John Boehner: Senate Payroll Tax Cut Will Fail In the House Tonight

WASHINGTON -- Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he expects House Republicans to reject a Senate-passed payroll tax cut package later Monday and then head into an eleventh-hour conference to hammer out a new, longer-term deal.

During brief remarks to reporters, Boehner said Americans are "tired of Washington's short-term fixes and gimmicks" and that the two-month deal passed by the Senate, and backed by the White House, would not last long enough.

"We oppose the Senate bill because doing the two-month extension instead of a full year extension causes uncertainty for job creators," Boehner said. "I expect that the House will disagree with the Senate amendment and instead vote to formally go to conference. ... And I expect the House to take up legislation that reinforces the need to extend the payroll tax relief for a full year rather than just two months."

By rejecting a two-month extension, Boehner is making a potentially costly political bet that Senate Democratic leadership can and will be brought back to the negotiating table. Congress is running out of time to extend the payroll tax cut, among a handful of other provisions, before they expire at the end of the year. If Congress doesn't act in the next 12 days, a $1,500 middle-class tax hike will kick in, some unemployment benefits will run out and doctors' Medicare reimbursement rates will be slashed.

It stands to reason that Boehner would take much of the blame for this happening. But the pressures coming from within his caucus are equally immense. Members either believe they can get deeper cuts in exchange for a longer extension or they simply don't want to re-litigate the payroll tax cut battle in two months' time.

The early response to Boehner from top Democratic aides was akin to shoulder shrugging. Lawmakers would not return to Washington either to merge the respective bills of each chamber or vote on the House version, one aide said. On Monday morning, meanwhile, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer called it "inconceivable" that House Republicans couldn't simply whip the 40 votes needed to pass the Senate's version, especially after 39 Senate Republicans voted for it on Saturday.

Boehner dismissed the idea he was ever on board with a two-month extension, despite Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) saying Sunday Boehner told him last week to cut a deal with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), at which point Boehner would build support for it in the House.

"We expressed our reservations about what the Senate was doing," Boehner said of his talks with Senate leaders. "I made perfectly clear to Sen. Reid and Sen. McConnell sometime mid-last week that I would not enter into negotiations with them until the Senate produced a bill. The Senate produced a bill; we expressed our reservations."

Top House GOP aides, meanwhile, suggested that even if they tried to get the 40 votes needed for the two month extension, they wouldn't succeed.

"Why would we ask members to do something that is bad policy that we do not agree with?" said one top GOP leadership aide. "Why settle for bad legislation when there is an alternative? The stated goal for the president, for Harry Reid and for House Republicans is a year-long extension. There is no excuse to be on vacation for 2 weeks until we exhaust every option to achieve that goal."

Hoping to frame his move as a normal turn in legislation-crafting, Boehner said on Monday that he didn't think the House and Senate were too far apart to craft a deal. The House previously passed a yearlong payroll tax cut plan and Boehner called that plan "a reasonable bill" that should be discussed in conference.

But that bill passed the House along party lines and is loaded with "poison pills" that virtually ensure no Democratic support, specifically regarding how it would be paid for. Indeed, the reason Senate leaders signed off on a two-month extension in the first place was because they couldn't find ways to cover the cost of a bill that went longer.

Nine Poison Pills In The GOP Payroll Tax Extension Bill:

Comments

[dlnrjm]

08:52 AM on 12/22/2011

Boehner, we reject you and Cantor too. Why aren't you telling the world that your precious pipeline is to benefit a client of your boss Grover Norquist? These underhanded deals on both sides need to be called out.

[mowprincess]

06:02 AM on 12/22/2011

Of course they will reject a tax break for the middle class America.. How can average middle class Americans give them the political graft they think they deserve? The GOP pandering to the 1% is nauseating..

[soma77]

08:03 PM on 12/21/2011

Americans and especially Republicans need to vote Republicans out so we can progress.

[ThinkFree111]

03:00 PM on 12/21/2011

What purpose does it serve to do something both sides agree on for 2 months vice a year. Additionally, why is there stuff about extending unemployment in this bill, what does that have to do with a payroll tax cut. Then in order to give the middle class a tax cut we must also continue to pay Medicare doctors. What does any of this have to do with the payroll tax?

[jbfaus]

10:44 AM on 12/21/2011

I do not understand why they cannot just go ahead and pass it for one year. Why would that be so wrong?

[SCJohnson]

11:29 PM on 12/21/2011

Both sides have repeatedly called for extending the payroll tax cuts for a year, but the Bill passed by House Republicans (along strict party lines) came with a whole bunch of riders including gutting the EPA, forcing unemployment recipients to take drug tests, and ramrodding the approval of the XL pipeline without any environmental reviews. The Senate removed the riders, and then crunched the numbers and found that they could only afford to extend the payroll tax cut for two months, so that is the bill that the Senate passed, with a Majority of Republicans Senators voting Aye.

[tlcpro]

09:24 AM on 12/21/2011

Smoke and mirrors. Let's face it, House Republicans are only interested in their own bottom line. They are part of the 1%. They are pulling this crap to save themselves from a tax hike. Fire Congress! Let's blame the Democrats! That is their new war cry. Republicans are waging war on the middle class. and they blame the Dems.

[SCJohnson]

11:35 PM on 12/21/2011

Actually, both parties are waging war on the middle class. The Republicans are just more obvious about it.
Follow the money, both parties receive the vast majority of their campaign funding from a small group of ultra wealthy people. I call them the .01%. It is they who have been driving the country's shift to conservative policies of deregulation, privatization, and globalization. And look how well that has benefited the majority of Americans. Our last two "recoveries" from recessions have been jobless recoveries, our unemployment is the highest since the Great Depression, but our wealthiest have seen their earnings go up over 400%.

[tlcpro]

09:23 AM on 12/22/2011

sickening isn't it.

[modelaford]

02:09 AM on 12/21/2011

I'm from Illinois, and just read that our Senator Mark Kirk was one of the seven Republican senators who voted against this. Too bad he's not up for re-election next year. Shame on him. Our other senator Dick Durbin voted for it. Can we recall our Kirk before his term is up?

[Vapula]

12:14 AM on 12/22/2011

Yes you can.

[4godsake]

01:10 AM on 12/21/2011

I am convinced that the GOP does not have a REAL man in the whole group. Boehner or Cantor tell them all how high they want them to jump and they will do just that. Do any of them have a backbone. Not one of them have a thought of their own. A bunch of puppets. Damn, they do not care how many kids are suffering doing this recovery. Selfish S_Bs. Who will it hurt to allow two more months to reach a final decision, NOT THEM, but middle class Americans trying to get ends to meet.

[rivrgrrl]

12:48 AM on 12/21/2011

Have any of boener's aids pointed out to him that he supported this proposal before he hit the bottle, blacked out and woke up being against it in the light of day?

[lvdragonlady]

12:21 AM on 12/21/2011

YOU are going DOWN John along with Cantor, Mitch and the rest that choose the side of the corporations OVER THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

[a man]

10:39 PM on 12/20/2011

This not a time for party-line politics. This is the time for people to work together to re-build the economy. How do we do that? We bring the manufacturing jobs back here to the United States. Prices will come down, unemployment will go away and our deficits will dissolve. Along with that, our taxes will lower because of all of the property taxes being paid by big business. But no one wants to do the actual "labor". Everyone wants an office. Well, look at what has happened over the past 35 years.

[lvdragonlady]

12:22 AM on 12/21/2011

Tell that to the GOP............they are the ones that only want to play by THEIR rules.

[a man]

09:33 PM on 12/25/2011

No, it is not the GOP!!! It's all of the corporate CEO's and presidents and the ENTIRE U.S. Government----federal, state and local levels.

[gamigliuri]

08:23 PM on 12/20/2011

So these complete and ultimate HYPOCRITES will let tax cuts expire for the middle class, but fight to the demise of our country to not let tax cuts for the billiionaires and corporations expire. If ever any faux news fan needed proof of what this TB Party is really about this is IT. Where were their nay-saying Norquist-zombie attitudes about raising taxes this time??? What a sham and a LIE!! Shame on the GOPTBers. SHAME!!!

[Southernthinker]

07:12 PM on 12/20/2011

The nine poison pills are the Real Story they have channeled China’s environment policy with tinges of Gorbachev’s Berlin and Iraq at Perry's camp using George Wallace's pen. The GED training and attack on families in poverty is a page from that 94 group been there done that it put us here. Killing change; doing in 2011 what they did in 1994

[7dr361]

04:23 PM on 12/20/2011

Eric Cantor needs to go also.........hes had a knife in Boehner's back ever since hes been speaker......Cantor is a SNAKE.........I don't like either one

[Davwbaird]

06:59 PM on 12/20/2011

Clearly a snake in the grass to worse kind. You see corruption on his face. He is a rat if not a snake.

[StrayLeo1]

07:04 PM on 12/20/2011

McConnel, boehner and cantor are failed leaders from the failed bush years.

[cristoballs]

01:39 PM on 12/20/2011

it seems the white house is using fuzzy math in figuring the extension of the tax holiday will save tax payers an average of $1500. i'm not saying people won't be saving money, but the numbers are somewhat exaggerated especially when you realize the people at the top end won't even save 1500. combine that with the fact that the average person, with an income of about 40k will only be saving about $600, and i would say the average is much closer to 600, than 1500. what the white house is claiming is a hike in taxes, is actually just a hike in payroll taxes. however, your adjusted gross income, is offset somewhat by what you pay in payroll taxes. so, the amount of income tax you pay on your adjusted gross income will be less, the more you pay in payroll taxes. (cont.)

[cristoballs]

01:45 PM on 12/20/2011

i'll explain further. according to the white house's own website, it claims that a person making $40k/yr will pay an additional $800 in taxes without the tax holiday extension. they figure this by multiplying the difference in the payroll tax rate by annual income. $40k*.02=$800.
the problem with this math is that payroll taxes are subtracted from gross income to determine taxable income, in regards to the income tax.
with the tax holiday in effect, someone making 40K would pay $7820 (in payroll and income taxes). without it, they would pay $8420. the difference is $600, not $800, as the white house website claims.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/economy/jobs/we-cant-wait

[gevan]

09:09 PM on 12/20/2011

Seems like a hefty chunk of spare change irregardless.

[Davwbaird]

07:05 PM on 12/20/2011

You are a fuzzy wuzzy A bit here and there adds up. We need to betaking care of us in a more significant fashion.

So OWS and every other one of us of the 99 percent are fed up. Big change is coming to this country and it is change by the people.