Payroll Tax Cut

Senate Passes Payroll Tax Bill Over Broad GOP Opposition

Brian Beutler | February 17, 2012, 12:17PM

Harry Reid (D-NV) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

Quick on the heels of the House, the Senate has passed legislation to extend a two percent payroll tax cut through the end of the year.

The final vote was 60-36 with 30 Rs and 6 Ds bucking their leaders to oppose the package. It now goes off to a jubilant White House for President Obama's signature.

The legislation, which also extends emergency unemployment benefits and Medicare reimbursement rates until January 1, 2013.

Payroll Tax Cut

House Passes Payroll Tax Cut Compromise

Brian Beutler | February 17, 2012, 11:41AM

John Boehner

By a comfortable margin, the House of Representatives on Friday passed legislation to extend a two percent payroll tax cut through the end of the year.

The final vote was 293-132, with 91 Republicans and 41 Democrats bucking their party leaders to vote against the package. Five Republicans and four Democrats did not vote.

The bill reflects an agreement between GOP and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate. It also extends emergency unemployment insurance though December, though it reduces the number of weeks in which people looking for work can draw on benefits. And it means that Medicare physicians won't experience a steep pay cut by extending their reimbursement rates for at least 10 months.

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Payroll Tax Cut

Payroll Tax Drama Exposes Rift Between House And Senate GOP

Brian Beutler | February 16, 2012, 1:05PM

The House and Senate have cut a deal to extend the payroll tax cut, unemployment benefits, and Medicare physician reimbursement rates. But it almost didn't happen. And the near miss is exposing a rift between House GOP leaders and their Senate counterparts.

Late on Wednesday evening, Senate negotiators -- four Democrats, three Republicans -- had a vote count problem. To move the payroll tax cut forward, four of them needed to sign on to the broad agreement. House Dem and GOP negotiators were all lined up. But none of the Senate Republican conferees would put pen to paper. When Democrat Ben Cardin (D-MD) wouldn't sign on either, based on his objection to cuts to federal worker pensions, the Senate found itself one vote shy.

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Payroll Tax Cut

Last-Minute Fights Slow Down Payroll Tax Cut Deal

Brian Beutler and Sahil Kapur | February 15, 2012, 11:31AM

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)

Barring an unexpected collapse in negotiations, a broad deal to extend the temporary payroll tax cut and other expiring measures will be finalized Wednesday. But with time winding down, top Democrats and Republicans are still fighting over key details -- particularly how to pay for over $50 billion of the approximately $150 billion package.

One of the likely financing provisions would require federal workers to provide greater contributions to their own retirement packages.

"I'm very unhappy with the projected pay-fors which hit average working Americans, otherwise known as federal employees, pretty hard," House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told TPM and one other reporter in the Capitol Wednesday. "I don't know the exact details and the exact details are being worked on. So from that standpoint I'm not happy."

Hoyer represents a Maryland district that's chockablock with federal workers, which underlies his concerns. Asked if he himself planned to vote for the measure, Hoyer proclaimed "I don't know."

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Harry Reid

As Payroll Fight Wraps Up, Dems Prepare For Next Battle

Brian Beutler | February 14, 2012, 3:47PM

House Democrats will support a GOP bill to extend the expiring payroll tax cut through the end of the year, when Republicans bring it to a vote later this week. That basically puts to rest any remaining doubts that the provision will expire at the end of the month.

Now the fight is on between the parties over whether and how to renew two other expiring provisions -- extended unemployment benefits, and Medicare physician reimbursement rates (the "doc fix") -- before March. And the balance of power in this battle is much less clear.

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Payroll Tax Cut

Dems Plot Payroll Tax Cut End Game

Brian Beutler | February 13, 2012, 5:29PM

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)

After a few hours of thought, Democrats have decided the GOP's blink on the payroll tax cut is an unvarnished good, not some devious trick.

Republicans have all but agreed to renew the payroll tax cut through the end of the year without paying for it -- a huge tactical swing for them. But they're still insisting that the other expiring measures -- extended unemployment insurance (UI), and Medicare physician reimbursements (the "doc fix") -- are somehow offset with cuts elsewhere.

Having taken the most politically important, and most costly item off the table, are Republicans in the driver's seat in negotiations over extending the other two items? Not necessarily.

A senior Senate Dem aide explains how Democrats might well proceed from here.

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Payroll Tax Cut

GOP Drops Demand For Offsetting Payroll Tax Cut

Brian Beutler | February 13, 2012, 2:10PM

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)

Facing emboldened Democratic negotiators and a quickly thinning legislative calendar, House Republican leaders have offered to extend the payroll tax holiday through the end of the year without paying for it. The development represents a dramatic reversal for GOP leaders, who nearly allowed the payroll tax cut to lapse in December in part because of their insistence that the package be financially offset.

"Because the president and Senate Democratic leaders have not allowed their conferees to support a responsible bipartisan agreement, today House Republicans will introduce a backup plan that would simply extend the payroll tax holiday for the remainder of the year while the conference negotiations continue regarding offsets, unemployment insurance, and the 'doc fix,'" said GOP leaders in an official statement Monday afternoon.

That's a huge concession to legislative and political realities, and a tacit admission that Republican leaders desparately want to avoid another no-win fight over renewing a tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits the middle class.

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Doc fix

GOP Looks Set To Block Dem Fix For Medicare Doctors

Sahil Kapur | February 8, 2012, 10:00AM

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA)

House GOP leaders are set to shoot down a silver-bullet pay-for to fix Medicare physician payment rates, sources close to leadership tell TPM, even though the idea has strong support among Democrats and some key Republican lawmakers. The so-called "doc fix" is being negotiated as part of the payroll tax cut package and momentum to use war savings to eliminate the Medicare flaw has recently halted due to GOP divisions over the idea.

The idea of using unspent Overseas Contingency Operation (OCO) funds from troop withdrawals Iraq and Afghanistan has the support of top Democrats as well as influential Republicans like Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (AZ) and GOP Doctors Caucus chairman Rep. Phil Gingrey (GA). While President Obama and Dems want to tap into the $838 billion fund for infrastructure as well, GOP backers say it shouldn't be used for anything other than a doc fix.

But two former Republican staffers turned health industry lobbyists say House GOP leaders are now opposed to tapping into the money even for that.

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Doc fix

GOP Warming On Dem Idea To Fund Huge Medicare Hole

Sahil Kapur | January 25, 2012, 3:23PM

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) And House GOP Doctors Caucus

House Republicans are coming around to the Democrats' plan for permanently ending the Medicare "doc fix" problem -- a $300 billion and growing albatross around the nation's neck that virtually everybody believes needs to be fixed. The option is now on the table, key Republicans tell TPM, just one month after some of those same lawmakers dismissed it as a senseless Washington gimmick.

Last fall Democrats began pushing the idea to pay for a full repeal of the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula with war savings from troop drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Republicans didn't much care for it, but Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) hopped on board during the Super Committee negotiations, and has since been working behind the scenes to win GOP support.

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Henry Waxman

Top Democrat Says GOP Will Have To Budge Big Time in Payroll Tax Fight

Brian Beutler | January 18, 2012, 9:51AM

A key Democrat tasked with helping to negotiate a full-year extension of the payroll tax cut, unemployment benefits, and Medicare physician reimbursements says Republicans will have to move significantly off their December demands or all three will lapse.

"We want to extend the middle class tax cut, we want to extend unemployment insurance, and we want to keep our promise to Medicare beneficiaries that we're going to pay for their doctors, so they can have access to their physicians," Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) told me in a brief interview off the House floor Tuesday. "But I'm not going to support something to pay for that by cutting Medicare or cutting the middle class. We can reach an agreement on these things, but the Republicans are going to have to move."

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Affordable Care Act

How To Easily End The 'Doc Fix' Problem -- And Why House GOP Is Opposed

Sahil Kapur | January 16, 2012, 5:32AM

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) And House GOP Doctors Caucus

One of the items Congress extended for two months in the December payroll tax package is current Medicare payment rates to physicians, averting a steep 27.4 percent cut. Although a yearlong "doc fix" is seen as likeliest when lawmakers return to town this week and begin negotiating pay-fors, even that would merely be punting an issue in need of a permanent fix.

Over the last few months there's been serious talk in Congress of buying out the "doc fix" issue once and for all with war savings from troop withdrawals in Iraq and Afghanistan, estimated at over half a trillion dollars.

The idea has been championed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and multiple other key senators including John Kerry (D-MA), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Tom Harkin (D-IA).

But even though this plan could remove for free the $300-billion-and-growing albatross from the nation's neck, it faces fierce resistance from House Republicans. In fact, some of the vocal opponents are doctors in the caucus, whom Leadership tends to give the first bite at the apple on health issues.

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Harry Reid

House And Senate Lock In New, Higher-Stakes Fight Over The Payroll Tax Cut

Brian Beutler | December 23, 2011, 10:06AM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)

The end of the payroll tax cut standoff couldn't have been more different from the heat of it: quick, noiseless, drama free.

Without a single objection, the House and Senate passed a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut -- a bill that very closely mirrored the compromise House Republicans had roundly rejected just one week ago. There wasn't even a recorded vote.

It would be a huge mistake, though, to treat Friday's smooth sailing as a harbinger of the payroll tax fight to come.

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Barack Obama

BREAKING: House Republicans Cave, Agree To Two-Month Payroll Tax Cut Extension

Brian Beutler | December 22, 2011, 3:51PM

John Boehner

A top Senate Democratic aide says House Republicans have privately offered up the terms of their surrender on the payroll tax cut, pending sign off from their notoriously unwieldy caucus.

As Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) suggested Thursday morning, it will involve House Republicans passing a temporary extension of the payroll tax cut (and unemployment insurance and reimbursement rates for Medicare physicians) in exchange for Senate Dems agreeing to a formal conference committee to work out a year-long extension of all items.

The temporary extension won't be identical to the one Senate Dems passed. It will differ in very minor technical ways. House Republicans have already rejected the bipartisan Senate compromise bill, so they'll have to draw up essentially the same bill from scratch, pass it in the House and then have the Senate readopt it by unanimous consent.

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Payroll Tax Cut

It's Unanimous: All Stakeholders Say It's Time For House GOP To Cave On Payroll Tax

Brian Beutler | December 22, 2011, 1:42PM

President Barack Obama

If there's one thing that House Democrats, Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans, political strategists of both parties and the White House all agree on, it's that House Republicans need to cave in and end the payroll tax stand off.

Speaking at the White House Thursday, President Obama gave a sloppy wet kiss to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's suggestion that House Republicans fold, with only the thinnest of covers. Essentially, all of the principals involved, except House Republicans, now agree that House Republicans should do what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) proposed all along -- pass the Senate's stopgap bill to extend the payroll tax cut (and other expiring provisions) for two months with the promise that Democrats will work with Republicans on a year-long agreement.

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Payroll Tax Cut

Watch GOPer Literally Walk Out On Dem Attempt To Push Payroll Tax Cut

Brian Beutler | December 21, 2011, 11:14AM

Steny Hoyer speaks at press conference with House Ways and Means Committee Democrats. November 30, 2011.

While Republican leaders gathered in Speaker John Boehner's Capitol office Wednesday morning for a photo op with reporters -- hectoring Democrats and making the case that they're on the right side of the payroll tax fight -- an unusual scene played out on the House floor.

In an attempt to illustrate just who's at fault for the payroll tax stalemate Minority Whip Steny Hoyer showed up to ask for a vote on the Senate's compromise bill. Republicans could have simply objected and given Hoyer his talking point. Instead they gave him so much more.

Republicans just ignored Hoyer and refused to hear his unanimous consent request. The fill-in Speaker simply walked away.

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Payroll Tax Cut

How The Payroll Tax Fight Descended Into Chaos

Brian Beutler | December 21, 2011, 5:45AM

John Boehner

The fight over renewing the payroll tax cut into next year has escalated into a multi-front political war, both between Republicans and Democrats, and within the Republican party itself.

But lost in the gamesmanship and the arguments about process, hypocrisy, and leadership are the issues at stake.

So let's review.

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Payroll Tax Cut

In Gamed Vote, GOP 'Rejects' Senate Payroll Tax Cut Compromise

Brian Beutler | December 20, 2011, 1:03PM

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH)

Thanks to a complicated manipulation of House rules, Republicans Tuesday rejected a broadly bipartisan Senate stopgap plan to extend the current payroll tax cut and other key provisions for two months.

The final vote was 229 - 193. In effect, those voting "yes" were voting to nix the Senate bill and to instead move ahead with House-Senate negotiations to pass a full-year extension of the payroll tax cut, emergency unemployment benefits, and Medicare physician payments, all of which are set to expire on January 1.

After staging a dramatic rebellion from GOP leadership, and putting the payroll tax cut at real risk of expiring, House Republicans are now taking an enormous leap of political faith. By nixing the broadly bipartisan Senate plan, they're hoping to force Senate Democrats' hand and bring them back to Washington to negotiate a 12-month extension of the payroll tax cut, in the final days of the year.

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John Boehner

House GOP Coalesces Around Plan To Reject Bipartisan Payroll Tax Compromise

Brian Beutler | December 19, 2011, 9:29PM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Houser Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA)

After a much-longer-than-anticipated caucus meeting Monday night, House Republican leaders announced a plan to vote Tuesday to nix a broadly bipartisan Senate stopgap bill to extend the current payroll tax cut for two months. But they won't be doing this with a standard up or down vote.

The development comes after House conservatives launched a full scale rebellion against a Senate bill negotiated by Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that passed with an overwhelming 89 votes.

However House Republicans are aware of the political peril that will come with killing a bipartisan plan to extend the payroll tax cut, and they know they'll likely be held responsible if the tax holiday expires. So they're structuring the votes in a manner that's designed to give their members cover from that charge and, perhaps, preserves their right to reconsider the Senate bill in the coming days.

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Payroll Tax Cut

GOP Goes To War With Itself Over Payroll Cut

Brian Beutler | December 19, 2011, 5:30PM

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) conducts a news conference along with fellow GOP members on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on November 30, 2011.

A civil war between House Republicans and their Senate counterparts had gone public over the possibility that the GOP will be held to blame if the current payroll tax cut expires on January 1. The Senators feel abandoned after having voted overwhelmingly on Saturday to pass a two month extension of the holiday -- only to have conservatives in the House GOP conference reject it publicly, and insult the legislation itself.

GOP Leaders on both sides of the Capitol are trying to contain the fallout, but with vulnerable Senate Republicans exposed, and the payroll tax cut set to lapse in less than two weeks, that's a tall order.

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Payroll Tax Cut

Standoff: A Guide To The Ongoing Fight Over The Payroll Tax Cut

Brian Beutler | December 19, 2011, 1:25PM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and President Barack Obama

At a Capitol press conference Monday morning, House Speaker John Boehner told reporters he expects his members will kill the bipartisan, Senate-passed, two-month payroll tax cut bill. Instead he said Republicans will insist that Senate Democrats return to Washington and hash out the differences between that package, and the partisan one-year bill the House GOP passed a week ago.

That's setting up a new round in the ongoing fight over how to prevent that tax cut -- and other expiring policies like emergency unemployment benefits, and reimbursement rates for Medicare physicians -- from expiring.

Where we go from here depends on Boehner making good on his threat. To that end House and Senate Democrats, along with key Senate Republicans -- who voted for the compromise measure, and whom Boehner is hanging out to dry -- are pressing the House GOP to follow through on the deal.

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John Boehner

Boehner Faces Key Test After GOP Mutiny Over Payroll Tax Cut

Brian Beutler | December 19, 2011, 6:01AM

House Speaker John Boehner with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the foreground.

Long, long ago - well, on Friday night to be exact - it looked like a two month extension of the expiring payroll tax cut was on a glide path to passage in both the House and Senate -- preventing an automatic tax increase on 160 million workers on January 1 and giving Republicans and Democrats until the end of February to negotiate an extension through the end of 2012.

But as soon as the deal was announced, House GOP aides privately speculated that the deal wouldn't fly with the majority of their caucus despite buy in from Speaker John Boehner, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, all of his deputies and the vast majority of Senate Republicans.

Sure enough, they were right. The deal collapsed in spectacular fashion early Saturday. After passing the Senate with an overwhelming majority, Boehner presented the deal to his members, many of whom -- including Boehner's top lieutenants -- rejected it. Sunday morning, he appeared on NBC to declare it dead on arrival.

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Payroll Tax Cut

GOP Wins On Keystone As Senate Agrees To Two Month Payroll Tax Cut Extension

Brian Beutler | December 16, 2011, 7:17PM

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY)

Senate leaders have agreed to a plan that will prevent key policies, including a two percent payroll tax cut for employees, from lapsing on January 1, 2012, according to top aides. But the agreement will only extends the measures for two months, setting Democrats and Republicans up to relitigate this same fight fight early next year. And it comes at a political cost to Democrats who were forced to relent on a provision forcing President Obama to take a public position on the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

The $30 billion package will be paid for by increasing the fees lenders pay to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It includes two month extensions of the existing two percent payroll tax; emergency unemployment benefits; and the "doc fix" which prevents Medicare physicians from experiencing a deep automatic pay cut.

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Payroll Tax Cut

McConnell Demands Keystone XL In Any Payroll Tax Agreement

Brian Beutler | December 16, 2011, 1:12PM

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) conducts a news conference along with fellow GOP members on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on November 30, 2011.

This post was updated at 1:30 p.m.

It's gut check time for Congressional Democrats on the payroll tax cut bill.

Regarding that legislation, Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell emails me with the following statement: "The Leader will not support any bill without the Keystone XL language as part of the agreement."

House Speaker John Boehner is also insisting that he'll amend any Senate-passed payroll tax cut bill to add the Keystone provision to it, if it's not already in there. So Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama now have a choice: stick to their guns and object to the provision -- at the risk of allowing the payroll tax cut (and unemployment insurance and the Medicare "doc fix") to expire? Or give in to the GOP.

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Payroll Tax Cut

How The Payroll Tax Deal Is Likely To Play Out

Brian Beutler | December 16, 2011, 11:41AM

U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) speaks to the press during his weekly press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on December 1, 2011.

With a government shutdown averted, the final item on the Congressional agenda before the year's out is to finalize legislation to renew the payroll tax, extend unemployment benefits, and temporarily fix the Medicare payment formula so that doctors don't take a huge pay cut on the first of the year.

Senate Dem and GOP leaders say they're nearing agreement on such a package, which will be offset with budget cuts and savings, but not with a surtax on millionaires, which Dems finally, officially dropped Thursday night.

So here's the plan now: Later today, the House will pass legislation to fund the government, averting a shutdown. House members will leave town for the weekend while the Senate hammers out its final compromise -- which barring a snag, could pass this weekend with little fuss.

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Government Shutdown

Shutdown Averted As Dem, GOP Leaders Hash Out Payroll Tax Deal

Brian Beutler | December 15, 2011, 9:52PM

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)

House and Senate leaders have reached an agreement on a deal to avoid a government shutdown, and are nearing a separate deal on legislation to renew a soon-to-expire payroll tax cut, unemployment benefits, and a "doc fix" measure to prevent a steep, automatic pay cut to Medicare physicians.

The breakthrough comes just over 24 hours before funding for the government was set to run out, though the principals continue to squabble over policy measures and payfors attached to the payroll bill.

Democrats have officially dropped their push for a small surtax on millionaires as one means of offsetting the cost of the bill. And it's unclear what they got in return, aside from a pledge from Republicans not to jam Democrats with their partisan payroll tax bill.

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Government Shutdown

Reid, McConnell Trade Tactics On Senate Floor Over Looming Government Shutdown

Brian Beutler | December 14, 2011, 11:49AM

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)

We're at that point again. The one where Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell try to prove they're not precipitating a government shutdown.

On the Senate floor Wednesday morning, each leader pulled a couple confusing procedural levers designed to prove the other is acting in bad faith.

To recap, last night the House passed partisan legislation to renew the expiring payroll tax holiday, replete with payfors and add-ons that led all but 10 Democrats to reject it. Democrats in the Senate don't want Republicans to leave town for the holidays and jam them with that bill so they're playing a bit of hardball. They've raised objections to a number of riders and provisions in separate legislation to fund the government, which will shutdown Friday night if appropriations aren't passed. If Republicans skip town, they're shutting down the government. And Reid is using this leverage to force Republicans to deal on Democrats' terms on both bills.

So what happened this morning?

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Payroll Tax Cut

House GOP Passes Payroll Tax Cut Bill Obama Has Threatened To Veto

Brian Beutler | December 13, 2011, 6:53PM

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)

Despite loud warnings from Senate Democrats and a veto threat from President Obama because of poison pills within the text, House Republicans Tuesday passed legislation to renew a 2 percent payroll tax holiday and extended unemployment benefits of one more year.

The bill passed 234 - 193, with 10 Democrats joining with the Republicans and 14 Republicans pitching in with the Dems.

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Payroll Tax Cut

Dems To GOP: Deal Fairly On Payroll Tax Or Shut Down The Government

Brian Beutler | December 13, 2011, 1:05PM

Senate Democrats and the White House are executing a strategy to prevent House Republicans from jamming them with legislation to extend the current payroll tax cut that's been larded up with GOP goodies, according to White House and Congressional aides. For all practical purposes, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has linked the payroll tax issue -- and other key end-of-the-year issues -- with legislation to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year. And he's presenting Republicans with a choice: deal in good faith on the payroll tax issue, or trigger a government shutdown.

Democrats were worried that House Republicans would close ranks around a version of a payroll holiday that included both must-pass items (such as an extension of unemployment insurance and a patch to prevent Medicare physicians from experiencing a severe pay cut on the first of the year) and GOP poison pills (including a provision forcing the Obama administration to give thumbs-up or thumbs-down to the Keystone XL oil pipeline within 60 days)...then pass it and skip town, leaving Democrats little choice but to swallow their bill whole.

That's exactly the strategy they tried to execute -- and until late Monday it looked like it might work.

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Harry Reid

GOP Sets Up Showdown With Dems, White House Over Payroll Tax Cut

Brian Beutler | December 8, 2011, 11:24AM

John Boehner

House Republicans have narrowed their internal differences and plan to move ahead next week with legislation to renew the current payroll tax cut, extend unemployment benefits, and prevent Medicare physicians from experiencing an automatic pay cut.

But they've chosen to pay for elements of this bill with a hodgepodge of measures and reforms that will make it a non-starter in the Senate -- including one provision that has drawn a veto threat from the White House. That puts Democrats and Republicans on a collision course over policies that leaders of both parties agree must pass -- with only three weeks before they all automatically expire, and one week until members had hoped to adjourn for the holidays.

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Health Care

Disputed Memo Tick-Tock: Where'd The 'Hoax' Start?

Christina Bellantoni | March 19, 2010, 7:24PM

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

Political memos from Congressional Republicans and Democrats get obtained and posted by the press every single day, but a curious PDF file instructing "Democratic health and communications staff" to avoid discussing the details of the cost of health care reform rocked Washington today. Is it a fake? A mistake?

We still don't know who wrote the memo. But we know that a Republican lobbyist (and maybe more than one) sent it to several political reporters today. Based on numerous interviews with Congressional aides, the 2-page PDF, complete with a handwritten note identifying one bit as "important," starting hitting email inboxes around noon.

[READ THE MEMO HERE]

TPMDC dug deeper into the kerfuffle after Democrats accused Republicans of an elaborate plot to try and derail health care reform in the final hours before the expected vote Sunday in the House.

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Health Care

Dems Accuse GOP Of 'Acts Of Desperation' For Sending Questionable Memo

Christina Bellantoni | March 19, 2010, 5:59PM

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Speaker Of The House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

Top aides to House Democratic leaders issued a statement decrying Republicans who sent out a memo that they claimed was written by Democrats.

In an email, Speaker Nancy Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer spokeswoman Stephanie Lundberg said Republicans - who earlier dismissed questions about the memo's legitimacy - will "do anything" to stop health care from passing on Sunday.

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Health Care

GOP Leadership On Claims Of HCR Memo Hoax: 'Who Cares About A Memo?' (VIDEO)

Christina Bellantoni | March 19, 2010, 4:29PM

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA)

Republican leaders were asked today to vouch for the authenticity of a memo that their press aides emailed to reporters saying that it proves Democrats want to make major changes to Medicare. We posted the memo earlier when Democrats accused Republicans of sending it out as a hoax.

"The appropriate question there really is ask the reporter who wrote the article alleging that it was a hoax. I know nothing more than what I read in Politico," Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) told reporters in response to a question at a press conference this afternoon.

Cantor's office emailed reporters the Politico post - since been removed when questions arose about the memo's legitimacy - earlier this afternoon. Cantor scolded the press: "The question that you really ought to be asking is the hoax on the American people presented by the budget assumptions made on this bill."

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Health Care

Dems: Memo On Medicare Changes Isn't Ours -- It's A GOP 'Hoax'

Christina Bellantoni | March 19, 2010, 2:39PM

United States Capitol

Democrats today are accusing Republicans of circulating a fraudulent memo that claims to be sent to "Democratic health and communications staff" and which suggests the majority party leadership wants to make big changes to Medicare next year after health care passes.

A senior Democratic leadership aide told TPMDC in an interview the memo, obtained and printed by Politico and leading the Drudge Report this afternoon a few days ahead of the health care vote Sunday, is "a hoax."

[READ THE MEMO HERE]

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