House GOP introduces payroll tax cut extension bill

House Republican leaders said earlier today that they would meet with their conference to talk about the idea of extending the payroll tax holiday without offsetting spending reductions, and said they need to consider this option because Democrats are refusing to discuss the idea of offsetting cuts.

“Because the president and Senate Democratic leaders have not allowed their conferees to support a responsible bipartisan agreement, today House Republicans will introduce a backup plan that would simply extend the payroll tax holiday for the remainder of the year while the conference negotiations continue regarding offsets, unemployment insurance, and the ‘doc fix,’ ” GOP leaders said.

If the payroll tax holiday bill were passed on its own, the effort to find offsets would only apply to the extensions of unemployment insurance and the doc fix — the reimbursement rate for Medicare physicians.

“If Democrats continue to refuse to negotiate in good faith, Republicans may schedule this measure for House consideration later this week pending a conversation with our members,” they added. “Democrats’ refusal to agree to any spending cuts in the conference committee has made it necessary for us to prepare this fallback option to protect small business job creators and ensure taxes don’t go up on middle class workers.”