US House passes tax bill, problems in Senate
Source: Reuters
By Donna Smith WASHINGTON, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Major tax, trade and energy legislation that Republicans hoped to pass in the final days of their control of the U.S. Congress was headed for trouble on Friday in the Senate even as the U.S. House of Representatives approved the first part of the package. The legislation is one of several bills Republican leaders hoped to clear before Democrats take control of the new Congress to be seated in January. In the rush to adjourn the current Republican-led Congress, lawmakers also were poised to act on legislation that would help clear the way for nuclear-armed India to buy U.S. nuclear reactors and fuel for the first time in 30 years. Congress also faced a Friday deadline to approve a massive money bill to keep the government running into next year. Nine of 11 spending bills that finance various government programs are being left for the new Congress to finish. A stopgap spending bill was set to expire at midnight Friday and lawmakers must act to avoid a government shutdown. The tax, energy and trade legislation, though, threatened to spoil lawmakers' plans to finish the post-election session this week. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg said he will try to kill it because of a $40 billion five-year price tag to the federal treasury. Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican, said the total could top $50 billion over 10 years. The package would extend tax breaks for research and development and other popular causes, cancel pay cuts for doctors who treat the elderly, and open some 8.3 million acres (3.4 million hectares) in the eastern Gulf of Mexico near Florida to new oil and gas drilling. "It has in it a large amount of items which have nothing to do with extending taxes and have a lot to do with personal interests of various groups around this country who have the capacity to get things in bills," Gregg said in a Senate speech. "You must have to ask yourself how we as a party got to this point when we have a leadership that is going to ram down our throats of our party the biggest budget buster in the history of this Congress, under Republican leadership," he said. Even as Gregg raised his objections, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the tax measure, 367-45, in hopes of getting it to the Senate quickly. The House was also to take up accompanying trade bill granting permanent normal trade relations with former Cold War enemy Vietnam and giving Haiti new trade benefits. The trade and tax bills were to be merged into one bill to help ease passage in the Senate after objections from Gregg and eight other senators who said the Haiti measure would replace about $200 million in sales of U.S. yarn and fabric to the Caribbean nation with cheap supplies from China. Despite those objections Republican leaders hope that after some procedural maneuvering, the Senate will pass the package and send it to President George W. Bush for his signature. The trade measure would set aside Cold War restrictions on trade Vietnam and clear the way for U.S. farmers, bankers and other businesses to share in the market-opening benefits of Hanoi's entry into the World Trade Organization next month. (Additional reporting by Missy Ryan)
| AlertNet news is provided by |  |