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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