–House Speaker: Democrats Can Offer Any Tax Cut Plan They Want
–Holding Bipartisan Talks On FY’13 Stop-Gap Spending Bill
–Admin Must Specify How Sequester Will Work

By John Shaw

WASHINGTON (MNI) – House Speaker John Boehner Thursday said the
House will vote next week to extend the Bush-era tax cuts and challenged
House Democrats to offer any alternative tax plan they wish.

At a briefing, Boehner dismissed the tax cut package that was
approved by the Senate Wednesday and said he expects the House to pass a
bill that extends all the tax cuts for a year and launch a process to
pass “pro-growth tax reform” plan next year.

He said he is “more than happy” to let House Democrats offer as an
alternative either President Obama’s tax cut plan or the one passed by
Senate Democrats this week.

“We’ll see what they offer,” Boehner said.

Boehner continued to blame Democrats for the scheduled
across-the-board spending cuts that were mandated by the failure of the
Super Committee last year.

He noted that the House has already voted to replace the scheduled
$110 billion in spending cuts for the 2013 fiscal year that are set to
begin in January.

Boehner said he is especially troubled by “these arbitrary defense
cuts” that are mandated by the sequestration process.

He said Obama is “nowhere to be found” on the effort to replace the
sequestration process.

Boehner said it’s imperative that the White House budget office
send Congress a report that spells out “how they intend to enforce the
sequester.”

The White House budget office should detail “where this reduction
in spending will come from” that is mandated by the sequester.

Finally, Boehner said that he is in bipartisan talks to develop a
stop-gap spending bill that will keep the government funded when the
2013 fiscal year begins.

The new fiscal year begins Oct. 1 and so far none of the 12
appropriations bill for FY’13 has been passed. Staffers have said there
have been bipartisan discussions about a stop-gap bill that would fund
the government for three months.

Boehner declined to say how long the stop-gap might be or what its
terms will include.

“When we have something to announce, we’ll be happy to do it,”
Boehner said.

** MNI Washington Bureau: (202) 371-2121 **

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