House GOP out to reshape Senate’s payroll tax cut
Congress is edging closer to yet another down-to-the wire showdown as House Republicans shun a bipartisan payroll tax cut bill approved by the Senate and prepare to write a package to please rank-and-file GOP lawmakers clamoring for a more conservative version.
Read More →House GOP leaders want new payroll tax cut bill
WASHINGTON – Top House Republicans said Sunday they oppose a bipartisan, Senate-approved bill that extends a payroll tax cut and jobless benefits for just two months and said congressional bargainers need to write a new version lasting a longer time.
Their comments, along with a House GOP conference call Saturday in which lawmakers voiced strenuous objections to the Senate bill, made clear that House Republicans were intent on changing the measure and left its ultimate fate uncertain.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Sunday that the bill – which includes the payroll tax cut, unemployment benefits and a halt to scheduled Medicare reimbursement cuts for doctors – needs to last an entire year.
Boehner wants new bill cutting payroll tax
WASHINGTON – House Speaker John Boehner says he opposes a Senate-approved bill extending a payroll tax cut and jobless benefits for just two months and wants congressional bargainers to write a new measure that would last an entire year.
He mentioned items in the House version of the bill that were not in the Senate legislation, including restrictions on Obama administration curbs on industrial pollution.
Boehner’s comments came a day after the Senate easily approved a compromise payroll tax cut bill.
Senate OKs payroll tax cut, huge spending bill
WASHINGTON – The Senate voted Saturday to temporarily avert a Jan. 1 payroll tax increase and benefit cutoff for the long-time unemployed, but forcing a reluctant President Barack Obama to make an election-year choice between unions and environmentalists over whether to build an oil pipeline through the heart of the country.
With the still-reeling economy serving as a backdrop, the Senate’s 89-10 vote belied a tortuous battle between Democrats and Republicans that produced the compromise two-month extension of the expiring tax breaks and jobless benefits and forestalled cuts in doctors’ Medicare reimbursements.
It ensured that the two sides would revisit the payroll tax cut early next year as the fights for control of the White House and Congress heat up.
Obama embracing Roosevelt’s middle-class appeal
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is channeling President Theodore Roosevelt, embracing a mantle of economic fairness for the nation’s middle class Tuesday that draws parallels to the progressive reformer’s calls for a “square deal” for regular Americans more than a century ago.
Obama intends to use a speech in small town Osawatomie, Kan. – where Roosevelt delivered his “New Nationalism” address in 1910 – to lay out economic themes of giving middle-class workers a fair shake and greater financial security, concepts the president will probably return to repeatedly during the 2012 campaign.
Only a month before Republican voters begin choosing a presidential nominee, the White House said Obama would describe this as a “make-or-break moment” for the middle class and those hoping to join it that demands balance and rules of the road to help strengthen working families.
FAA chief on leave after drunken driving arrest
WASHINGTON – FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt was placed on a leave of absence Monday as Department of Transportation officials decide how to handle Babbitt’s weekend arrest on charges of drunken driving in suburban northern Virginia.
DOT officials are in “discussions with legal counsel about Administrator Babbitt’s employment status,” said a statement released by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s office Monday afternoon.
Babbitt, 65, was charged with driving while intoxicated after a patrol officer spotted him driving on the wrong side of the street and pulled him over about 10:30 p.m. EST Saturday in Fairfax City, Va., police in the Washington, D.C., suburb said.
Italian government approves new measures
ROME – Premier Mario Monti said Sunday that his government of technocrats has approved a package of austerity and growth measures to “reawaken” the Italian economy and help save the euro common currency from collapse.
The measures include immediate cuts to the costs of maintaining Italy’s bulky political class as well as significant measures to fight tax evasion, Monti told a news conference following a three-hour Cabinet meeting.
As part of the political cost cuts, Monti said he would forego his salary as premiere.
Senate rejects, for now, extending payroll tax cut
WASHINGTON – The Senate on Thursday sidetracked rival plans to extend a Social Security payroll tax cut, in dueling votes that pave the way for negotiations on a compromise on a core component of President Barack Obama’s jobs program.
First, Republicans defeated Obama’s plan to extend the payroll tax cut through the end of next year while also making it more generous for workers.
Minutes later, in a vote that exposed rare divisions among Senate Republicans, more than two dozen of the GOP’s 47 lawmakers also voted to kill an alternative plan backed by their powerful leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, to renew an existing 2 percentage point payroll tax cut.
Strike test for new Greek government
ATHENS, Greece – Thousands of protesters bitterly opposed to government austerity measures marched through the Greek capital Thursday, as another general strike closed schools and public services, left hospitals functioning on reduced staff and confined ferries to port.
The 24-hour strike is the first test of union opposition to Prime Minister Lucas Papademos’ three-week-old coalition government and comes a day after it promised rescue creditors it will impose additional “deep and broad reforms.”
“Unfortunately people are in a state somewhere between poverty and despair,” Ilias Iliopoulos, deputy leader of the civil servants’ union ADEDY told AP Television News.
GOP: Offsetting cuts must cover payroll tax relief
WASHINGTON – Republican congressional leaders stressed a willingness Wednesday to extend a Social Security payroll tax cut due to expire Dec. 31, setting up a year-end clash with Democrats over how to pay for a provision at the heart of President Barack Obama’s jobs program.
“We just think we shouldn’t be punishing job creators to pay for it,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, scorning a Democratic proposal to raise taxes on million-dollar income earners.
They also recommended raising Medicare premiums for individuals with incomes over $750,000 a year.
ADVERTISEMENTS
ADVERTISEMENTS
MORE ADS
