Last-minute House bills may not survive Senate

WASHINGTON – The House completed its summer work in a flurry of post-midnight debates and votes Saturday, approving changes to the federal minimum wage, estate taxes and pension laws. But with deep divisions lurking in the Senate, it all may go for naught, as have so many other recent efforts, leaving the two chambers open to perhaps the loudest taunts of “do-nothing Congress” in decades.

Despite their control of the House, Senate and White House, Republicans have been unable to reach accord on immigration, lobbying reform, military tribunals, Social Security and even nuts-and-bolts measures such as a 2007 budget plan. Lawmakers still have time to pass some of that legislation.

House members left town Saturday for the August recess, and senators are expected to follow suit in a few days. When both chambers reconvene after Labor Day, they will have 15 scheduled work days before their planned final adjournment for the fall elections.

Democrats have poked fun at the GOP-run Congress’ long weekends and frequent recesses before, but the “do-nothing” jibes may carry more sting as November balloting nears. Republicans face their lowest approval ratings in a decade, and Democrats feel they are close to retaking the House – and conceivably the Senate – in the midterm elections.

“I think people care, and they should care,” said Rep. Christopher Shays, Conn., an embattled Republican who so far has failed to secure his top legislative priority – strong controls on lobbying. “I just hope people understand that things have become so partisan around here that the best thing we can do is get this election out of the way and come back to work.”

Republican leaders shrug off the “do-nothing” charge. “You get used to hearing that nonsense,” said House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. As for beating the 1948 Congress’s record for lethargy, he joked, “Most Americans will be pretty happy with that.”

The weekend’s flurry of House action may give Republicans some midsummer bragging rights, but it’s far from clear that the Senate will go along. The House voted to boost the nation’s minimum wage for the first time in nine years, slash the estate tax permanently and extend several business tax breaks. It also voted 279 to 131 to approve the most sweeping overhaul of the nation’s pension laws in 30 years.

Those measures face deep uncertainty in the Senate this week, where maneuvering by Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has alienated several committee chairmen and triggered Democratic accusations of cynicism. Given senators’ ability to thwart legislation more easily than House members, the discontent could prove fatal.

The House, at about 1:30 a.m. Saturday, voted 230 to 180 to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, from the $5.15 rate on the books since 1997. The bill also would exempt from taxation all estates worth as much as $5 million – or $10 million for a married couple – and apply a 15 percent tax rate to inheritances above that threshold and as much as $25 million. For estates exceeding $25 million in value, the tax rate would be 30 percent.

Most congressional Republicans support the estate-tax cuts and oppose the minimum wage increase. Most Democrats take the opposite positions. Democrats said they saw a two-edged strategy in the GOP decision to couple the issues.

Democrats’ eagerness to raise the minimum wage might attract enough support in the Senate as well as the House to pass the estate-tax cut, a major GOP goal. But if Senate Democrats block the bill because of their aversion to the estate-tax cut – as their leaders have vowed to do – House Republicans may at least be able to blunt Democratic accusations that they made no effort to help the working poor.

Frist, who will retire this year and possibly run for president, faces a huge challenge this week in trying to soothe hurt feelings, minimize Democratic opposition, and steer the tax, wage and pension legislation to passage with no changes that would force a return to the House. A heart surgeon who had comparatively light legislative experience when President Bush helped elevate him to the majority leader’s post, Frist gambled by agreeing with House leaders to strip some popular business tax extensions from the pension bill and add them to the proposed estate-tax cut, a Frist priority.

The move infuriated Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., who had spent months seeking a compromise centered in part on the tax extensions.

Frist thanked the two senators in a statement Saturday “for working hard to address the pensions issue,” but he said that an impasse between House and Senate conferees forced him to try a different tack.

Aides to Frist said they believe they will prevail on a crucial vote (perhaps later this week) needed to overcome the Democrats’ promised filibuster of the minimum wage-estate-tax bill.

Backers will need 60 votes in the 100-member Senate to proceed. Republicans hold 55 seats. Even if a filibuster is overcome, the bill might be amended, forcing new negotiations with the House.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., “is confident the Senate will defeat this fiscally irresponsible estate-tax proposal, as we have in the past,” said his spokesman, Jim Manley.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said in a statement, “Republicans are playing politics with the lives of hardworking people. … It’s political blackmail to say the only way that minimum wage workers can get a raise is to give tax giveaways to the wealthiest Americans.”

Frist used the term “death tax” for the estate levy in his statement, but made no direct mention of the minimum wage increase. This week, “the Senate will test whether or not there is enough support among its members to reform the unfair death tax,” he said.

If the House sticks to its schedule, it will have worked 84 days this year when votes were scheduled, 26 fewer than the Congress that President Harry S. Truman labeled “do-nothing” during his come-from-behind 1948 campaign.

Indeed, in 31 of the past 40 sessions of Congress, the House met more days before the July 4 break than the current House is scheduled to meet before the November election, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said.