and welcome to all of you watching us here in the united states, canada and all around the world. i m kim brunhuber, with the latest on the coverage of the israel, hamas war. another night of heavy air strikes across the enclave. israel says it s been hitting hamas targets including tunnels and underground combat spaces. the idf is again urging folks to head south as it expands forces inside gaza, in response to the mack aceres of october 7th. israel believes the group is holding 230 hostages. inside gaza there is fear for what happens next. internet and cellular functions have been partially restored. there s not enough fuel water medicine to go around and very little coming in from egypt. scott what are you seeing from gaza and hearing from israel? reporter: hey kim, yes it is difficult to know precisely where we re at with the fighting in gaza given the limitations there. yesterday the israeli artillery did not stop. he also said gun fire could be heard from the easter
senate as it was in the house. i want to talk about your money. this is how much it will cost the government to foot the bill. the extension of the tax cuts and everything else that was included in this bill is going to amount to $801 billion. the extension of the benefits which is what the democrats wanted will add another $57 billion so the total cost will be $858 billion. it s a pretty hefty bill. if you re wondering what you get for your money i ll break it down. it costs $5 $544 billion for th two-year extension tax cuts but add the payroll holiday, the social security tax break going from 6.2% of what you earned to 4.2%. then another $8 billion in tax breaks for low and middle income earners. those are individual tax credits. that includes a child tax credit and another one for college costs. one of the hottest political
when you combine everything together, the cuts amount to $801 billion. but if you recall, in a deal to get the cuts, the government wanted to extend unemployment benefits for those people for whom it was expiring. the benefits extension costs about $57 billion. so you add it together, you ve got $858 billion. that s a pretty hefty bill. and you re probably wondering what we re getting for our money. let me tell you. it s going to cost $544 billion for the two-year extension of the cuts themselves. that s the big one. but then you start adding on the payroll tax holiday. that s going to cost $11 billion. another $8 billion for tax breaks for low and middle-income earners, which includes credits for kids and their college costs. doesn t stop there. there s also business tax breaks, including those for research and some energy credits, even a measure that will allow businesses to write off 100% of their expenses in
politicians running late on what to do about the bush tax cuts once and for all. get them extended or see them all gone, and then retroactively ratcheting up to the beginning of the year. and both parties desperately want to avoid that. here is the latest on what they ve got, to make sure they avoid that. we ve got about an 856 billion dollar package, it has grown measurebly since the debate over this intensifies and right now, it looks like about an 801 billion dollar package on just tax cuts, but here is what s proven to be the bugaboo for a lot of republicans, indeed, a lot of tea partiers, the fact that they ve got 55 billion in taxes and add-ones there, and we ve got interesting one, we ve got some forum producing in puerto rico. and biodiesel, motor sports complex benefitting to the
democrats don t want to deal with this even though the adership behind the scenes is saying they will. jon: so this deal the president pounded out with senate leaders, that involves a payroll tax reduction and then, of course, this so-called death tax reduction that you were talking about. can we expect that the tax reductions are going to pass the senate? reporter: yes. we now know that there, it is expected that the vast majority of republicans, perhaps with only three exceptions, will ultimately pass this particular piece of legislation. we also know that the democrats have as many as 18 to 20 or so who might vote for this. there are a number who have expressed some opposition, perhaps as many as 25-30, but the votes are there. it s an $868 billion package, $801 billion is related to tax cuts both from the obama stimulus and the bush era. there is a 57 billion price tag to the extension of unemployment benefits, that s how you get the number, and the senate will pass it sometime b