Posted on 04/06/2011 3:12:22 AM PDT by Libloather
Senate repeals health law's 1099 provision, sends bill to president
By Josiah Ryan - 04/05/11 01:23 PM ET
After a months-long battle, the Senate voted Tuesday, 87 to 12, to repeal the 1099 tax-reporting requirement in Democrats’ healthcare reform bill.
The measure now goes to the president, who is expected to sign it, making it the first part of his party’s signature reform bill to be scrapped.
The measure, initially included as a funding measure for the healthcare bill, does away with the requirement for companies to report to the IRS transactions valued at more than $600. While the provision has had few backers in either party, debate over its repeal had dragged on for months.
"This is a big win for small business and, more importantly, I hope it’s the first of many successful repeal votes related to the disastrous healthcare bill passed by Democrats last year,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday before the vote.
The House easily passed the same repeal, 314-112, earlier this month. In that vote, every Republican and 76 Democrats supported the bill.
In a statement, the White House said it was "pleased Congress has acted to correct a flaw that placed an unnecessary bookkeeping burden on small businesses."
"As we move forward, we look forward to improving the tax credit policy in this legislation to ensure we protect small businesses and middle-class families," the White House said. "And the Administration remains eager to work with anyone with ideas about how we can make health care better or more affordable for all Americans.”
Under the version passed by both chambers, repeal will be paid for by forcing families whose income unexpectedly exceeds certain levels to repay subsidies they received from the federal government.
In floor debate, Republicans said their plan would reduce the national deficit by $166 billion over 10 years. But Democrats said the Republican plan would increase the tax burden on the middle class.
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) offered an amendment that would have instructed the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to study the repeal and determine if it would cost small businesses more than it would save them. His amendment, however, was defeated 41 to 58; it needed 60 votes to pass.
Menendez defended his amendment on Tuesday, insisting the Republicans’ plan could end up dearly costing the same small-business owners and taxpayers supposedly helped by the repeal.
“While it provides relief on one hand, who is to say it might not also take away relief on the other?” Menendez asked. “I am concerned it increases the healthcare burden on the very same people for whom we are trying to provide relief.”
But Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), who shepherded the 1099 repeal though the Senate, objected to Menendez’s proposal because he said it would delay the repeal. The altered bill would have had to go back the House for deliberation and a vote.
“Adding anything on, passing anything else, will cause our job creators to wait on the sidelines once again,” said Johanns. “We will have different versions … and I am afraid it may fade into Never Never Land.”
Johanns said Menendez ought to tack his amendment on to another bill where it would not endanger the future of the repeal.
“It’s already been a long and tortured process to get here today,” added Johanns.
How many RATS, up for re-election in 2012, were included in that 87? My guess, all of 'em.
The 1099 became this massive waste of time for all business operations. There would have been millions of hours added to company production and sales....to produce this form for significant sales.
Not enough.
And the phony “non-partisan” OMB had included revenue raised from this ridiculous tax into their assertion that ObamaCare would not cost anything. Let’s see a revised estimate of its cost now from these magicians.
Friggin’ unbelievable that 12 Senators are that stupid.
How did it get in there in the first place? Where was the debate? Anyone read it before the vote?
If you think the clowns in the repubdem aristocracy are going to get rid of the entire slave making unconstitutional healthcare fiasco...the joke is on you. As he socialists always said, public health is cornerstone of socialism.
Repealing this provision is irrelevant. Regulating health care is not an enumerated power granted to Congress in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution. Therefore Obamacare on its face, regardless of the content, is Unconstitutional. The people are not bound to comply with an Unconstitutional act of Congress.
The 1099 issue is bogus. It was an included throwaway to be repealed to make it appear something was really happening.
It is politics at the absolute worst.
Even with the 1099 requirement gone, I bet the IRS still gets its 16,000 new agents and bunch of shotguns ...
Who were the 12??
So often all the energy goes into repealing a stupid law that was created, no one goes after the specific idiots that created it. Why let them walk away. They should be pummeled and punished politically for wasting millions on putting forward bad ideas.
I have maintained all along that putting this provision in the nobamacare bill was a "gimmie" to be negotiated away later.
Given the ease with which nobama "gave into" this repeal, I suspect I was right.
Here’s the trick....Piecemeal kinda says....well, then everything else must be okay, right?
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