Bill Postmus.net

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY)

Senate leaders have agreed to a plan that will prevent key policies, including a two percent payroll tax cut for employees, from lapsing on January 1, 2012, according to top aides. But the agreement will only extends the measures for two months, setting Democrats and Republicans up to relitigate this same fight fight early next year. And it comes at a political cost to Democrats who were forced to relent on a provision forcing President Obama to take a public position on the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

The $30 billion package will be paid for by increasing the fees lenders pay to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It includes two month extensions of the existing two percent payroll tax; emergency unemployment benefits; and the “doc fix” which prevents Medicare physicians from experiencing a deep automatic pay cut.

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By Russell Berman and Molly K. Hooper
12/14/11

House Republicans easily approved a one-year extension of the payroll tax cut over a presidential veto threat Tuesday, setting up a confrontation with the White House and Senate Democrats.

The 234-193 vote throws the GOP year-end package into the Senate’s lap, where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) vowed to reject it over a number of provisions that Democrats find unacceptable.

The maneuvering added yet another twist in a rapidly closing window for Congress to act on several high-priority issues. Two major year-end pieces of legislation, the payroll tax package and an omnibus spending bill, converged politically as Republicans accused Reid of holding up an agreement on the spending bill until the GOP made concessions on the payroll tax measure.

As the legislative calendar winds down its final days, a $1,000 tax bill for the average family, insurance benefits for the jobless and the operations of the federal government all hang in the balance.

Republican leaders used the House vote to pressure the Senate and Obama, denouncing the president for threatening a veto on a bill that includes two central elements of his jobs plan — the payroll tax holiday and unemployment benefits.

“We’ve passed a large bill that contains many of the priorities of our caucus and the White House. We’ve worked to find common ground,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told reporters after the vote. “Now Senate Democrats must act.”

Senate Democrats said Tuesday evening they wanted to vote on the House bill immediately but that Republicans objected.

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Some of Congress’s most bruising battles today are not about what you might expect — taxes, deficit spending or energy policy. They’re about the Senate’s constitutional responsibility to advise and consent to presidential appointments.

The public never hears about most of these political confrontations because they happen behind the scenes. But tactics delay the filling of key positions in the federal government, on the federal bench and in diplomacy.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has pointed out that, 18 months into President Barack Obama’s term, 25 percent of his nominees are still awaiting confirmation by the divided Senate. “This is not an aberration,” Lieberman said.

In March 2010, the president himself complained. He had sent 217 nominees to the Senate, but 77 who had cleared the appropriate committees were still waiting confirmation. Forty-four had been waiting more than two months to get to work.

After Obama’s first 100 days in office, only 14 percent of the positions needing confirmation were filled.

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A massive year-end spending deal hung in the balance late Monday as a frustrated Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sought to use the package to win more cooperation from the Republican House on the question of extending payroll tax breaks backed by President Barack Obama.

Reid and Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee have been pivotal in negotiating the $1 trillion-plus spending bill, often taking on the role of mediating between the administration and House Republicans. But those prolonged talks have left a residue of anger and raw feelings, and Reid feels he has not seen the same spirit of compromise from Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Obama’s priority – the payroll tax holiday.

Instead, the House is expected to proceed Tuesday with a tax package that wraps in unrelated but environmentally sensitive issues, like the Keystone XL pipeline – a direct challenge to Obama. And if Boehner gets a strong vote, it can’t be ruled out that the House will go home for the year, leaving the Senate with a “take-it-or-leave-it” proposition on the tax issue.

Standing in the way of any such exit is the need to also act on the spending bill, which the House Appropriations Committee had hoped to file Monday night. Instead in a Capitol meeting with Boehner on Monday, Reid was described as demanding some better understanding first that the two year-end packages – appropriations and the payroll tax – will be dealt with in tandem.

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Earlier this week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stood with his leadership team and predicted that a “majority” of Republicans would support extending the payroll tax cut.

He was wrong.

Not only did 26 out of the 47 Republicans in the Senate vote “no” Thursday night on a GOP version of the bill, McConnell’s top lieutenants bailed on him, including Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona, along with Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), John Cornyn (R-Texas) and John Thune (R-S.D.) — all members of leadership.

The lopsided 20-78 vote on McConnell’s version of the payroll tax dealt a rare but embarrassing blow to the Kentucky Republican, regarded as one of the smartest and most politically astute operatives on Capitol Hill. And it marks a setback for the longtime Washington insider as he tries to lay out the major differences between the two parties in his quest to become Senate majority leader in 2012.

So why did so many Republicans bolt from their leader on a signature year-end issue that President Barack Obama is campaigning on? The reality is that many conservatives hate the payroll tax cut — they think it’s a band aid approach and takes money away from Social Security. So they voted no, despite the fact that their leader had thrown his political capital into this bill.

Cornyn told POLITICO on Friday that the proposal over a payroll tax break amounted to a “gimmick” at a time when Washington is borrowing 40 cents out of every dollar.

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By Peter Schroeder
11/29/11
A top ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee chastised maneuvers to replace Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) as the top Democrat on the panel as circling a carcass like vultures.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), the fourth-ranking Democrat on the committee, said in a terse statement Tuesday that lawmakers should be focused more on helping people, not moving up the committee food chain.

We should put the needs of the U.S. people before any speculation on whose political career will be moving forward or back just because a great Congressman has announced his retirement, he said.

Frank, a fixture on Capitol Hill for three decades and a titular sponsor of the sweeping Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, announced Monday that he would not seek reelection in 2012.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) is the second ranking Democrat on the committee, and said shortly after Frank’s announcement that she wants to continue and expand his work on the panel, but stopped short of explicitly announcing her intentions to take over as top Democrat, and potentially chairwoman if Democrats take back the House in 2012.

However, her succession may be complicated by a pending ethics investigation into whether she helped steer federal funds to a bank where her husband had substantial stock holdings and was a former board member. Waters has maintained her innocence.

House Democrats will not sort out who will succeed Frank until after the November elections.

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By Russell Berman

11/29/11

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) announced Monday that he will not seek reelection in 2012, ending the combative liberal’s three-decade career in the House.

Frank, 71, is the top Democrat on the Financial Services Committee and the architect, with former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), of the sweeping Wall Street regulatory reform law enacted in 2010.

He announced his retirement at an afternoon press conference in his hometown of Newton, Mass., where he said redistricting played a major role in his decision.

“I was planning to run again, and then congressional redistricting came,” Frank said.

His retirement will deprive the House of one of its most colorful characters, a liberal stalwart known for his quick and often caustic wit.

First elected in 1980, Frank survived scandal early in his career and rose to become the nation’s most powerful openly gay elected official. After coming out publicly, he became a champion for gay rights and helped campaign for an end to the military’s ban on gays serving openly. The repeal of that policy took effect this year.

His legislative legacy is likely to be the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill that passed in 2010 in the wake of the Wall Street meltdown that sent the economy into a tailspin in 2008. Hailed by the Obama administration, the law has drawn sharp criticism in the Republican presidential nomination fight, and one leading contender, former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), even suggested that Frank be jailed, along with Dodd, for their support of the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the lead-up to the financial crisis.

Frank’s announcement prompted a flood of accolades from Democrats, including a statement from President Obama that praised his work on financial regulatory reform.

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The supercommittee’s failure may have unleashed a round of doom and gloom over the past week about Washington’s ability to tackle the debt problem. But Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) struck a sunnier note Sunday, saying he believes Republicans and Democrats could agree to a major deficit-reduction package next year.

“We have a good chance of actually getting the big package, big deficit reduction in 2012,” Schumer said on NBC’s “Meet The Press”, repeatedly billing his own analysis as “a contrarian view.”

“The knives … are over our heads. The Bush tax cuts expire in 2013. Sequestration goes into effect in 2013. Now that seems a year and a month away, but as we get closer and closer and closer, the pressure on both parties to come together in the middle — provided we don’t remove one of those knives, like taking defense off the table — is going to be stronger and stronger,” Schumer said.

The senator also predicted that Republicans will grow more flexible as their presidential primary process is resolved.

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By Alexander Bolton
11/23/11

After failing to reach a deal to reduce the deficit, the Senate will move next month to take up legislation that could add more than $400 billion to the deficit.

All of the proposals, such as the extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance, are popular but come with no agreement on how to pay for them.

Senate Democrats will go on offense next week by forcing Republicans to vote on extending and expanding the payroll tax cut, which accounts for $240 billion of the tab, according to Democratic and Republican aides. Lawmakers will take up the legislation after completing work on the Defense authorization bill.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has yet to announce an offset for the measure, but he has discussed matching it with a tax increase for millionaires. Such a vote would be intended to hammer home the message that Republicans are out to protect the rich, though it leaves Democrats vulnerable to arguments about class warfare.

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