House Votes Continue Pension Bill Battle

The House passed a stripped-down pension bill Friday and an estate tax bill Saturday.

Lawmakers voted 279-131 to pass the pension bill, H.R. 4., which is based mainly on the proposed text of a conference report now being developed by the House-Senate pension bill conference committee. One major difference is that H.R. 4 excludes “extender” provisions that would extend several popular expiring tax cuts, such as the research and development tax credit.

Members of the House later voted 230-180 to pass the estate tax bill, H.R. 5970. That bill, the “trifecta bill,” would phase in a reduction in the estate tax; raise the federal minimum wage level to $7.25 over several years; provide funds to ensure that abandoned mines are safe; extend post-disaster tax incentives for New York and the Gulf Coast; and authorize issuance of bonds to finance rural development projects.

H.R. 5970 includes a number of tax provisions cut out of drafts of the conference report version of the pension bill.

Supporters of sharp estate tax cuts added the minimum wage provision and some other provisions that are popular with many Democrats in H.R. 5970 in an effort to put political pressure on Democrats who oppose sharp cuts in the estate tax.

Lobbyists and congressional staffers expect H.R. 5970 to head to the Senate first.

The first Senate hurdle for the trifecta bill will be a cloture vote on a motion to proceed to the bill, the lobbyists and congressional staffers say.

The votes on H.R. 4 and H.R. 5970 came after an intense week of negotiations on the pension measure and the estate tax issue.

All Republican House members of the pension conference committee failed to show up Thursday for a scheduled signing of a proposed pension bill package conference report. The proposed report included the pension reform plan and the so-called extender package.

Republican supporters of sharp cuts in the estate tax have been trying to use support for the extenders to win support for a pension package, and support of the pension package to win votes for sharp cuts in the estate tax.

An estate-tax reduction bill is supposed to come before the Senate this week.

Democrats are unlikely to accept that estate-tax reduction bill, observers say.

“At this moment, it would appear that Congress is likely to go home for the one-month summer recess without having accomplished pension reform or extending several expiring tax provisions,” according to Michael Kerley, senior vice president of federal government relations at the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, Falls Church, Va.

“The Senate may take up the pension bill this week,” Tin VandenBerg, of Washington Analysis, Washington, writes in a note to investors.