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GOP bill renews tax cut

by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar & Alan Fram
| December 10, 2011 8:00 PM

• Cut about $21 billion from Obama's health care overhaul by tightening rules for tax credits that will help pay premiums for the uninsured and by squeezing a fund for preventive care - a strategy Democrats are certain to resist.

• Freeze federal workers' pay in 2013, extending a freeze already planned through 2012, and increase their contributions to their own pensions.

• Require people receiving unemployment benefits to try getting a high school diploma or an equivalent and join programs aimed at helping them get new jobs.

• Raise fees the government-run Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac charge to guarantee mortgages they buy from lenders, and sell portions of the broadcast spectrum.

• Symbolically bar millionaires from collecting food stamps and unemployment benefits, raising a tiny $20 million.

• Let businesses deduct the full cost of their equipment investments in as little as one year.