This week: Dueling tax votes set for House and Senate

By Peter Schroeder - 04/16/12 06:08 AM ET

Lawmakers will return from a two-week recess Monday with taxes on their mind.

Senate Democrats plan to push the “Buffett Rule,” the Obama administration’s plan to ensure the nation's wealthiest pay a minimum tax rate. Republicans have blasted the proposal and are expected to line up against it in Monday’s Senate vote, setting the stage for a broad general-election fight over federal tax rates.

House Republicans, meanwhile, will put forward their own tax proposal on Thursday, a small-business bill from Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.). The measure would provide a 20 percent tax break to companies with fewer than 500 employees and is likely to clear the GOP-controlled House but go nowhere in the Senate.

The revelations about profligate spending at the General Services Administration (GSA) will be a constant topic of discussion in Congress this week, as lawmakers hold hearings to blast the agency for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxurious conferences, perks and employee travel.

The House Oversight Committee will start off the GSA grilling with a hearing Monday, followed by the House Transportation Committee on Tuesday morning. The Senate Appropriations Committee and Environment and Public Works committees take a turn with hearings on Wednesday. A number of GSA employees, as well as those who resigned after the spending was revealed, are slated to testify at the hearings, along with the inspector general who documented the spending spree.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) has said he plans to bring up a budget for markup sometime this week, although a date has not yet been set. On the other side of the Capitol, the House Budget Committee is devoting a Tuesday hearing to discussing ways to strengthen the government’s safety net.

On Tuesday, the Senate Banking Committee will discuss whether to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, an issue that has increasingly taken on a partisan edge. The bank’s authorization expires at the end of May.

The House Financial Services Committee will vote Wednesday on a set of deficit-cutting proposals from GOP members. Among the policy changes to cut $35 billion are repealing a central piece of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law that allows banking regulators to wind down ailing financial firms, and halving the budget for the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has been a longtime GOP target.

The House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday will delve back into the long-running debate on tax reform, this time focusing on how tax-favored retirement accounts should be handled.

On Thursday, the House Agriculture Committee will hold a hearing on the 2012 farm bill.