House Republicans agree to repeal tax law they enacted, hope to declare mission accomplished on jobs

[ProSense]

House Republicans agree to repeal tax law they enacted, hope to declare mission accomplished on jobs

by Jed Lewison

Susan Crabtree:

House Republicans are crowing about leading efforts to repeal an impending 3 percent withholding tax on government contractors as yet another way they’re rolling back the regulatory burden on businesses to help spur economic growth and job creation.

Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) on Tuesday touted the withholding repeal, which the House plans to take up Thursday, and pressed President Obama to jump on the bandwagon.

Well, there's some fine leadership. Except the withholding provision was originally passed into law in 2006 when Republicans controlled the House and George W. Bush occupied the White House. President Obama's stimulus bill delayed its implementation and his jobs bill proposed eliminating it. Yet Cantor and his boss, John Boehner, are acting as if this is something they came up with on their own.

“We’ve said for weeks that there is common ground on jobs, but getting more done will require the President to work with us and actually engage in the legislative process,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said.

Oooh. They've been saying this for weeks, have they? As Crabtree notes, they are getting all hot and bothered for repeal of a provision that they themselves voted for.

The Cantor tweet and subsequent Boehner release also are a bit puzzling because President Obama has long made clear his support for getting rid of the 3 percent withholding tax, and turns out, Republicans were the first to try to impose the tax burden on government contractors in May 2006, although it’s been delayed ever since by both the 2009 Stimulus Act and the IRS.

In May of that 2006, 229 House Republicans, including GOP leaders John Boehner (R-OH) and Eric Cantor (R-VA), voted to implement the withholding tax on government contractors, as well as Medicare and farm payments, as a way to ensure that some tax-cheat contractors paid their fair share.

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One other important thing to consider about the withholding repeal provision: both House Repubicans and the White House support paying for it with a modification to the way income is calculated for programs like Medicaid, SCHIP, and the Affordable Care Act's health insurance exchanges. Whatever the merits or demerits of repealing the withholding provision, it's quite lame to pay for them by cutting health care benefits too low-income Americans.

There's an interesting twist, however: According to the CBO, the pay-for provision will cut about $33 billion over ten years from Medicaid and SCHIP. However, it will increase spending on health insurance subsidies under the health care law by $11 billion. So as bad as the optics of the Medicaid and SCHIP cuts are, in passing this legislation, Republicans will actually be going on record in favor of increasing spending on President Obama's health care reform bill. I can't wait to hear what Michele Bachmann has to say once she figures that out.

The effect of this will be more people in the exchanges.

Here's the roll call on the withholding

[ieoeja]

1. Why leave out the Senate?

"(P)assed into law in 2006 when Republicans controlled the House and George W. Bush occupied the White House."

Should have read:

"(P)assed into law in 2006 when Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress."

[beac]

2. My almost daily desire to give Boehner & Cantor a swift and lethal

kick in the balls is frighteningly powerful.

These men are DESTROYING our country with the sole goal of lining their own pockets and those of their crony corporations. Fraking traitors, both of them.

[and-justice-for-all]

3. [phone]