Speaker Boehner & Leader Cantor: Discussion of Spending Cuts Necessary to Accelerate Talks on Payroll Tax Cut Extension

Statement

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) today issued the following statement regarding the bipartisan, bicameral conference negotiations being led by the House in an effort to enact a full-year extension of the payroll tax cut:

"Due to the lack of progress to date in the conference committee -- and the ongoing reluctance of our Senate Democratic counterparts to join House Republicans in offering a full plan to provide a full-year extension of the payroll tax cut without adding to the deficit -- we agree with Chairman Camp that the conference committee must immediately focus on some of the spending cuts that are in the House-passed bill.

"Time is running short. Republicans support a full-year extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits -- fully paid for, as the president himself has said it must be. The American people have been clear that paying for these measures through tax increases on small business job creators, as the president and Senate Democrats have proposed, is a nonstarter.

"The House has passed a bill that extends these benefits for a full year, offset mostly with spending cuts the president himself says he supports. If Senate Democratic leaders will not allow their conferees to support the bipartisan spending cuts passed by the House, they have a responsibility to tell the American people what spending cuts they are willing to support. If they aren't willing to do either, then the American people will be right to question Senate Democratic leaders' seriousness about actually getting a full-year payroll tax cut enacted.

"We call on our Senate Democratic counterparts to do the right thing, and to work with Republicans to provide certainty for small business job creators by enacting a responsible full-year extension of the payroll tax cut."

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