Senate Dems want tax cuts for businesses that hire

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Democrats began trying to push a bill through the Senate on Tuesday slicing taxes for businesses that hire new workers and buy major new equipment. They ran straight into opposition from Republicans who complained that the measure was too timid and sought to refocus the debate on their own economic priorities.

As soon as debate began, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said he would offer an amendment extending for another year broad tax cuts for millions of Americans that expire in January, including for the wealthiest earners. President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders want to renew them only for families earning up to $250,000 — a cutoff that Democrats say would force the rich to contribute to deficit reduction but Republicans say would stifle job creation.

“I remain amazed that the Democratic majority has decided to pursue this bill to support small businesses, when looming tax increases threaten to crush these same small businesses,” Hatch said.

“It’s just like asking to go into a deeper recession,” he added of the tax increases that will hit unless Congress acts. “It’s like saying we don’t care.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., would not say whether he would allow a vote on Hatch’s amendment, but it seemed unlikely. He tried turning the tables on Republicans by accusing them of holding middle-class tax cuts hostage so the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans could get tax reductions.

“So I give Mitt Romney and all the Republicans this news: They’re all doing just fine. Mitt Romney doesn’t need additional tax breaks,” Reid said of the wealthy GOP presidential challenger.

With Election Day less than four months off, the battle highlighted how both parties are using congressional debate to transmit their messages to voters with little regard to whether the legislation at stake will ever become law.

The Senate’s Democratic tax-cutting bill has little chance of surviving. Neither does today’s planned vote by the Republican-run House to repeal Obama’s 2010 health care law, which has no chance of being duplicated in the Democratic-led Senate.