Reid: Boehner's 'harsh accusation' that Senate should act is 'weak sauce'

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) comments Tuesday saying the Senate should have acted sooner to avert sequestration, was “weak sauce.”

“This week Speaker Boehner made some harsh accusations,” Reid said on the floor Wednesday. “He doesn’t think the Senate has moved quickly enough to avert the sequestration. … The Speakers’ charge is really weak sauce since the House has refined the art of doing nothing.”

On Tuesday night, Reid introduced the American Family Economic Protection Act, which will likely get a vote Thursday, to replace sequestration. Boehner pointed out Tuesday that last year the House passed two sequester-replacement bills so it was time for the Senate to "get off their ass."

The Democrats’ $110 billion sequester replacement bill, S. 388, would avoid the $85 billion in automatic spending cuts set to take effect Friday, by raising nearly $55 billion in revenue through closing tax loopholes and cutting spending by an equal amount. It would phase in a new minimum tax on those making more than $1 million a year, close corporate tax loopholes, end direct farm payments and delay defense cuts. But Republicans have said they won't accept any tax increases.

Senate Republicans have been fighting about what their plan to replace the sequester will look like. Reid has given Republicans the opportunity to introduce just one bill as an alternative to the Democrats'. Neither is likely to pass.

“Once again Republicans are too busy fighting among themselves to get anything done,” Reid said. “Republicans seem poised to make the biggest mistake of all and let he sequester happen.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) countered that the Democrats’ plan is “a gimmicky tax hike,” which is unacceptable to GOP members.

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