McCaskill: House GOP opposition to payroll tax cut extension ‘weird’

Sen. Claire McCaskill (AP Photo via DayLife)

— In a bipartisan vote Saturday morning, the U.S. Senate passed legislation to extend President Obama’s payroll tax cut.

But Sunday morning, after speaking with members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner said the Senate bill is one that his caucus will not support.

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., had one question for House Republicans in a tweet Sunday morning: “Huh?”

“Talk about extreme,” McCaskill wrote. “R[epublican]s in [the] House will fiercely fight to prevent taxes going up even a dime on mega wealthy,but ok with taxes going up on working families. Weird.”

Failure to pass an extension would cost working Americans on average an additional $1,000 in taxes next year.

Boehner, speaking on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press,’ said, “It’s pretty clear and I and our members oppose the Senate bill.”

While some of his members want a one year extension, with various riders attached, more conservative members, including Missouri congressman Todd Akin, R-St. Louis, argue it simply should not be extended.

In an interview with PoliticMo last month, Akin, who is running for the Republican nomination to challenge McCaskill next year, said an extension of the payroll tax cut would be “insane.”

“We’ve made promises to people and they’re depending on this money coming in, and what is [President Obama] doing on a system that is already teetering? Well, he is going into the source of revenue — comes from the employers and employees,” he said. “I think it is irresponsible.”

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sarah Steelman said she supports an extension. Businessman John Brunner, another Republican contender, said passing repeated extensions is a “knee-jerk strategy” for addressing the economic problem.

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