The bill, which will retroactively extend a package of expired tax breaks for 2014, was the minimum lawmakers could do to prevent tax hikes for millions of individuals and businesses. It was approved in a 76-16 vote with Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top tax writer in the Senate, voting no.

“This tax bill doesn’t have the shelf life of a carton of eggs,” Wyden said in a floor statement ahead of the vote. “The only new effects of this legislation apply to the next two weeks.” He was not alone in his frustration.

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“This is ridiculous because we’re not extending it beyond the tax year and by the time we get back here, it will already be expired for a week or two,” said Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio). “It is a failure of Washington again to get its act together and do what should be done.”

The approval capped a weeks-long drama where Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid tried to broker a longer deal that angered Democrats who were left out of the talks — including Wyden and the White House. The general sense was that the $42 billion retroactive bill was better than nothing.

“I’d much rather have had a two-year bill so people had the certainty of planning for next year,” said Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.). “But you have to take what you can get.”

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Democrats and Republicans held their nose to vote for the short-term extension after Wyden and President Barack Obama joined forces to oppose a deal negotiated by Reid and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) that would have extended most breaks for two years and made permanent several tax breaks for businesses.

Obama issued a pre-emptive veto threat before the pact was done, complaining that Democrats got a raw deal because it failed to make permanent an expansion of its favored tax credits for working families. That move effectively killed any remaining attempts to pass a two-year extension that had been approved by the Senate Finance Committee.

“We never found the will to take up a broader package among the leadership,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.). “I think the members of the Finance Committee were very serious about trying to work something out, but it never had the type of priorities that we needed.”

The breaks, known as extenders, include a list of more than 50 tax breaks for business and individuals that have to be periodically reauthorized. For many years, they were renewed with relatively little controversy but recent battles over spending and tax increases contained in the fiscal cliff deal of 2012 have turned the extenders into an annual battle.

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Typically, there is some debate about some of the individual policies — such as headline-grabbing ones for NASCAR race tracks and big rum companies that operate in Puerto Rico. But in the end, lawmakers grouse and say next time they will really fix the broken tax code.

The bulk of the package benefits big businesses — including a research credit that cost $7.6 billion over a decade and breaks on taxes on offshore profits also worth billions. But Democrats and Republicans typically come together.

It also includes a controversial tax credit for wind energy and one that lets homeowners avoid paying taxes on forgiven mortgage debt and a write-off for state and local sales taxes — important to states that don’t have income taxes.

This year, in the final days, it wasn’t a battle over policy that left extenders to the last minute.

Senate leaders reluctantly accepted weeks ago that there would not be enough time to force further negotiations to craft a longer extension. Instead, the bill was paralyzed by efforts to finish confirming a long list of Obama nominees.

The package sat in limbo for the past two weeks, trapped first by objections from budget hawks like Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who objected to tax breaks for pet projects like race horses, rum and NASCAR tracks. Ultimately, even he relented.

“I can’t stop the extenders,” Coburn said, adding that many of the breaks are still not good tax policy. “The well-heeled and the well-connected are the ones who get the tax extenders.”

In the end, Reid needed to save the must-pass bill to be nearly the last vote to keep senators in town after a showdown with Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) over nomination votes led to a marathon of weekend procedural votes. The vote came up after a late evening agreement before moving on to additional nominations.

“I think he’s a very clever majority leader and he’s a gutsy guy and I can’t blame him for what he’s done either after the slowdown last week,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said. “He’s a strong, tough leader, no question about that.”

An earlier rift among Democrats over whether or not to accept the deal Reid negotiated with Camp was brushed off in the final days of the session. Wyden said in the days leading up to Obama’s veto threat, progressive Democrats and advocacy groups were calling in droves to complain that the nascent deal would have extended costly business preferences for investment and left health care credits for workers displaced by trade disparities and clean energy provisions on the cutting room floor.

But by Tuesday, even progressive Democrats like Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) were backing Reid. “Reid agreed because the House dug in and Camp said we’re not doing two years even though the Senate has been unanimous,” Brown said. “They couldn’t say yes to a good deal.”

That means the Senate Finance Committee will have to pick up negotiations again when they return in January but Hatch, the incoming chairman of the committee, wouldn’t commit to when that work would start.

”We’re going to have to work on it, there’s no question about it,” Hatch said. “I just wish we could get permanency.”

Authors:Kelsey Snell  ksnell@politico.com

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/senate-approves-tax-extenders-package-113628.html#ixzz3MBH2VBdY

Find a complete list of the approved Tax Extenders/Tax Deductions Package here.