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Economy

House To Pass Payroll Tax Cut Extension Today (Update)

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Dec 23, 2011 at 9:45 am

The House is expected to pass the two-month payroll tax cut extension today, preventing taxes from increasing for millions of Americans on Jan. 1. The Senate approved the deal Friday morning. House Speaker John Boehner caved under the enormous pressure and dropped his opposition to the extension, telling reporters late Thursday that the House had reached a deal to pass the Senate’s two-month extension deal after minor modifications, according to the Washington Post:

The agreement resolved the last stalemate in a year of bitter congressional fighting that earned lawmakers their lowest approval ratings in recent memory.

In exchange for supporting the 60-day patch, Republicans secured minor face-saving concessions from Senate leaders, who had already passed a two-month deal on an overwhelming vote of 89 to 10. Senate leaders had balked at the House’s demand to restart talks over the holidays on a full-year extension of the tax cut.

The Senate agreed to make a technical change to the payroll tax reporting requirements, designed to lessen the burden on small businesses of implementing the two-month deal.

And Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) promised he would appoint a conference committee to take up negotiations after New Year’s Day on ways to pay for a full-year tax cut.

Both chambers will pass the plan by unanimous consent so long as no member shows up to voice opposition in person, which lets the deal pass even though most members have gone home. There was no opposition to the deal in the Senate Friday morning. The two-month extension gives House and Senate leaders time to negotiate for a yearlong extension after the holiday recess. “I am grateful that the voices of reason have prevailed,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said in a statement.

But so far, a few House freshmen have threatened to stop the deal. Freshman Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) said he was “not yet sure” if he would protest the deal, and Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) told CNN’s John King Thursday night, “I’m not so sure I’m not going to do that,” when asked if he’d drive to Washington, D.C. to stop the deal.

Boehner acknowledged the pressure he has felt, telling reporters Thursday that “I talked to enough members over the last 24 hours who say we don’t like the two-month extension and if you can get this fixed, why not do the right thing for the American people even if it’s not exactly what we want.”

Boehner received pressure from his own party — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called on the House to pass the two month extension yesterday — as well as the public. After the White House asked people to say what $40 — the average amount an American worker would lose per paycheck without the extension — would mean to them, thousands of people responded on Twitter using the #40dollars hashtag.

Update

The House passed the extension deal by unanimous consent.

Update

After the House passed the deal, Reid named his conferees: Democratic Sens. Max Baucus (MT), Ben Cardin (MD), Jack Reed (RI) and Bob Casey (PA). House Democrats named their conferees before the House adjourned: Reps. Sandy Levin (MI), Xavier Becerra (CA), Chris Van Hollen (MD), Allyson Schwartz (PA), and Henry Waxman (CA).

Climate Progress

Rep. Kelly, Millionaire Investor In Oil And Gas Companies, Defends Subsidies Against Angry Town Hall Constituents

By Scott Keyes on Jul 5, 2011 at 1:40 pm

Late last week, Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) held a town hall meeting in Meadville, Pennsylvania where constituents challenged the freshman congressman on his support for subsidies to oil and gas corporations. Earlier this year, Kelly joined every House Republican in voting to protect the $4 billion in subsidies that go to oil and gas companies every year. However, unlike many of his House colleagues, Kelly has a significant personal financial stake in the matter.

A constituent from Erie asked Kelly how he can “justify continuing subsidies for oil companies with record profits while cutting vital services for working families?” The Pennsylvania congressman first responded by citing American Petroleum Institute talking points and argued that we need to help oil companies because they are in many pension plans and retirement portfolios. Kelly then went on to decry what he saw as “class warfare” before being shouted down by constituents who were incredulous that the Pennsylvania congressman was a “rich millionaire” but he wouldn’t end oil subsidies and “fix the tax code”:

MODERATOR: This question is from Joshua from Erie. How can you justify continuing subsidies for oil companies with record profits while cutting vital services for working families? Oil companies don’t need subsidies and working families shouldn’t have to pay for them with…

KELLY: First of all, let me just ask one thing. Is there anybody in here that has a pension? Anybody have a portfolio? I want you to very carefully look at those portfolios. Those are usually made up by profitable companies.

CONSTITUENT: Why are we subsidizing them?

KELLY: If you really want to understand the whole thing, I would say that, number one, we want companies to be profitable. I said earlier about the class warfare, if we’re going to start classifying, “they’re too rich, they’re too wealthy, they’re too greedy. We don’t get enough, we need more, and we need to have rich people putting more money in. We need, we need, we need, we need, we need, we need, we need.”

Watch it, courtesy of Americans United for Change (beginning at 1:40):

Kelly’s defense of oil and gas subsidies is bad enough on the merits, but it is all the more troubling given that he owns up to $6.25 million in oil and gas companies. Kelly’s holdings include the following:

– Up to $5 million in Phillips Resources Inc., an oil and gas drilling company that is exploring major drilling expansions in the area of western Pennsylvania that Kelly represents

– Up to $1 million in TWP Gas and Oil, a natural gas company in western Pennsylvania

Both companies were bought last week by ExxonMobil, which plans to expand its fracking operations in the Marcellus Shale basin.

As oil companies reap sky-high profits, outraged citizens are demanding to know why they continue to receive billions in taxpayer subsidies. Kelly, who owns millions in oil and gas money and personally profits from their success, is only the latest defender of corporate giveaways. It is sad but unsurprising that the Pennsylvania Republican would disparage those who call for an end to subsidies as engaging in “class warfare,” while at the same time arguing that taxpayers should support the very oil and gas companies he’s invested in because “we want companies to be profitable.”

Politics

Rep. Mike Kelly Falsely Claims Social Security Checks Would Continue During A Government Shutdown

By Scott Keyes on Feb 16, 2011 at 4:45 pm

With a potential government shutdown looming, the GOP is attempting to have it both ways on the issue. Earlier this week, an “exasperated” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) declared that a government shutdown was “off the table,” only to be undercut by another GOP House leader, Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), who told ThinkProgress that a shutdown was “on the table.” Despite Cantor’s best efforts, over a half-dozen other Republicans are publicly calling for a government closure.

Republicans in the pro-shutdown caucus are trying to frame the effects of a potential shutdown as minor. Appearing on Fox News a few months ago, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) argued in favor of a closure, declaring that, “I don’t think [a government shutdown] would hurt one bit.” Paul also told ThinkProgress last weekend that a shutdown is “not something I worry about.”

Now, freshmen Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) is also parroting the notion of a pain-free shutdown. ThinkProgress caught up with Kelly at last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Though he stopped short of supporting a government closure, Kelly defended the potential consequences of a shutdown. He argued that even if there is a shutdown, the government is “not going to stop, people aren’t going to lose their Social Security checks and they’re not going to lose their access to Medicare and Medicaid”:

KEYES: If these cuts, either defunding or dismantling Obamacare, either dies in the Senate or dies at Obama’s veto pen, would you be willing to join Jim DeMint and others who have said that this is worth trying to have a showdown and potentially a government shutdown just to show how serious we are about this?

KELLY: I don’t know that you have to have a government shutdown. We can do things with funding. At the end of the day, Congress controls the purse strings. So when you defund and you take the funding away from certain things, you in fact shut down that part. But shutting down the government, nobody wants to hear that. The other thing is, I don’t like that terminology of shutting down the government because really, it’s a fear factor. People know it’s not realistic. The government is not going to shut down, it’s not going to stop. People aren’t going to lose their Social Security checks and they’re not going to lose their access to Medicare and Medicaid. I think we have to be careful when we use that kind of talk. I think what we’re talking about is, look, we control the funding, let’s make sure we’re doing the right thing for the people.

KEYES: So even if that were to happen, theoretically, it wouldn’t be as bad as people make it out to be?

KELLY: No, I don’t think so. I really don’t.

Watch it:

Kelly’s assertions are simply not true. One need look no further than the federal government shutdown of 1995 for proof. During the nearly four-week shutdown, new Social Security claims were not processed; during a 2011 shutdown, all Social Security checks (as well as Medicare/Medicaid reimbursements) would be disrupted, according to a prediction from Donna Shalala, Health and Human Services Secretary during the last shutdown. According to a Center for American Progress report entitled “The Big Freeze,” the shutdown ultimately “cost the American taxpayer over $800 million and rattled the confidence of international investors in U.S. government bonds.”

But don’t take ThinkProgress’ word for it. Tea Party favorite Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) appeared on the Laura Ingraham Show yesterday and said a shutdown would be nothing short of a “trainwreck”:

INGRAHAM: Would you accept, or even demand, a government shutdown if you don’t get the entitlement reform that you said is necessary as we move forward?

BACHMANN: I don’t think anybody wants to see the government shut down. That’s a trainwreck when something like that happens because quite literally, no checks go out, everything stops. You can’t do that, you can’t just have the military stop. We have to have protection.

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