"They had to pack the committee with effectively the payroll vote because they couldn't rely on ordinary backbenchers, " he said.
Are all these eminent folk - now part of the government payroll vote - bound to toe the line on pain of resignation?
Mr Jenkin noted that the government's plans to cut the number of MPs by 50 would increase the current payroll vote from 22% to 23.5% of the Commons.
Senior Tory Bernard Jenkin, who chairs the Public Administration Committee, said that cutting the number of ministers and parliamentary aides would save money, be popular with the public and limit the "payroll vote".
And successive governments have become adept at creating not-quite-ministers who become part of an unpaid payroll vote...an MP who is the prime minister's personal envoy on this, or policy advisor on that, will think carefully before ditching their role.
Under the committee's recommendations, there would be tougher limits on the size of the "payroll vote", junior ministers would no longer be entitled to a Commons aide and there would be an end to the appointment of unpaid ministers to circumvent legal limits on the size of government.
If they don't want to vote against a payroll tax cut, they can vote to offset the cost with spending cuts.
The vote to continue the payroll tax break for about 160 million American workers also means millions of unemployed Americans will continue to receive emergency welfare benefits.
With the Senate likely to vote on the issue this week, the payroll tax cut has devolved into yet another dreary black-and-white partisan debate.
FORBES: Payroll Tax Holiday: Better Than Nothing, But Still Not Very Good
Shadow justice minister Robert Flello claimed the government "stacked" the committee by ensuring people on the government payroll - including four parliamentary private secretaries - turned up to vote.
That led Labour to accuse the government of "stacking" the Seventh Delegated Legislation Committee by ensuring people on the government payroll - including four parliamentary private secretaries - turned up to vote.
In remarks after the Senate vote, Mr Obama said he expected Congress to extend the payroll tax break for the rest of 2012 when it reconvened in January.
The American Jobs Act, a portion of which was passed by this Congress -- the extension of the payroll tax cut and the extension of unemployment insurance -- had within it elements that Republicans in Congress refused to vote for, that outside economists said at the time would create more than a million jobs.
应用推荐