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Flanked by House GOP members, U.S. Speaker of the House Rep. John Boehner speaks during a media availability Dec. 20, 2011 on Capitol Hill in Washington.

 House Republicans moved Tuesday to reject a Senate-passed tax cut extension, hardening a standoff over whether to extend an expiring payroll tax cut and clouding the prospects for a clear resolution to prevent a tax hike on Jan. 1.

The House passed a measure that served the twin purposes of implicitly rejecting the Senate's bipartisan legislation extending an expiring payroll tax cut for two months, while volleying House Republicans' own proposal back to the Senate, where Democrats are in the majority.

229 House members, all Republicans, voted to send the payroll tax cut to conference, the formal (and less commonly used) process to resolve legislative differences with the Senate. Seven Republicans joined 186 Democrats in opposition to this plan.

President Obama, in a surprise appearance at the White House briefing, condemned Republicans for playing politics with the vote, and urged Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and House Republicans to defuse "brinksmanship" and pass the two-month deal.

"Let's be clear: Right now, the bipartisan compromise that was reached on Saturday is the only viable way to prevent a tax hike on Jan. 1," he said.

The legislative maneuver allowed Republicans to avoid having to specifically vote against the Senate's two-month tax cut, while still voicing their opposition to the deal.

It also solidifies a standoff with Senate Democrats about how to resolve the payroll tax issue by Dec. 31, when the yearlong tax holiday is set to expire. Democrats have said they would refuse to appoint conferees to help resolve the dispute, and would instead insist on House Republicans to relent, and approve the two-month-long cut.

"I think the next step is clear: President Obama needs to call on Senate Democrats to go back into session, move to go to conference, and sit down and resolve this bill as soon as possible," Boehner said at a brief press conference at the Capitol, shortly after Obama delivered his remarks.

Both sides are directly pressuring the other to act first.

"The bill is back in the Senate, so if Harry Reid says he's not going to appoint conferees ... he's going to have to answer to the American people," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said on MSNBC following the vote.

Democrats seem content, though, to sit back and wait for House Republicans to blink first.

"Pressure every day is mounting on Republicans," Senate Democrats' messaging chief, Sen. Charles Schumer (NY), said this morning on MSNBC's Daily Rundown. "All you have to do is let the pressure mount, day in day out. And they will come back and support the two month [extension]."

GOP Sen. Scott Brown (MA), who was one of the first Republicans to openly criticize this week's actions in the House, said he was angered by today's House vote.

"It angers me that House Republicans would rather continue playing politics than find solutions," Brown said in a statement. "Their actions will hurt American families and be detrimental to our fragile economy."

Lawmakers will spend the afternoon debating and voting on motions to instruct House members on those theoretical deliberations with the Senate. This measure would essentially detail just what Republicans are seeking as an output of negotiations. (In this case, Republicans insist that the extension last a whole calendar year.)

After those votes, though, most lawmakers are expected to head back to their districts in observance of this week's holidays, leaving work to conferees. Boehner said the negotiators he had nammed to hammer out a deal would remain in Washington, as would memebrs of the GOP leadership. He suggested, though, that the rest of the Republicans would go home.

Obama has postponed his own vacation to handle the payroll tax dispute, and made a personal plea to Boehner to help navigate the crisis. Boehner, when asked about that appeal, shot back: "I need the president to help out!"

NBC's Frank Thorp contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON -- Senate negotiators reached a deal Friday on a two-month extension of the payroll tax holiday, unemployment benefits and Medicare payments to doctors.

The deal, if approved by Congress, would require President Barack Obama to make a decision within 60 days whether to permit the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would transfer oil from Canada oil sands to Gulf of Mexico refineries. The White House has resisted being forced into expediting a decision.

Key provisions of the deal:

• Lasts for two months and costs about $40 billion.
• Extends the payroll tax holiday at the current 4.2 percent.
• Slight reform to unemployment benefits, but a Democratic Senate aide said the changes were "not nearly as draconian as the GOP wanted originally."
• Fends off a 28 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors.
• Pays for the extensions through higher transaction fees when folks use Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
• Requires Obama to decide whether the pipeline is in the national interest.

Republicans liked the deal because of the mechanism for paying for it and because of the Keystone provision.

State Department warns GOP on pipeline fast-track attempt

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told NBC News on Friday night that he will vote for the bill, saying, "It’s the best they can do … Look I’m always in favor of longer-term permanent solutions, but this is as far we could get on their side. On the other hand, I think we have a pretty stable solution when it comes to the issue of the pipeline, and hopefully the president will make the right decision that it's in our national interest.”

The Senate will vote on the bill Saturday and is expected to pass it. The House could vote on it as early as Monday. The House could always do something called "unanimous consent" when the chair passes something if nobody disagrees. But a House GOP leadership aide told NBC News: "We have not signed off on anything -- and will not until we talk to our members."

It's expected that House Speaker John Boehner will let his members go on the record on this bill and the House will be called back into session to vote on it.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky acknowledged that the same fights would resurface.

“So we’ll be back discussing the same issues in a couple of months, but from our point of view we think the Keystone pipeline is a very important job-creating measure,” he told NBC News.