President Obama supports tax Deal but no Keystone XL Pipeline

President Barack Obama supports a compromise payroll tax deal reached in Congress on Friday but Republican insistence on including a demand to speed a decision on a controversial Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline means it almost certainly will not be built, a senior administration official said. The Obama administration believes that while an agreement to extend payroll tax breaks for just two months is not ideal, it would be inconceivable that Republicans would consent to that and later refuse to renew the cuts for rest of the year. The senior official said the deal, which still must be approved by the full Senate and House of Representatives, meets Obama's main concern that middle-class taxes not rise with the expiration of payroll tax breaks at the end of December. But it falls short of Obama's original push for a full-year extension and also runs counter to an earlier White House demand that there be no link to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline