WASHINGTON -- Any extension of this year's payroll tax cut must be paid for with savings from elsewhere in the budget, House Speaker John Boehner said Wednesday.

Boehner's comment meant that House and Senate Republicans are united in demanding that any eventual measure, which could cost over $100 billion, not add to the federal deficit. It also suggested that President Obama and Congress would have to find mutually acceptable savings before any extension could become law.

The current tax cut expires Jan. 1.

Republicans have previously expressed a willingness to try compromising with Obama on ways to create jobs, including renewing the payroll tax cut. But Boehner stopped short of predicting that the two sides will reach agreement on extending this year's 2 percent reduction in the 6.2 percent payroll tax that workers pay or enlarging it, as Obama and many Democrats want.

"If in fact we can find common ground on these extensions, I think you can take to the bank the fact that they will be paid for," Boehner told reporters.

Mirroring Obama's proposal, Senate Democrats have introduced symbolic legislation extending the reduction for another year and enlarging it to 3.1 percent.

It faces certain defeat because Republicans oppose the way Democrats would pay for it: A permanent 3.25 percent surtax on incomes exceeding $1 million beginning in 2013...