House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she would try to use a procedure known as a discharge petition to bring a Senate-passed bill for extending the middle-class tax cuts to the floor of the House.
Nancy Pelosi
A discharge petition would require 218 signatures to bring it to the floor of the House. Republicans, who hold a majority in the House, have so far resisted allowing a vote on a bill passed earlier this year by the Senate, which would extend the tax cuts for only those earning less than $250,000 a year.
"The message from the American people is loud and clear: we need solutions not stalemates,” Pelosi said in a statement Sunday. "We continue to call on Speaker Boehner to immediately schedule a vote on the Senate-passed bill to extend tax cuts for the middle class, which the President has said he will sign immediately. Congressional Republicans must heed the call of middle-class families during this holiday season, end the uncertainty and stop holding middle income tax cuts hostage to tax cuts for the rich. If Speaker Boehner refuses to schedule this widely-supported bill for a vote, Democrats will introduce a discharge petition to automatically bring to the floor the Senate-passed middle class tax cuts. We must find a bold, balanced and fair agreement to avoid the fiscal cliff. The clock is ticking and stalemates are a luxury we cannot afford.”
Pelosi held a press conference last Friday in which she said she planned to introduce the discharge petition this coming Tuesday. However, she admitted that Democrats will need some Republicans to join them in signing the discharge petition. Democrats currently hold 192 seats in the House, but the discharge petition would need 218 signatures to bring the bill to the floor for a vote.
“The clock is ticking, the year is ending,” Pelosi said Friday. “it’s really important, with tax legislation, for it to happen now. We’re calling upon the Republican leadership in the House to bring this legislation to the floor next week. We believe that not doing that would be holding middle income tax cuts hostage to tax cuts for the rich. Tax cuts for the rich which do not create jobs, just increase the deficit, heaping mountains of debt onto future generations. And so, to that end, we will be introducing, if the bill, if there is no announcement of scheduling of the middle income tax cut, which, by the way, has tremendous support in the Republican Caucus – I think we would get a 100 percent vote on it if it came to the floor. If it is not scheduled, then on Tuesday we will be introducing a discharge petition which you know with – if we get 218 signatures, would bring the bill automatically to the floor. That would mean that we need some Republicans who support middle income tax cuts, to sign on with us.”
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said on Fox News Sunday that President Obama’s latest proposal , presented by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, to avert the fiscal cliff was a “non-serious proposal.”
"The President was asking for $1.6 trillion worth of new revenue over 10 years, twice as much as he's been asking for in public,” said Boehner. “He has stimulus spending in here that exceeded the amount of new cuts that he was willing to consider. It was not a serious offer. I looked at [Secretary Geithner] and I said, 'you can't be serious?' ... You know, we've got several weeks between Election Day and the end of the year. And three of those weeks have been wasted with this nonsense."
Geithner, however, said on NBC’s Meet the Press that he believes a compromise on the fiscal cliff talks can be reached. “I think we’re going to get there,” he said. However, he insisted that Republicans need to come up with a counter-offer. “We need to know what they’re prepared to do on [tax] rates and revenues, and we need to know what they’re prepared to do on the spending side,” he said.
10 Comments
LEAVE THE TAX CODE ALONE AND FREEZE GOVERNMENT SPENDING UNTIL THE BUDGET IS BALANCED. REQUIRE EVERYONE RECEIVING A DISABILITY CHECK.. SOCIAL SECURITY, VA, GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES, ETC TO REAPPLY PERIODICALLY AND PROVE THEIR DISABILITY.
Posted by: JAWJRCPA1 | December 5, 2012 8:48 AM
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Let us do the math---Wall Street executives and Corporation CEO's are paid $10,000,000. Boehner says they need that extra 2% or 3%. The short cut in multiplying percentages is to move the decimal 2 places. At 2%, this poor exec needs $200,000 to live on??. Too bad Republicans failed math in grade school (but they learned penmanship to worship Grover Norquist for 20 years).When will these cry-babies stop? Then again they need the money to support the 47% retarded children who only learned to spend their inheritances on spring breaks instead of an education.
Posted by: Janosik | December 3, 2012 3:26 PM
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As a tax practitioner who has had to live with the Bush tax cuts for all these years and the craziness they create for us every December plus the added complexity they create, just let them expire. Then it is a win-win. The Democrats increase the taxes on the wealthiest while the Republicans can blame them for increasing taxes on the middle class. Then, concentrate on a permanent solution to the crazy AMT, estate and gift tax and kill all the loopholes and nutty tax preferences and credits given to so many special interest groups including businesses and individuals. It is not the tax rates that need adjustment to raise revenues but the closing of all the preferences, credits, deductions, etc.
The idea of the wealthy not creating jobs is nuts. Just look at all the countries where there is a broad spectrum of wealth distribution and those where there is not and you'll see a close correlation between the distribution and the country's development. Without the wealthy reinvesting in the nation the capital would not be there to invest in companies to fund R&D, capital projects, startups, etc. Fact of life and reality. Yes, there are bumps and in a minority of situations greed lifts its ugly head but there are checks and balances in the marketplace that can be effective if not messed with by government.
The latest being the decision to control new technology to protect the taxi industry from something that has not happened yet.
Posted by: BrianL | December 3, 2012 2:43 PM
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Why attack the people who work to have the things they want in this life. Make a fair tax for all. No matter what your income the tax is the same percentage for all. We waste far to much time making things unfair and very complicated.
Posted by: ANNIEBEAR | December 3, 2012 11:56 AM
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It has been said that the administration's view of compromise is: Republicans promise to give in to all of Democart's positions and the Democrats promise not to laugh. Because the current administration won over about 5% of those that pay income taxes plus the 47% that pay none does not give it a mandate to tax.
Posted by: haychuck | December 3, 2012 11:38 AM
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The GOP can not be trusted after spouting numerous lies and misinformation during this election cycle. The Pants-on-Fire meter was working overtime. We had an election which clearly indication that a good faith effort by this first step is needed to progress to our other pressing issues. These Tax cuts were meant to expire for a reason. This is to provide the public some indication that fairness will be apart of the compromise. The only skin this process for the last 15 years or more has been on the middle class and poor with no effect at the top. Blind I am not. The Stock Market has doubled, the wealthy had income increases that made the 1920s standard disappear, & these facts did not generate any jobs with livable wages. I hope Pelosi's measure works. We need to move forward.
Posted by: E Marie G | December 3, 2012 11:00 AM
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The sad part is the watchdogs on this are asleep. The tax on the RICH will do nothing. Were are the spending cuts? pbwmiller has it right, it will just keep going to cover larger and larger groups. The same rates should apply at all levels to truly make the all levels pay their fair shar.
Posted by: dlrandall | December 3, 2012 10:44 AM
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Hmm. The middle class is hostage in this stalemate? Maybe it's successful people who are being held hostage, instead. One person's stalemate is another person's defense of principle.
Of course, as soon as taxes are specifically levied on the 1% by the 99%, it won't be long until the 98% tax the 2%, then the 90% load them on the 10%, and the 75% on the 25%, and finally the 50.1% on the 49.9% who are "more fortunate."
The rhetoric is sickening.
Posted by: pbwmiller | December 3, 2012 8:01 AM
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Will there anything new or the same old stuff that has been proposed for the last 2 years?
Posted by: nraacct | December 3, 2012 7:26 AM
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Lets see the bill first, after the Health Care Act, she cannot be trusted.
Posted by: benusmc | December 3, 2012 7:23 AM
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