The Senate was expected to approve the package and send it Obama later Friday, even though presidential candidates in the Senate such as Republican Marco Rubio of Florida threatened to delay the votes.
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The tax portion, called “The Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act”, includes a provision that makes permanent Washingtonians’ ability to deduct state sales tax, according to a statement from Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Auburn.
The agreement also includes several items on charitable contributions, allows businesses to write off research expenses, and includes provisions that will let some homeowners keep more money after renegotiating a mortgage.
Democrats’ objections are expected to narrow the bill’s passage, but not derail it. The Senate is scheduled to vote Friday on the legislation after its passage in the House.
“We inherited a process, a cake that was pretty much more than half-baked”, Ryan said Thursday.
The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed a massive tax bill that makes permanent and enhances tax credits to aid business research and development, the working poor, children and other temporary tax breaks as lawmakers moved to avoid a government shutdown. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said she isn’t confident she has the votes locked up to pass the bill.
Overall, the budget pact was a modest one with many on each side describing it as the best deal they could get under divided government.
The legislation now heads to the Senate, where Republican and Democratic leaders have expressed their support.
“It’s up to them to get the votes; they’re the majority”, she said of Republicans at a news conference.
And in what appeared like a warning to Ryan and his party, Pelosi said, “They have the majority”.
Despite pledges by Ryan to run a different kind of House after his predecessor, John Boehner, was ousted by conservatives angered over last-minute, dead-of-night compromises with Democrats, the new GOP speaker found himself asking lawmakers to endorse a huge, eleventh-hour deal of his own. “We would have liked to have seen an expansion of the rollover to include distributions to donor-advised funds, but a permanent IRA rollover is certainly a win for philanthropy”.
Not able to persuade enough individuals to back such a worldwide arrangement, House pioneers will break them into two votes. That just puts him in a strong position going forward.
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Pelosi opposed the tax extension measure, though, denouncing it Wednesday as too heavily weighted toward companies and “practically an immorality”.
On Thursday, presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican running for president, who said on the campaign trail that he wanted to try to slow things down.
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“For those whose objective is to have the increase in the deficit continue to drive down non-defense spending, this bill will nearly certainly accomplish this”, Levin said.
