–Senate Majority Leader Reid: Time To ‘Come Together’ On Tax Cuts
–Sen. Schumer: ‘The Ball Is In Speaker Boehner’s Court’
By John Shaw
WASHINGTON (MNI) – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his
Democratic leadership team said Wednesday Senate passage of a middle
class tax cut plan puts intense pressure on House Speaker John Boehner
to follow suit to spare the nation from the looming fiscal cliff.
The comments came after Senate Wednesday approved on a 51 to 48
vote the Democratic plan to renew Bush era tax cuts for one year for
those families making $250,000 or less.
The Senate rejected the Republican plan for a one-year renewal for
all the Bush era tax cuts. The GOP plan was defeated on a 45 to 54 vote.
“The American people got a ray of hope today,” Reid said at a
briefing following the Senate vote.
“Now the ball is in Speaker Boehner’s court,” Sen. Chuck Schumer,
the third ranking Senate Democrat, said at the briefing.
“This is a watershed moment in the tax cut debate,” he said, adding
that if middle class tax cuts expire “the House is going to have some
serious explaining to do.”
Before the vote, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell dismissed
the Senate tax cut votes as a “purely political exercise and a total
waste of time.”
“This is not a serious piece of legislation,” McConnell said of the
Democratic tax cut bill. “We know this is not about the economy. It’s
about the election.”
House Speaker Boehner has said the House will vote next week on the
GOP plan to extend the Bush era tax cuts for a year.
The tax cut debate is a central feature of the battle over the
coming fiscal cliff.
The fiscal cliff refers to the convergence of three fiscal events
later this year or early next year: the expiration of Bush era tax cuts,
across-the-board spending cuts, and increasing the statutory debt
ceiling.
** MNI Washington Bureau: (202) 371-2121 **
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