House Balks At Senate Payroll Package, Calls For Conference

UPDATE — House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) called on Senate Democrats and President Obama to remain in Washington throughout the holidays to “work out our differences” and extend a payroll tax holiday for one year rather than approving a temporary, two-month extension.

“We’ve done our job, all we need now is to resolve our differences,” Boehner said Tuesday shortly after the House diapproved of a Senate bill to extend the payroll tax holiday. “There’s no reason we can’t do this in short order.”

Boehner also made clear, that despite previous reports that the House would adjourn following Tuesday’s votes, House GOP leadership and a handful of negotiators will remain “ready and able” to finalize a year-long extensions before Jan. 1. According to the Speaker, Reps. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), David Camp (R-Mich.), Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), Nan Hayworth (R-N.Y.), Tom Price (R-Ga.), Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Greg Walden (R-Ore.) would be on hand and in Washington through the end of the year.

The House Speaker questioned the willingness of President Obama to increase his involvement by demanding Senate Democrats reconvene to hash out an agreement.

“Now it’s up to the president to show real leadership,” Boehner said. “He said that won’t leave town for the holidays until this bill is done. I think President Obama needs to call on Senate Democrats to go back into session move to go a conference, and to sit down and resolve this bill as quickly as possible. We’ve done our work for the American people and now it’s up to the president and Democrats in the Senate to do their obs as well.”

This story was updated at 2:34p.m. EST…

UPDATE — Just before 1:00p.m. EST Tuesday, the House voted 229-193 to disapprove of the Senate’s two-month payroll holiday extension, calling the upper chamber back to conference to work out their differences.

The vote puts pressure back on Senate Democrats to reconvene even though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has already said the upper chamber was done with votes for the year. Reid took to his Twitter account to respond to the House’s latest vote.

“Happy to cont. negotiations on a yearlong deal as soon as #House passes the #Senate’s compromise, & prevents tax hike from hitting mid class,” Reid tweeted.

Reid’s statement indicates that Senate Democrats will not likely return to conference with House Republicans.

According to a Democratic aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity, following the lower chamber’s scheduled votes Tuesday, House members plan to follow suit with the Senate and adjourn for the holidays, leaving no window for a conference to actually take place.

“No conference, no nothing, everything expires,” the Democratic source said.

This story was updated at 1:26p.m. EST…

WASHINGTON - The House is expected to vote Tuesday on a plan that would send a Senate-passed, two-year payroll tax cut extension into conference, a procedure that would allow Republicans to reject the upper chamber’s bill without actually voting against it. 

Though House Republicans will not formally reject the Senate-passed extension with a vote, GOP leaders have said that the move to conference with the upper chamber would serve as a vote against the Senate’s bill. 

House Republicans are vehemently opposed to the duration of the two-month extension drafted in the Senate. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has said it is an attempt to “kick the can down the road for 60 days” and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) has said the “two-month bill would do more harm than good.”

Despite an 89-10 vote in the upper chamber and approval from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Republicans have opted to bring the bill to a conference in an effort to reach a deal that would extend the payroll tax package for a full year rather than accept a two-month-long extension. Democrats are taking the opportunity to label House Republicans as obstructionists.

“Speaker Boehner should allow an up-or-down vote on the compromise that Senator McConnell and I negotiated at Speaker Boehner’s request, and which was supported by 89 Republican and Democratic senators,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said in a statement. “It would be unconscionable to block a bipartisan agreement that would protect middle-class families from the thousand-dollar tax increase looming on January 1. It is time for Speaker Boehner to follow through.”

Reid has indicated that he will not re-open negotiations over the duration of the payroll tax holiday until the House passes the two-month extension. 

Payroll Tax Battle Heads To Senate

House Republicans were successful in passing legislation Tuesday that would extend payroll-tax cuts to 2013 and would expedite a White House decision on the Keystone XL pipeline. 

The 234-193 vote sends the Republican-crafted bill to Senate Democrats who have arduously opposed the bill and have already signaled the bill would be dead-on-arrival. 

Following the House vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) took immediate action and called for a vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Republicans’ top senator, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), told Reid he needed more time to organize his conference. Reid, in turn, criticized McConnell for blocking a Senate vote on the House’s payroll package. 

A vote in the upper chamber, however, will likely be the House-passed bill’s demise. Senate Democrats said that they will continue to pursue a surtax on millionaires as a pay-for for the payroll-tax holiday, a notion Republicans have argued is counter-intuitive. 

Meanwhile, the White House, which threatened to veto the bill Tuesday, released a statement following the House vote that labeled Republicans as ideologues practicing gamesmanship. 

“This Congress needs to do its job and stop the tax hike that’s scheduled to affect 160 million Americans in 18 days,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement. “This is not a time for Washington Republicans to score political points against the President.  It’s not a time to refight old ideological battles.”

Moving forward, Congress must act on two key issues; passing extenders and an omnibus bill that keeps the government funded past Friday. However, Republicans have accused Senate Democrats for holding a House-passed, $1 trillion omnibus bill “hostage” until both parties can agree on a “more acceptable” extension of the payroll-tax package. 

Democrats have defended this accusation by voicing concern over the possibility the House would pass its version of the extender and payroll bills then skip town, forcing the Senate to take up the bills without any changes.

Congress now has two days to keep the government funded past Friday and just over two weeks before Americans see their paychecks shrink in 2013.

Senate Beats Deadline, Approves Stopgap Measure

UPDATE: By a vote of 79-12, the Senate on Monday approved a stopgap measure to keep the government funded through November 18.

Click here for more…

This story was updated for a second time at 7:38 pm EST

UPDATE: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will hold a vote Monday night on a bill to keep the government funded through November 19 and provide the Federal Emergency Management Agency with nearly $3.7 billion in funding. 

The Senate bill mirrors a House-passed bill that was shot down by the upper chamber Friday. The only difference is that proposed spending cuts aimed at offsetting FEMA’s funding are excluded from the Senate’s version. 

Though FEMA is running short on time and was previously expected to exhaust the little funding it has left by Tuesday, Senate aides have indicated that the disaster aide agency actually has enough money to keep it operational through Thursday. 

If Congress fails to act before Friday, Sept. 30, the United States government will face the threat of a government shutdown for the third time in 2011.

This story was updated at 11:24a.m. EST…

Washington, D.C. - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called on House GOP leadership to “cool off” and requested they meet with him over the weekend to hash out an agreement on funding the government and keeping FEMA afloat.

The move, which puts next week’s prospects of a congressional recess on hold, comes on the heels of the upper chamber’s rejection of a spending measure the House passed early Friday that would keep the government funded through November 19.  

The Senate voted 59 to 36 Friday in favor of tabling the House’s proposal.  

“If [House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio)] thought he could just send us this bill… and leave town, I think he ought to take a look at the roll call we just had,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters, referring to the 7 Republican senators who crossed party lines to table the House’s bill.  

A Senate bill that Democratic leaders now say matches the $3.65 billion in FEMA funding proposed by the House is scheduled to be considered Monday evening, but does not include the GOP’s spending cuts offsetting emergency funding. 

In fact, Reid shot down the notion of adding offsets to the Senate’s bill when asked by reporters if he would consider the move should the Senate bill fail Monday.

Prior to Reid’s request to meet with Speaker Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) over the weekend, the House GOP leaders indicated at an earlier press conference that the House planned to adjourn as scheduled following Friday votes. 

With FEMA expected to exhaust its current budget by early next week, Cantor said regarding the possibility of returning next week, “If we are back, that means Harry Reid has shut down FEMA.”

Click here to see photos from today’s press conference. 

Reid, Schumer Tout GOP-Friendly Debt Ceiling Plan

By Philip Bunnell

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Monday touted a new plan to raise the debt ceiling that they claim meets the standards laid out by both parties.

The proposal will cut $2.7 trillion in spending, $1 trillion of which is drawn from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while sparing entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. The plan also features no increase in revenue, which had been the center of heated debate between Democrats and Republicans.

“It’s a tough choice,” Schumer said of not including revenue increases, “but for Democrats we get an increase in the debt ceiling through 2012 and we succeed in preventing any benefit cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.”

Both Schumer and Reid stressed that revenue increases are necessary and that they will pursue them.  However, in the interest of avoiding default, no tax increases were included. 

“All the Republicans have to do is say ‘yes’,” Reid told reporters.

The plan will include another key GOP interest, Reid noted.

“The amount of the cuts meets the amount of debt ceiling increases,” said Reid. “They wanted a one for one, that’s what we give them.”

Both Senators were highly critical of the “extremists” in the Republican party who they accused of hijacking the debate.  The Republicans, Reid said, are being “driven by the radical, right-wing that is so in tune with the Tea Party.”

The two Democrats also rejected the notion that Speaker of the House John Boehner’s (R-OH) short term plan was a viable option. 

“A short term extension would not provide the certainty the markets are looking for, and risks the same dire economic consequences that would be triggered by default itself,” warned Reid.

Schumer accused the GOP of waffling on the issue. 

“Even Republicans rejected a short term increase in the debt ceiling as recently as last month,” observed Schumer, “… now Republicans have apparently flip-flopped on this point, but a short term deal is still an non-starter in the Senate.”

Senate Will Vote On Ryan's Budget

By Anna Cameron

In a conference call with reporters Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) revealed that he will schedule a vote on the House GOP budget.

Though the budget - drafted primarily by House Budget Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) - is not expected to pass in the Democrat-contolled Senate, Reid noted that he expects a vote to paint a clear picture of what Senate Republicans think of the Ryan budget. 

“We’re going to take a look at this and find out if the Republicans in the Senate…are really as supportive of the Republican budget that came out of the House as the Republicans are in the House,” he said. “I want to find out how all but two Republicans in the House voted for this.”

From the outset, Democrats have stood in strong opposition to the Ryan budget, with not a single House Democrat voting in support of the plan two weeks ago.

However, the vote will also test the support of moderate Republicans like Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who recently announced that she will not vote for the House GOP proposal. 

“It would be one of the worst things to happen to this country if that came into effect,” said Reid when asked if he believed the budget would pass the Senate.

At present, a bipartisan group in the Senate referred to as the “Gang of Six” is working to draft its own proposal, and a commission headed by Vice President Joe Biden that includes several House and Senate leaders is expected to begin meeting next week to discuss plans for deficit reduction.

President Barack Obama recently unveiled his own spending blueprint, which aims to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the next 12 years.