Senate votes on tax cuts; Portman concerned - 13abc.com Toledo (OH) News, Weather and Sports

The Senate has debated and voted on the Bush-era tax cuts, and next week it'll be the House's turn.

Largely along party lines -- the Senate passed a bill extending the tax cuts for lower and middle income Americans while letting them expire for the wealthiest Americans.  But like many other bills in the grid-locked congress, this one is unlikely to go anywhere in the GOP controlled house.

Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi said "The only thing standing in the way of a middle income tax cut is the house Republicans."

 However, Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner says "The House will vote to stop the small-business tax hike. We'll also vote to start a pro-growth tax reform that will help employers keep jobs in America and bring some jobs back to America that have gone overseas."

A recent CBS-NY Times poll found nearly half the country prefers extending the cuts only for those making less than $250,000 a year.

Ohio Senator Rob Portman says he has concerns about that plan.

"In 2010, the President made a famous statement where he said, "Look, the economy is so weak, we shouldn't be raising taxes on anybody right now."  Well, the economy is weaker now than it was in 2010 when the President made that statement,  The way economists measure it is the GDP growth and it's weaker now than it was then.  Unfortunately, we're seeing a bunch of bad signs, two months of horrible unemployment numbers, we're seeing manufacturing taking a dip for the first time in three years, not since a month into the recession have we seen a decrease in manufacturing. Consumer confidence is the lowest it's been this year. We've seen a lot of bad signs in the economy. At this point, to tell folks we're going to raise your taxes, including by the way, raising the gift or estate tax, so if you're a small business owner or a farmer in Ohio, watch out, because what the Democrats voted for last night, is gonna make it harder for you to pass along your farm or your small business to your family and some folks are going to have the family farm or the family business to pay Uncle Sam and that doesn't make a whole lot of sense."

So, I'm concerned about. I think we should be doing a short term extension of existing tax code, just like it is, and during that time period, short term, come up with tax reform that actually improves our tax system which is a mess right now, to make it so the economy gets a shot in the arm. When people look at this, whether they're in the middle of the political spectrum, the right or the left, they say the current tax code is not working for us, it's not working for the economy, it makes us less competitive and that's what we've got to be doing instead of raising taxes right now."