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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday shot down a Republican attempt to pressure the chamber into supporting a tax package and Alternative Minimum Tax patch this month, saying the provisions must first be funded. Reid spokesman Jim Manley responded to a letter from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and ranking Finance Committee member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who had written Reid to press for action on those ideas before Congress’s next recess in August. “Sen. Reid shares the desire to complete work on the tax extender/energy tax incentives bill before the August recess,” Manley said. “However, it is puzzling that Republicans continue to oppose offsets that are noncontroversial.” Manley accused McConnell and Grassley of voting in June to block the Senate from considering the very House bill they were pressing Reid to take up. At issue is the idea of offsets — spending cuts or tax increases designed to fund a specific proposal. The House routinely insists on such offsets, and Manley said “a clear majority” in the Senate will also insist any tax package be accompanied by offsets. For their part, McConnell and Grassley said Democrats “have chosen to politicize what has historically been a very routine and bipartisan exercise of extending traditional expiring tax provisions and patching the Alternative Minimum Tax.” Specifically, the two Republicans called on Reid to jump-start AMT patch negotiations between Grassley and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) so that the full Senate can vote on the issue before August. They also cited several recent Senate votes as proof that the chamber has in the past approved measures without requiring offsets. Manley rejected that, saying Senate negotiations that do not include offsets are pointless if the House sticks to its traditional position. “A majority of the House has indicated that a bill that is not offset will not receive their support,” Manley said. |
