Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – With a new majority taking control of the House next year, lawmakers returned to Capitol Hill on Monday to tackle a backlog of bills during a “lame-duck” session. Their agenda includes whether to extend Bush administration tax cuts for all or only for the middle class and elections to new leadership posts for the coming 112th Congress.
Lawmakers this week will return to work on a dozen annual appropriations bills for the 2011 fiscal year. They passed a stopgap measure on their last day of session in September before the mid-term elections, temporarily funding government operations.
Debate will also focus on tax cuts implemented in 2001 and 2003 that are due to expire in January.
Democrats want a permanent extension of tax breaks for middle class families earning less than $250,000 a year. Republicans, however, want to extend tax cuts for all, including high-income earners.
The GOP proposal would cost the government $3.7 trillion over 10 years, while the Democratic plan would cost $3 trillion.
Together with the 9.6 percent unemployment rate, the issue has been a source of vitriol between Democrats and Republicans during the months before the mid-term elections. But leaders from both parties issued overtures in the past week.
“I’m going to meet with both the Republican and Democratic leaders… and we’re going to sit down and discuss how we move forward,” President Barack Obama said in South Korea on Friday, two days before he returned to the White House.
“My number one priority is making sure that we make the middle class tax cuts permanent, that we give certainty to the 98 percent of Americans who are affected by those tax breaks,” the president added. “I continue to believe that extending permanently the upper-income tax cuts would be a mistake and that we can’t afford it.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who earlier this month backtracked on his comment that the GOP’s overarching goal is to make Obama a one-term president, said in a statement on Thursday, “I’m willing to listen to what the president has in mind for protecting Americans from tax increases.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the fourth highest-ranking lawmaker in his chamber, wants a compromise that would extend tax cuts for families earning $1 million instead of $250,000.
“I hear Sen. McConnell talking about small business but under his plan, people like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates… would get a tax break,” Schumer said on “Face the Nation” on CBS on Sunday. “It would much, much better to raise the limit to $1 million rather than give it to people who are multibillionaires… the only group in America who’s had a gain in income.”
Lawmakers will also take up the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Moscow. The agreement was signed by President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart in April but still requires ratification by the U.S. Congress.
The United States and Russia hold more than 90 percent of nuclear weapons worldwide. The new START replaces a treaty that was signed in 1991 just before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and that expired last year.
The old treaty limited warheads to 2,200 and launch vehicles to 1,600. The new START limits deployed warheads to 1,550 and launchers to 800.
Top Republicans who do not support the current treaty have raised concerns about modernization and missile defense.
“We need to modernize our nuclear force, the weapons that are left, to make sure they continue to be a deterrent,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said on Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “We need to make sure that we can employ — deploy missile defense systems that are apart from START.”
“[Sen.] Jon Kyl is working with the administration to get better modernization to make sure that missile defense is not connected to START,” added Graham.
The lame-duck session is scheduled until Friday. No votes were on the calendar on Monday and it is unclear if lawmakers will accomplish the items on their agenda, which could also include a bill in the Senate repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the law against openly gay members of the military.
Side-by-side their work on the floor, they will be electing new leaders for the coming Congress in January, when House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) takes the speakership and current Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) becomes the minority leader. In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will remain at the helm of a caucus made weaker by losses in the elections.
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