US President Barack Obama went Christmas shopping Wednesday, but he already had in his pocket what some pundits say was the best holiday gift ever. Obama is home alone in the White House, making a pointed display of staying put in Washington while most of Congress goes home and his family has already left for the state where he grew up, Hawaii.
Trailed by television cameras, the president headed to northern Virginia to shop at Best Buy for video games for his daughters and a pet store for an item for the family dog, Bo, who went along for the ride.
But even better was the gift he has been given by Republicans, who are in disarray over extending a popular tax cut that will expire on December 31 unless a deal is reached.
Senate Republicans have agreed with Democrats on a two-month extension. But House Republicans have rejected the plan, raising the prospect that 160 million Americans will have an average of 40 dollars fewer every week to do their own shopping.
According to CBS news, Obama kept his shopping bill to just over 40 dollars, underlining the White House "What Does 40 Dollars Mean to You?" campaign intended to highlight what's at stake.
At issue is the 12.4 percent payroll tax that funds old age government pensions. It is normally split evenly between employers and employees. In 2011, under a tax law signed by Obama, employees pay only 4.2 per cent while employers continue to pay 6.2 per cent.
But if that tax cut is not extended, workers will go back to paying the full 6.2 percent.
The conservative Wall Street Journal was fed up with the Republican disarray, writing on Wednesday that they were shooting themselves in the foot.
"Given how (Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell) and House Speaker John Boehner have handled the payroll tax debate, we wonder if they might end up re-electing the president before the 2012 campaign even begins in earnest," the newspaper wrote in an editorial.
Boehner is under huge pressure from a large group of Republican freshmen legislators who belong to the Tea Party, a fringe force of upstarts who campaigned against "business as usual" in Washington to win election in 2010. The group also helped bring the United States to the brink of defaulting on its debt earlier this year.
"Mr Obama is in a stronger re-election position today than he was a year ago," the Journal wrote, thanks to Republican mismanagement. The fracas serves as a backdrop to the race among Republican White House hopefuls for their party's nomination. On January 3, the first event of the primary elections will take place in Iowa, with an informal caucus, followed by the more important primary vote in New Hampshire on January 10.
Obama called Boehner earlier Wednesday, urging him to support the short-term extension already approved by nearly 90 per cent of the Senate. That bipartisan agreement was a rare landmark of collaboration in the contentious, gridlocked atmosphere of Washington these days.