Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama on Monday announced a deal with Republican leaders that would extend Bush-era tax cuts for two years and unemployment benefits for 13 months while also lowering the payroll tax by two percentage points for a year.
The compromise, worked out in negotiations involving the White House, the Treasury and congressional leaders from both parties, includes provisions that each side doesn't like, Obama said in a hastily arranged statement to reporters after discussing the proposed deal with Democratic leaders.
"It's not perfect," Obama said of the plan, which also would continue tax breaks for students and families contained in the 2009 stimulus bill and allow businesses to write off all investments they make next year. "We cannot play politics at a time when the American people are looking for us to solve problems".
As outlined by Obama and sources, the deal would add up to hundreds of billions of dollars in more federal spending or lower revenue in coming years at a time when the president, Republican leaders and a federal deficit commission appointed by the president all say that the growing federal debt must be brought under control.
Democrats in Congress expressed initial concern with the deal, saying it conceded too much to Republican demands.
"I'm not at all happy with this. I want to see all the details before I make some kind of commitment," Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio told CNN. Asked if Obama "caved" to Republicans, Brown said: "I don't know if he caved. I think he could have gotten a better agreement".
Vice President Joe Biden will attend the weekly Senate Democratic policy lunch Tuesday in the Capitol to "defend the deal," according to a Senate Democratic leadership aide. CNN
