By Richard Cowan and Thomas Ferraro
January 13, 2012 1:24 PM EST
(REUTERS) -- House Speaker John Boehner, hoping to spare fellow Republicans a second embarrassing defeat over payroll tax cuts, is prepared to navigate around rebellious Tea Party-aligned lawmakers to get a deal, according to congressional aides.
Republicans in the House of Representatives got a public drubbing from critics within and outside the party in December for initially refusing to approve a Senate plan to extend the tax break for 160 million Americans through February.
The party of lower taxes was left on the defensive, countering a barrage of criticism that its unwillingness to compromise threatened an effective tax hike on workers, potentially damaging the fragile economic recovery.
Now, with Democratic and Republican negotiators preparing for a new round of talks in the coming days to extend the payroll tax cut for the rest of the year, Republican leaders are anxious to move quickly to get a deal, aides said.
Party leaders fear another battle could distract from the more important task at hand - ousting President Barack Obama from the White House and winning majority control of the Senate in the November elections. They also want to neutralize an issue that Democrats already are using to their advantage in the presidential and congressional campaigns.
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"I think Boehner will seek a more accommodating approach to get a good percentage of Democrats to vote for it - even if it costs him a lot of House Republican freshmen," one House Republican leadership aide told Reuters.
"His instincts will be not to be so reliant on House Republican freshmen," the aide added, referring to the 85 first-term congressmen.
The freshmen, many of whom are aligned with the populist budget-slashing Tea Party movement, helped the Republican Party win control of the House in 2010 and have since proven stubbornly uncompromising in the debate over taxes and spending.
Congress has until February 29 to agree on extending the tax cut, which would give the average middle-class family about $1,000 extra a year.
Support has always been soft among Republicans for the payroll tax cut championed by Obama. They question its effectiveness in stimulating the economy and the wisdom of using revenues intended for the Social Security retirement program.
But the political fallout from the December showdown with Democrats was so unpleasant for Republicans that some congressional aides now speculate that Republicans might push to accelerate a deal by January 24, when Obama gives his annual State of the Union address to Congress.
BIGGER BILL/BIGGER PROBLEMS?
Many Tea Party-aligned lawmakers in the House are bitter that Boehner ultimately caved to pressure and agreed to the two-month extension in December. When Boehner informed his caucus of his decision in a conference telephone call, rank-and-file members' phone lines were muted in an effort to quell dissent.
Some Tea Party lawmakers, however, see round two of the payroll tax cut negotiations as another opportunity to press their demands for cuts to unemployment benefits and some federal healthcare programs and a freeze on federal workers' pay.
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