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December 17, 2010
House Passes Temporary Extension Of Bush-era Tax Cuts 277-148
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House passes temporary extension of Bush-era tax cuts 277-148
12/17/10
12:00 AM ET
The House late Thursday gave final approval to a temporary extension of the George W. Bush-era tax rates, delivering a significant but politically bruising victory to President Obama.
The $858 billion legislation now heads to the president’s desk for his signature. It extends the Bush tax cuts across the board for two years, slashes the employee payroll tax by 2 percent for one year, renews the estate tax and extends unemployment insurance benefits for 13 months.
The vote was 277-148, and the bill gained a majority of both Democrats and Republicans despite complaints from each party’s political base. The legislation deepened divisions in the Democratic ranks and burst open festering tensions between House Democrats and the White House.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who had herded her divided caucus through the contentious process, said afterward she was pleased with the outcome despite her reservations about the bill.
Asked whether the emotional tax-cut vote had damaged the morale of the Democrats as the 111th Congress evolves into the 112th, Pelosi downplayed any lingering rancor.
"They're glad this is behind us, and they're ready to go forward," Pelosi told The Hill after the vote. "They're ready for the fight."
In the end, only one member of the House Democratic leadership, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), supported the final bill. Pelosi did not vote, and Reps. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), John Larson (D-Conn.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) all opposed the legislation.
During an early afternoon vote on an unrelated matter, No. 2 ranking GOP Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.) and his Democratic counterpart, Hoyer, huddled in the back of the chamber.
According to a staffer familiar with the five-minute confab session, Cantor asked Hoyer if the Democratic leader needed GOP votes to support the procedural vote on a rule governing debate of the tax package. Even though Democrats pulled the rule vote because they feared losing that effort, Hoyer declined Cantor’s help.
The outreach by Republicans was one of the ways in which GOP leaders ramped up their whip effort while their Democratic counterparts appeared to implode internally as a caucus.
In all, 112 Democrats and 36 Republicans voted against the deal, including conservative stalwarts Mike Pence (R-Ind.), Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Steve King (R-Iowa) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
Citing jobless benefits not paid for and an extension of the tax cuts set to expire in two years, during the next political season, those members felt they could get a better deal out of President Obama after they take power in little under three weeks.
But Cantor and Chief Deputy Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) made a dogged effort to rally support for the negotiated package that would ensure “certainty” in the near future.
Minutes before the final vote, the House turned aside a Democratic amendment to raise the estate tax provision in the bill. Incorporating that change would have sent the bill back to the Senate and faced certain Republican opposition there.
The president argued the deal was the best he could get from Republicans who refused to budge on extending tax cuts for highest-earning Americans, which Democrats wanted to end. The action by Congress prevents a broad tax increase from taking effect when the current rates expire at the end of the year.
The last votes Thursday capped a fractious three-week debate after Obama abandoned his Democratic allies in the House to cut a deal with Senate Republicans. House Democrats revolted over the pact, decrying the president for capitulating on one of his party’s signature domestic priorities: ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
“This basically concedes the argument to the supply-side Republican failed economic policies,” Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said.
Other Democrats denounced the bill for exploding an already soaring federal budget deficit. “Wake up and listen to the sirens,” Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.) said on the House floor. “I can’t believe you talk about this bill as fiscal sanity. It’s fiscal insanity.”
The House Democratic Caucus held a non-binding vote to reject the Obama-GOP deal a week ago, but within days the Senate overwhelmingly approved the bill and Pelosi moved ahead with a vote.
House liberals made one last stand on Thursday, forcing the Speaker to pull the tax bill from the floor for several hours because of objections to the amendment process.
While the Democratic leadership decided to allow one attempt to amend the Republican-favored estate tax provision in the Senate-passed bill, liberals complained that the procedure party leaders crafted would not have allowed them to register their objections directly on the legislation.
“The original rule did not allow members to have a clean up-or-down vote on the bill,” Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said.
After a huddle with members on the House floor and a hastily scheduled meeting in her office, Pelosi agreed to rework the process, allowing separate votes on the estate tax amendment and the underlying legislation.
Pelosi herself did not lobby members on the tax bill, leaving the White House to rally support for a deal it alone had negotiated with Republicans. Vice President Biden delivered a personal pitch to House Democrats, and Obama called lawmakers himself in the days leading up to the vote.
And while lawmakers predicted the Senate bill would pass once it came to a vote in the House, the Obama administration was concerned enough to whip votes against the estate tax amendment in the final hours, a House leadership aide said, not wanting a last-minute change to send the legislation back to the Senate and unravel the accord.
House Republicans broadly backed the measure, some of them reluctantly. Like many other GOP lawmakers, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) said he wanted to see the tax rates extended permanently, but his top priority was preventing a tax hike on January 1. “In this legislation I see the glass half-full,” he said on the floor. He acknowledged conservatives who said the GOP could have held out for a better deal. But he concluded: “Personally I am not willing to take a chance. I am going cast the aye vote. I am going to stop the job killing tax increases.”
In a floor speech Thursday night, Pelosi endorsed the estate tax amendment but pointedly refused to explicitly back the underlying bill. The GOP-favored inheritance tax of 35% for individuals worth more than $5 million, the Speaker said, “is not good policy. It does have not have a favorable impact on the deficit. It does not create jobs, It does not grow the economy.”
As to the overhaul compromise, Pelosi said, “Members will have to make their own decisions.”
“I applaud President Obama for his side of the ledger,” Pelosi said. “I’m sorry the price that had to be paid for it is so high.”
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Wild Thing's comment........
What a hoot!! Obama has to plead with his own party to support the Bush tax cuts that he has routinely blamed for the economy he inherited.
Posted by Wild Thing at December 17, 2010 05:55 AM
Comments
In actuality this Bill is about the best that could be hoped for, given the past history of this Congress.
The only reason so many got on board was, they either just squeaked by in winning back their seat, or they saw the writing on the wall ,as far as the mood of the voter goes.
Granted the inclusion of the unemployment benefits, the raising of te Estate tax are not good provisions. Yet this is the nature of the political game. You have to give something in order to get something.
Compromise for the sake of compromise is not a good thing. If you have to compromise to attain a goal, and there is no other way, so be it.
Let's hope that the incoming members of Congress realize that this sort of action is not to be the norm. The Republicans have the majority now, and they need to play by the same rules that the Pelosi gang has been using for the past 8 years, ask and give no quarter.
Posted by: Sean at December 17, 2010 10:16 AM
All in all I would state that passage of this bill is a victory over the Democrats. Not a victory for the Repubs, but a victory against the Dems. Yes, a glass half full with, hopefully, some very full galsses to come soon.
Posted by: TomR,armed in Texas at December 17, 2010 11:29 AM
Wild Thing,
This President we have in the White House now in 2010 has NO IDEA of what he has inherited.
Posted by: Carlos at December 17, 2010 12:37 PM
$858 billion is a complete joke. No tax hike in my life time as raised as much money as the CBO estimates and no tax cut has ever reduced revenue as much as the CBO estimates. Over time the cost of the tax cuts has been zero after five years.
Anyone who recognizes the Laffer curve knows that once the economy goes over the top of the curve the revenues reverse. The US has been on the high side of the Laffer curve since Coolidge was in the Whitehouse.
Posted by: Avitar at December 17, 2010 05:40 PM
Tax cut my ass, it is a huge pork bill, Everything is in it. It maintains the status Quo, our taxes will basically stay the same. But where is the money going to come from to pay for the unemployment insurance, and the extra 790 Billion in that bill. They are paying people NOT to work.
How is that going to grow the economy.
Posted by: Mark at December 17, 2010 07:00 PM
Thank you so much all of you. I just keep thinking how obama's progressives detest that he allowed anything to do with Bush into a bill. That makes me smile.
Thank you for all of your input about this.
Posted by: Wild Thing at December 18, 2010 04:12 AM
what makes me wonder, if the democratic leadership didn't like the tax cuts, as well as the compromise as they seem to be moaning about, why then didn't they do something about it when they controlled the majority of the seats? now i can understand nancy's position, she felt the most important issue faced wasn't tax cuts,it wasn't the high unemployment, it wasn't the record amount of american's receiving food stamps,nope it wasn't even the trillions of debt we have occurred,heck she didn't even mind the banksters RECORD bonuses
Posted by: latitude38 at December 18, 2010 05:47 AM
no under nancy's great leadership and direction for america. you can forget unemployment extensions,forget returning manufacturing jobs to america, forget the forcloseure's, the most important issue she feels america faces today is gay/lesbian/ trans-gender/ cross-dresser rights in our armed forces. she's so out of focus,i noticed she couldn't even vote on the tax-cuts,probably still celebrating her "historic" leadership!! no doubt dressed as a clown! best regards, gary
Posted by: latitude38 at December 18, 2010 06:04 AM
