hens reminds Michel Vandenbosch, leader of Belgian animal rights group Gaia, of how Greece _ whose debt woes triggered the financial crisis _ cooked its budgetary books for years until it was found out in 2009.

“Greece made a fool of the EU for years,” Vandenbosch said. “And now in this case too, they see things when it is too late.”

After all the years of work, Vandenbosch said the campaign to win hens a bit more wiggle room almost wasn’t worth the effort.

“Chickens won’t notice the difference,” he said. Instead of working with EU politicians, he said his organization has had at least as much success working on market players like Unilever, which is now moving well beyond EU rules and toward using only eggs from cage-free birds in their food products.

“Politics will have to realize how the market reacts, and they will have to follow,” Vandenbosch said.

In England, Plant said his renovations cost several million pounds.

“Having made this sort of investment, having been told by our government all the way along that this legislation was gold-plated, that it had to be completed by Jan. 1, we are now very disillusioned to find that substantial parts of Europe haven’t complied,” he said.

And when Europe fails, many still look to national borders as a line of defense.

“We’re now faced with a situation where something has to be done about these illegal eggs coming onto the British market,” said Plant.

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The euro extended its decline against the dollar after French borrowing costs rose at a sale of bonds.

The 17-nation common European currency was 0.9 percent weaker at $1.2832 at 10:08 a easy to get unsecured personal loans.m. London time.

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Subscribers of Time Warner Cable woke up New Year’s morning to find the sports channels MSG Network and MSG+ missing from their cable TV line-up.

The New York cable company says fans may miss games featuring the New York Knicks, Rangers and Islanders; the Buffalo Sabres; and New Jersey Devils. That’s because it has failed to reach an agreement with the MSG networks owner, Madison Square Garden Co.

It is the latest spat between a cable company and a channel provider that underscores the friction on both sides over the fees carriers pay for channels.

According to Time Warner Cable, MSG wanted a 53 percent increase in the rates it charges the cable network for its games. Time Warner said this demand came after the two companies had already agreed to a 6 no faxing pay day loans.5 percent rate increase last year.

“We hope the fans will remind MSG that in these economic times, no one can afford to pay 53 percent more for their channel,” said Mike Angus, senior vice president, Content Acquisition, for Time Warner Cable.

MSG says no agreement has been reached and has urged its customers to switch providers.

The first games scheduled in 2012 on MSG Networks are at 7 p.m. Monday: New York Knicks-Toronto Raptors and New Jersey Devils-Ottawa Senators.

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