Tax cuts have US Congress split

Republican and Democratic leaders are getting an early taste of the political challenges they’ll face next year, as lawmakers in both parties resist the push to pass legislation to prevent taxes from increasing for most Americans next year.

The compromise measure hammered out between President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders passed the Senate yesterday, 81-19, and will come up in the House.

The core of the Senate opposition came from fiscally conservative Republicans, such as Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Jim DeMint of South Carolina, and Democrats who oppose extending tax breaks for the wealthy, including Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Tom Harkin of Iowa. In the House, that same sort of mismatched group is complicating passage prospects.

The obstacles facing the legislation exposed internal tensions in both parties, highlighting the difficulties their leaders will face building coalitions in a new Congress in which Democrats control the Senate while Republicans lead the House. In the House, Republicans gained the majority in part because of new members swept into office in November’s elections on a wave of support from fiscally conservative Tea Party activists.

“Republicans will have to manage a Tea Party caucus that feels free to fight against leadership,” said Brian Darling, director of Senate relations at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based group that promotes limited government.

Among Democrats, who also lost six Senate seats in November’s elections, discontent with Obama has grown as the economic recovery from the worst recession since the Great Depression has proved slower than the administration forecast.