Biden to Sell Tax Cut to Dem Caucus
The Hill reports:
Vice President Biden will address a fuming House Democratic caucus on Wednesday, a day after lawmakers roundly panned a tax cut deal the White House negotiated with Republicans.
At a caucus meeting Tuesday night, more than a dozen House Democrats stood up to criticize President Obama’s tax proposal, complaining that the administration caved too quickly on party priorities while shutting out Democratic lawmakers, sources in the room said. Of the 15 to 20 Democrats who spoke at the meeting, only a couple voiced support for the proposal, according to a Democrat in the room.
“I don’t think the president should count on Democratic votes to get this deal passed,” Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) said after leaving the meeting. He added Obama “went from zero to compromise in 3.5 seconds.”
“We got rolled,” one Democratic congressman told The Hill in describing the sentiment within the House caucus. One lawmaker, whom Democrats would not name, drew applause when he urged his colleagues to vote down the Obama-GOP plan and force the new Republican majority to confront the expiring George W. Bush-era tax cuts.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democratic leaders presented the president’s proposal to the party rank-and-file while making clear they were not endorsing it. The plan calls for a two-year extension of the entire slate of Bush tax cuts, along with a 2 percent reduction in the employee payroll tax, among other items.
The chief sticking point for House Democrats, aside from a temporary extension of tax cuts for the wealthy, was the proposed adoption of a GOP-favored plan to set the estate tax at 35 percent for individuals worth more than $5 million. The House passed a bill last year that would set the inheritance tax at 45 percent with an exemption starting at $3.5 million, and Democrats characterized the administration proposal as a needless giveaway to the GOP.
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