–House Speaker Blasts Plan That Passed Senate Saturday, 89 To 10
–‘It is Time To Do This The Right Way’
–‘We’ve Got Two Weeks To Get This Done’
–Senate Majority Leader Reid: Senate Plan Was ‘Bipartisan Compromise’
By John Shaw
WASHINGTON (MNI) – House Speaker John Boehner said Sunday that he
opposes the Senate’s compromise plan that gives a two-month extension to
last year’s payroll tax cut, renews unemployment insurance benefits and
prevents a sharp cut in doctor payments under Medicare.
In comments on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Boehner came out against the
plan that was laboriously negotiated by Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and sailed through the
Senate.
“It is time to do this the right way,” Boehner said, arguing that
it makes little sense to make tax policy in two-month increments.
“We’ve got two weeks to get this done,” Boehner added, referring to
the expiration of the payroll tax cut at the end of December.
Boehner said a two-month extension would do little more than “kick
the can down the road.”
The Senate approved Saturday on an 89 to 10 vote a payroll tax cut
package that Reid and McConnell negotiated.
The House will return to Washington early this coming week to vote
on this package.
In a statement Sunday, Reid said the plan was a “bipartisan
compromise” and should be approved by the House.
Senate leaders were unable to reach a broad agreement that would
have funded the package for a full year, so they agreed to extend
various programs for two months.
The scaled-back package would cost about $40 billion and would be
paid for by higher fees that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac charge to
mortgage home lenders.
The Senate compromise would force the payroll tax cut extension
issue to be debated again early next year.
Under the bill the Senate passed and the House will consider this
coming week, a construction permit for Keystone pipeline will go forward
within 60 days unless the president determines that the pipeline is not
in the U.S.’s national interest.
Boehner’s comments throw new complexity into the fate of the
payroll tax cut extension package.
They do not relate to Congress’s passage late last week of the 2012
fiscal year omnibus spending bill, which has been approved by both
chambers.
The omnibus spending bill funds the nine fiscal year 2012 bills
that had not yet been approved. These bills are the defense, energy and
water, financial services, homeland security, interior-environment,
labor-health human services-education, legislative branch, military
construction-veterans affairs, and state-foreign operations spending
bills.
The overall level of discretionary spending for FY’12 will be
$1.043 trillion, a level agreed to earlier this year by President Obama
and congressional leaders.
** Market News International Washington Bureau: (202) 371-2121 **
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