Maryland Democrats sign on to conference agreement

By Bernie Becker - 02/16/12 03:02 PM ET

Two prominent Maryland Democrats announced Thursday that they would sign off on an agreement to extend the payroll tax cut, unemployment benefits and Medicare payment rate, though it targets the pensions of future federal workers.

Sen. Ben Cardin and Rep. Chris Van Hollen applauded a last-minute compromise that would force only new federal employees to contribute more to their pension funds, a provision that will help pay for the emergency unemployment insurance.

But the two Democrats also said they were disappointed that federal workers would have to shoulder some of the costs of offsetting the measure.

“We want this process to move forward. We will not let others find excuses to extend the gridlock,” Cardin and Van Hollen, who were both part of the conference committee tasked with dealing with the payroll tax cut, said in a statement.

“But it is inherently unfair that the primary offset found for extending unemployment insurance came from additional sacrifice from other middle-class families rather than the very wealthiest Americans who can afford to pay more but continue to pay less.”

Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the leaders of the conference committee, announced they had reached a deal early Thursday, after a topsy-turvy day of negotiations.

The two Maryland Democrats played a prominent role in one of the panel’s final hurdles, making a last-ditch effort to replace proposed federal pension cuts with a reduction in federal employees' 2013 cost-of-living increase from 1.7 percent to 0.5 percent.

In the end, the final agreement exempted current federal employees from the pension changes.

The Democrats’ efforts appear to have been aided by resistance from Senate Republicans to the conference agreement. Sens. Jon Kyl of Arizona and John Barrasso of Wyoming, two of the three Senate GOP conferees, complained Thursday that Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) had shut them out of negotiations over the payroll tax deal.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Democrats have tried to undercut that argument.

But with a majority of Senate conferees needing to sign on to the conference agreement for it to proceed, the reluctance from Senate Republicans seems to have given Cardin extra leverage in negotiations.