House May Move to Extend Tax Cuts Despite Senate Delay
September 24, 2010
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
nytimes.com
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said on Friday that Democrats in her chamber may still force a vote next week on the expiring Bush-era income-tax rate cuts, even though their counterparts in the Senate have decided not to bring the issue to the floor until after the November elections.
President Obama and Democratic leaders would like to make the lower tax rates permanent for the first $250,000 of income for couples and the first $200,000 for individuals, but allow the tax breaks to expire on income above those amounts for wealthier Americans.
Republicans, and some Democrats, have said that the lower rates should be continued for everyone, at least temporarily, given the weak economy. The hesitancy of some politically vulnerable Democrats to vote on the issue before the election was one reason the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, decided to delay the floor debate.
Though she acknowledged that the bill could not become law until a lame-duck session after the election, Ms. Pelosi said, “We will retain the right to proceed as we choose.”
Some House Democrats want to force a vote before the election to draw a sharp contrast between the positions of the two parties, and to portray Republicans as standing in the way of tax relief for middle-class Americans while insisting on tax breaks for the wealthy.
If Democrats do bring the tax issue to the floor, aides said, the vote would be set up strategically — under a suspension of House rules — to require a two-thirds majority for passage, meaning that the Democrats’ proposal could not succeed without substantial Republican support.
There are currently 255 Democrats and 178 Republicans in the House, with two vacancies, so 289 votes would be needed to pass the bill that way if every member were present and voting.
All of the lower tax rates — approved by a Republican-controlled Congress and signed by President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003 — are due to expire at the end of this year.
Extending the tax breaks for income above the threshold would expand the federal deficit by about $700 billion over the next 10 years — a price tag that Mr. Obama and his economic advisers say the country cannot afford at a time when the deficit is already growing for other reasons.
For Republicans, the weak economy strengthens the case for extending the lower rates. Most Republicans have said for years that they want the lower rates made permanent under any economic circumstances, and extending the cuts was one of the top priorities included in new legislative blueprint unveiled earlier this week by House Republicans.
At least 31 House Democrats have urged that the tax cuts be extended at all income levels because of the weak economy.
Ms. Pelosi, at her weekly news conference at the Capitol, expressed confidence that the lower rates would be extended for the 97 percent of Americans.
“American’s middle class will have a tax cut,” Ms. Pelosi said. “It will happen in this Congress.” |
