House, in a show of bipartisanship, votes to repeal a tax

The House of Representatives voted Thursday to repeal a tax on government contractors, achieving a rare moment of bipartisan agreement to pass a bill proponents argue will create jobs.

The bill to repeal a not-yet-imposed 3% withholding tax passed 405 to 16. The measure was among the least controversial elements of President Obama’s jobs bill, although Obama called for delay of the tax while Republicans backed a full repeal. After very little wrangling, just a few Democrats opposed the measure, and the White House said it supported the bill.

The vote capped a week of Republican efforts to promote the party’s alternatives to the White House jobs proposals, some of which are polling well with the public. At a news conference, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said he hoped the bipartisanship would extend to a longer list of bills that had passed the House but not been taken up by Democratic leaders in the Senate.

“Many of these bills passed the House with bipartisan support — 15 common-sense bills that will help get our economy moving again,” Boehner said.

GOP leaders branded the bills the “forgotten 15,” part of a ramped-up effort to highlight House Republicans’ plan for creating jobs — and point the finger for the gridlock in Congress at Senate Democrats. Polls show the Republicans have struggled to communicate their vision to battle unemployment.

In a New York Times/CBS poll released this week, 71% of people surveyed said the party did not have a clear plan for creating jobs.

The 15 bills spotlighted by Republicans largely deal with blocking or curbing federal regulations. One would block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases, and others would curb the agency’s role in regulating coal ash and the cement industry. One would restrict the federal role in creating clean-water rules. Others are aimed at increasing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

Republicans argue that the regulations hamper industry and stall growth. Democrats, for the most part, defend the regulations as necessary for workers’ safety or to protect clean air and water.

It’s unclear precisely what effect a repeal of the 3% tax on contractors would have on the economy. Repeal supporters did not offer an estimate for job creation, but cited industry surveys indicating that companies viewed it as a potential impediment to hiring.

The tax, passed in 2005, was intended to force tax dodgers to pay up. But it faced opposition and Congress has delayed it since. Backers of the bill argued that repealing the tax would eliminate uncertainty hanging over contractors.

It also would eliminate an estimated $11 billion in federal tax revenue. The House sought to make up the gap by passing a separate bill that would tighten eligibility requirements for Medicaid and other health programs.

That bill passed 262 to 157, over Democratic opposition. Democrats had instead proposed paying for the repeal by closing a tax loophole for major oil and gas companies, but Republicans blocked that effort.

The House bill to repeal the tax is likely to find support in the Senate, though it is not clear when it will come up. Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky urged the Senate to move quickly to approve the repeal “without any poison pills.”

The Senate voted on a previous version of the measure, but it came three votes shy of passage after a dispute over how it would be paid for, and Senate Democrats have not committed to the GOP’s latest proposed cuts. A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said the leaders were “working out a path forward” to repeal the tax.

The Senate is due next week to take up a larger piece of Obama’s $447-billion jobs package — a $60-billion proposal to repave roads and highways and launch an infrastructure bank to lend money for other construction projects.

kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com