Nancy Pelosi

Pelosi Puts The Kibosh On GOP Payroll Tax Cut Strategy

Brian Beutler | December 2, 2011, 5:15PM

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) says Republicans can forget about using the looming expiration of a year-long payroll tax holiday for workers to squeeze a host of unrelated conservative priorities through Congress, and projected confidently that her party has the GOP cornered on the issue.

In an exclusive interview Friday with TPM, Pelosi sketched out the Democrats' strategy for renewing (and possibly expanding) the payroll tax cut, which most economists say would promote job creation next year -- when persistent unemployment will be at the center of the election debate.

"It is really a stalling tactic," Pelosi said of recent reports that Republicans want to use the lapsing tax cut as leverage to pass key GOP priorities, including construction of a major oil pipeline from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico, and rolling back Obama's health care law. "It's unworthy of the needs of the American people for them to go all around the mulberry bush with this stuff. If they want to do something for the American people -- to remove the uncertainty as to whether these payroll tax cuts will be extended, whether [unemployment insurance] will be extended ... let's just get about doing it."

"They know that this stuff isn't going to fly, that the President's not going to sign it -- so why are they doing this," Pelosi says. "It's about votes at the end of the day, and some of their people are never going to vote for anything, so they're going to need our votes, we're going to have to work together, and they're going to need the President's signature -- and they're going to need it to pass the Senate."

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Oil Subsidies

Republicans Filibuster Bill To Repeal Oil Subsidies

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

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) with Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Charles Schumer (D-NY)

As expected, a Democratic bill that would have stripped big oil companies of multi-billion annual tax subsidies failed to overcome a Republican filibuster Tuesday evening. The heavily partisan 52-48 vote fell well short of the 60 required to achieve cloture. Three Democrats -- Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Mark Begich (D-AK), and Ben Nelson (D-NE) -- voted with Republicans to maintain the subsidies. Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Susan Collins (R-ME) voted with the Democrats.

Democrats have turned oil subsidies into a major issue as Congress looks at ways to tame high deficits and the national debt. They've been fueled in their efforts by soaring gas prices and extraordinary industry profits. And party leaders have vowed to include the tax breaks in any grand fiscal bargain tied to raising the debt limit.

But this effort was all about politics. Democrats want to highlight the GOP alignment with oil companies this election season and Tuesday's vote will help them do that. But if it had passed it would have run smack into a pretty big problem -- because, er, it was unconstitutional.

Oil

Democrats' Oil Subsidy Repeal Bill Is Actually Unconstitutional

Brian Beutler | May 17, 2011, 3:19PM

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)

Republicans may have a point that Democrats are playing politics with oil subsidies. To understand why, look no further than the fact that the bill Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will bring to the floor for a vote Tuesday evening doesn't pass basic constitutional muster.

"The question is if the bill passes the Senate, it will run into a blue-slip problem," Reid said at his weekly Capitol press conference. Blue slipping is the process the House uses to reject Senate bills that impact tax and spending.

Reid joked, "That's the least of my worries."

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