House Republicans and Senate Democrats are barreling toward an all-out floor fight over the payroll tax holiday.
House GOP leaders are expected to announce Monday afternoon that they will attempt to pass their own fallback plan to extend the tax holiday until the end of 2012, after consulting with their members Tuesday. The bill could come to the floor as soon as Wednesday, sources say. House Republicans will meet both Tuesday and Wednesday in closed session.
Continue ReadingAnd Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is making final preparations on a bill he?ll discuss with his leadership team Monday evening and with the full conference during a party lunch Tuesday.
Both sides will try to characterize their plans as compromises, in an attempt to convince voters they?re acting reasonable despite the rancor that?s gripped Congress since December. But whether the floor fight will ultimately lead to a bipartisan deal ? or simply force each side to dig in further ? remains to be seen.
Next week?s congressional recess will be in jeopardy if a deal isn?t within reach.
Neither side says it?s abandoning talks between Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), but the fresh action on both sides of the chamber point to a wide gulf between the two parties.
The fact that the conference committee ? which House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) pushed for ? could well fail speaks to the paralyzing gridlock that?s consumed Washington for much of the divided 112th Congress.
At the heart of the most recent dispute is how to finance a package expected to cost $160 billion over 10 years, in order to extend for the rest of the year expiring jobless benefits and a two-point reduction of the Social Security payroll tax break ? along with a rate fix for physicians servicing Medicare patients. Current law expires at month?s end.
Baucus and Camp spent the weekend negotiating, but the weekend ended with senior officials from both parties accusing the other of scuttling a compromise.
The discussions started heading south Sunday evening, when Republicans said Democrats walked away from several previously agreed upon positions. Reid (D-Nev.) began pushing hard for an increase in Transportation Security Administration fees, Republicans said. Democrats and chafed at the GOP?s characterizations of the talks, saying Republicans had balked at a potential compromise over taxes.
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