Despite a late-night deal to avert a government shutdown, John Boehner and House Republicans are still basically holding the American economy hostage. The $1 trillion spending deal late Thursday evening doesn't change the fact that they passed a bill out of the House to extend a payroll tax break and unemployment insurance for millions of Americans whose benefits are set to run out that's loaded with “poison pills” – items long on the right's wish-list that the Democrat-controlled Senate has made clear would be dead on arrival in the upper chamber.