标题: [转贴] Democrats to Test Republican Mettle With Tax-Cut Vote [打印本页] 作者: 何鸿燊 时间: 2010-11-30 00:22 标题: Democrats to Test Republican Mettle With Tax-Cut Vote
By James Rowley and Ryan J. Donmoyer - Nov 29, 2010
Congressional Democrats are ready to test Republican resolve on taxes this week by forcing showdown votes on their proposal to extend middle-class tax cuts.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will schedule a vote this week on legislation that would retain lower tax rates and increased credits that apply to the first $250,000 of a married couple’s gross income or $200,000 for a single person, said her assistant, Maryland Democrat Chris Van Hollen.
The Senate will vote “by next week” on Democrats’ proposal to extend middle-income tax cuts, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus told reporters yesterday.
“There should be an early vote on middle-income tax cuts” before the Senate considers alternatives on Bush-era tax cuts set to expire on Dec. 31, said Baucus, a Montana Democrat. The vote’s timing will depend on the rest of the Senate’s agenda, he said.
Those statements signal a willingness by Democrats to see how far Republicans will hold out for extensions of tax cuts benefiting all taxpayers, including those with higher incomes.
The debate will begin in earnest tomorrow at the White House when congressional leaders meet with President Barack Obama. The meeting will include Republicans who consider higher marginal tax increases a burden on small businesses. Obama, meanwhile, says the country can’t afford to borrow $700 billion to extend lower tax rates for top earners.
‘Boxing Match’
“This is really a touch-the-gloves moment,” said John Feehery, president of QGA Communications, who was a communications adviser to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican. “This is the first time the Republicans and the president are going to start a boxing match that’s going to go more than 13 rounds. While there’s not a lot of time, they are still going to be cautious as they engage each other.”
At the White House yesterday, Spokesman Robert Gibbs said the issue won’t be resolved quickly.
“I think this is the beginning of a conversation,” Gibbs told reporters. “I don’t think this will be the last conversation that this group has on taxes this year.”
House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio previously said he would vote for legislation capping the extension of tax cuts at $250,000 if that was the only option. He’s now saying otherwise.
“We made a pledge to America to permanently stop all of the tax hikes, and that’s what we’ll fight for,” said Michael Steel, a Boehner spokesman.
Rates Would Rise
Unless Congress acts by Dec. 31, marginal income tax rates will rise across the board, tax credits that benefit families will be slashed, and rates on capital gains and dividends will increase. In addition, a federal tax on estates worth more than $1 million will be resurrected after expiring for 2010.
Expiration of the tax cuts enacted in President George W. Bush’s administration would add $2,600 annually to the tax burden of a median-income family earning about $70,000 a year, according to Clint Stretch, managing principal at the consulting firm Deloitte Tax LLP in Washington.
Extending the tax cuts permanently would cost the government $5 trillion in revenue and interest on the debt over the next decade, the Congressional Research Service estimated in October.
Failure to extend all the tax cuts would subtract 1 percentage point from growth in the gross domestic product, according to an estimate released in November by Barclays Capital, reducing projected growth in 2011 from 2.8 percent to 1.8 percent, with “sharply lower growth” in the first quarter. GDP Growth Effect
The 2.8 percent growth estimate assumes the cuts for higher-income taxpayers would expire. If they are extended, the Barclay’s estimate is for 3 percent GDP growth in 20l1.
Votes in the Senate on the competing proposals would test whether either party has the 60 votes needed to overcome procedural hurdles. Neither plan is likely to garner that many votes and get through the Senate, senators have said.
A rejection of both measures would give Senate leaders a clearer picture of where their members stand as they begin negotiations on compromise plans.
Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the senate’s No. 2 Democrat, said negotiations over extending the tax cuts also will include prolonging emergency unemployment benefits and other tax credits.
