Nightly News   |  December 06, 2010

Obama closes in on tax cut deal

President Obama on Monday announced that Congress is close to striking a deal to keep tax cuts in return for jobless benefits extension. NBC's Chuck Todd reports.

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>>> good evening. it's a fair question. for a while now, americans have been wondering how law mmakers in washington could possibly extend tax breaks for wealthy americans while allowing benefits for jobless americans to be cut off. it's all just a part of the fight between the parties. the president, the republicans, the fight over what the mid teshg elections meant. they've been talking at the white house where word arrived of the makings of a deal. the president going before cameras to talk about it. we begin with our chief white house correspondent chuck todd and our congressional correspondent kelly o'donnell. and chuck, we'll begin with you. this all came together late in the day .

>> reporter: that's right, brian. congressional democratic leaders just left here about an hour ago. the deal is, all but done. this compromise struck between the white house , congressional republicans, and they're awaiting the final approval of congressional democrats. here's the broad outline of the compromise. a two-year extension of the so-called bush tax cuts , so no tax rates go up. a 13-month extension on unemployment benefits . and then the final thing in here that may get democrats to sign on is a payroll tax holiday. it's a 2 percentage point payroll tax cut. to put this in terms, a family of four with a household income of $50,000 a year will get a $1,000 tax break next year. how much does this cost the government? in lost revenue they were projecting to have next year, it's going to cost proximally $500 billion. that's actually more than the yearly cost of that stimulus package that president obama put into effect back at the start of 2009 . look, it's not a done deal as one administration official said to me. it's close to being done. but there are still some is to dot and ts to cross, brian.