House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Monday that House Republicans will not “settle” on another temporary extension of payroll tax cuts, vowing to fight for a year-long extension of the tax cut, which was extended by two months at the end of last year.
“This should be easy, this should be easy to tell people who have a job that their taxes are not going to go up,” said Mr. Cantor on Monday. “I’m hopeful that the stories and reports that I read, that Harry Reid is thinking we just got to go another 60 days instead of a year is not true.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has accused congressional Republicans of slowing the negotiations by trying to tack unrelated issues on to the measure. Asked Monday if he would support another temporary extension of the payroll tax cut, Mr. Reid said lawmakers were preparing an alternative plan in the event conference members did not reach a deal in time.
“I have great confidence in our conferees, but I’m not going to stand by when the Republicans slows the process,” said the Nevada Democrat.
Mr. Cantor, meanwhile, said that any failure on the part of Congress to pass an payroll tax cut would ultimately cost Democrats in the upcoming 2012 election.
“The Republican conference in the House was never for allowing payroll taxes to go up on working people. And somehow that message didn’t seem to go and flow through, in terms of the message coming out of Washington,” Mr. Cantor said. “Why would we want to stand in the way of anything that would allow that to happen?”
