TPMDC
Pelosi: 'There Are Absolutely No Sticking Points' On Excise Tax Deal
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
Share
Send to a friend!
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- who, as we've reported, has not been a fan of the so-called "Cadillac tax" -- today threw her support behind the deal reached by the White House and the unions on the tax.
"There are absolutely no sticking points," she said today, according to a transcript released by her office. "I would say two words, three words would be: finding common ground."
She admitted that the Cadillac tax, or excise tax, had originally been "overwhelmingly rejected" by the House.
But, she said, "We received the good news that there had been some accommodation arrived at by the White House because this was something the President wants to have in the bill in principle and he will."
"I think the principle is preserved but working families and middle class in our country will not feel the negative impact that we feared," Pelosi went on, adding, "That was very well received by our members."
Comments (31) | Join the Conversation!
Leave a comment
Follow us!
Most Popular
TPM Stories Now Surging on Digg.com
TPM Top News
© 2010 TPM Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Weitberg
January 15, 2010 6:47 PM
Pelosi went on to explain that the compromise was well received by the members, after being told to receive it well. Well...compromise received.
TheWeekinRebuke.com
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
bluebell
January 15, 2010 7:15 PM in reply to Weitberg
I believe she said, "Let them eat cake".
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
AnonymousCoward
January 15, 2010 7:45 PM in reply to bluebell
Yes, because being required to pay taxes on obscenely expensive health insurance plan (that is tax exempt up to that point, resulting in a net gain on taxes as compared to that money being considered income) is just like starving.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
bluebell
January 15, 2010 10:39 PM in reply to AnonymousCoward
No, more like being totally ripped off in an enormous insurance bailout scheme.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
AnonymousCoward
January 16, 2010 2:37 PM in reply to bluebell
If you have an family insurance plan that costs $30,000 a year (which is absurdly expensive, and should be discouraged), that means the excise tax would be $2,800 a year. Even if 100% of that cost is reflected back to you, that means you paid $2,800 of taxes on $30,000 of income. That's an effective rate of taxation of 9.3%.
In what universe is that a "ripoff?" You're still well below even the lowest marginal rate of taxation on that income.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
nova voter
January 15, 2010 8:04 PM in reply to bluebell
so now pelosi is a horrid, out of touch aristocrat who doesn't give a shit about the people.
man, only a couple more steps until you actually run over kucinich and sanders and actually break through the wall at the left end of the political spectrum and go spiraling out into the ether. don't worry, though -- glenn beck will be there to catch you.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
kfreed
January 16, 2010 7:22 AM in reply to nova voter
That was a priceless comment... more so for being just about right on target. If we could have gotten it together from the get-go, the outcome would have been very different, but now the couch potato crowd really has something to bitch about. Congratulations. Talk about self-fulfilling prophesy.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
January 16, 2010 10:36 AM in reply to nova voter
So will Jane Hamsher and her BFF Grover Norquist.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
mixalot
January 16, 2010 1:48 PM in reply to nova voter
A true gem, nova. I had a spectacular "old-school" HS English teacher spend the best half semester of my middle-aged life teaching us his famous "Horseshoe Theory". You just totally aced the final (in two sentences) describing the very essence of what happens at the two tippy-ends of that oh-so-true horseshoe. It also encapsulates so, so much of what is going on around (and around and around) us right now.
Inspirational flash, nv.....
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
wbgonne
January 16, 2010 2:45 PM in reply to mixalot
I'm sorry but the pitch escapes me. The commenter merely said what's been said a billion times by DLC Dems and Obamabots:that the left wing of the Democratic Party is equivalent to the TeaBaggers. Good luck on Tuesday with that shit.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
geofu54
January 16, 2010 3:20 PM in reply to wbgonne
Sounds like you are so enthusiastically looking forward to Coakley's loss.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
wbgonne
January 16, 2010 3:23 PM in reply to geofu54
No. But I'm not very motivated. That's a fact.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
OhioGuy
January 16, 2010 8:06 PM in reply to nova voter
The Netroots is eating its own at Internet Speed.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
wbgonne
January 17, 2010 7:58 AM in reply to OhioGuy
Correction. The Netroots has been chewed and spit out by the DLC-dominated Democratic Party.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
inokeah
January 16, 2010 12:09 AM
How can anyone believe anything Obama says. Special deals to his freinds, and everyone elce pays for it. The Fate Cats get fatter and fatter. Transparency that was a total lie.
One Term is all he gets.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve
January 16, 2010 10:38 AM in reply to inokeah
I'm sure you were equally upset about the special deals with Big Oil and Halliburton under Bush.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
Glix
January 16, 2010 12:53 AM
I'm a big Pelosi fan. She's a great catherder and a terrific SotH.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
Isepick
January 16, 2010 1:56 AM in reply to Glix
Exactly, she gets the job done. While there are many who may cry about her or her tactics, at the end of the day she delivers. If Reid or Obama had half the spine she does we would have had decent HCR months ago.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
Viva!America!
January 16, 2010 2:59 AM in reply to Isepick
Oh not too long ago, everyone one around here had Reid's balls on a pedestal and if it wasn't for Obama none of you gutless wonders would be debating a health care bill.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
kfreed
January 16, 2010 7:24 AM in reply to Viva!America!
I second that emotion.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
bluebell
January 16, 2010 11:50 AM in reply to Viva!America!
Why do you keep calling this a health CARE bill? It is insurance reform to bend the cost curve. Sheesh, you can't even get the Democratic talking points.
We are the COSTS. Pelosi and her upper class protected from what we once called the PROGRESSIVE income tax are not.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
AnonymousCoward
January 16, 2010 2:39 PM in reply to bluebell
This may be beyond your comprehension, but it is both a bill to deliver health care to more people and reduce the costs of said care to individuals and to society generally.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
bluebell
January 16, 2010 6:51 PM in reply to AnonymousCoward
That kind of answer is why Democrats may lose Teddy's seat. A bunch of arrogant beancounters have devised a health insurance bill so complicated that they have to tell the voters to accept it like spinach because it's good for you.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
AnonymousCoward
January 17, 2010 12:39 AM in reply to bluebell
You're right; if legislation over a thousand pages long can't be readily summarized in a blog post, it's clearly bad legislation.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
Kevin Sutton
January 16, 2010 12:54 PM in reply to Viva!America!
If by that you mean... the voters elected a Democrat as president. Then yes, voters deserve that credit. I don't recall any of the other Democrat candidates being against one.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
Viva!America!
January 16, 2010 2:29 PM in reply to Kevin Sutton
I was actually talking about getting it this far.
On the other hand, I have serious doubts that any other Dem candidate would have won the election.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
wbgonne
January 16, 2010 2:42 PM in reply to Viva!America!
You don't think Hillary would have beaten MCCain? You are mistaken. After the Worst President in History, I could have won running as a Dem. It was a groundswell if not a tidal wave.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
wbgonne
January 16, 2010 11:15 AM
I must comment on this headline and story in the Editor's Blog. My comment is this: PHRMA doesn't vote. And if any Congressperson changes his or her vote now because PHRMA has so ordered, then that Congressperson should be impeached.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
Silence
January 16, 2010 12:56 PM
So now, the term 'working families' refers only to union workers. Interesting. Now, we have the 'non-working, tax paying families' vs. the 'working families'.
This is going to be a very interesting year.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
JorgeOrwell
January 17, 2010 7:59 PM
Here is a REAL master politician at work...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/video/lbj_09_wm.html#v234
Obama needs to take a leaf out of this guy's book
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?
tommyo
January 17, 2010 11:23 PM
Absolutely right. Obama is a political lightweight next to giants like LBJ and FDR. He seems to want to appear as a new Lincoln, along the preposterous, ridiculously imagined lines of the "team of rivals" foolishness popular these days. There was no team of rivals. Lincoln's cabinet was his greatest political mistake.
Obama can thank the disaster of eight years of Bush and an incredibly weak opposition ticket for his election victory, not his imagined political brilliance. Mickey Mouse could have defeated McCain-Palin. He's managed to piss off his base and independents while endlessly and pointlessly appeasing an opposition party whose members have openly called him a liar, a bastard, a foreigner, a nazi and a communist. He has refused to stand up to ANY monied special interest. He is incapable of leading. What a weakling he has proven himself to be.
LBJ and FDR are rolling in their graves.
Reply | Flag Abuse
Are you sure this comment violates TPM's Terms of Service?