McConnell presses Dems to bring tax withholding bill for a vote in Senate

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) sidestepped President Obama's jobs bill in a floor speech on Monday and demanded that his Democratic counterpart call up a House bill to eliminate an IRS withholding tax on businesses that do work for the government.

“More than 400 members of the House voted for this bill — including 170 Democrats,” said McConnell in his opening speech for the new work period. "[R]epublicans support this legislation. Democrats support this legislation. The President himself included this legislation in his own jobs bill. And he supports the House bill."

“There is no reason the Senate shouldn’t take it up right now,” continued the Republican leader. “This is one small thing we can do right now to reduce the burden on employers across the country." 

The House voted Thursday to repeal the "onerous" tax-withholding requirement, a move House Republicans said would not only help create jobs, but should also dispel Democratic arguments that the GOP is not working expeditiously to find areas of agreement on job creation.

In calling on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to call that bill down to the floor, McConnell entirely sidestepped his appeal — just minutes before — for Republicans to join Democrats in passing a $60 billion spending bill proposed by Obama. 

—Pete Kasperowiz contributed.