Tom Ramstack – AHN News Correspondent
Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Rep. John Boehner said Wednesday he plans to use the new political power he would gain as Speaker of the House to continue tax cuts for middle-income and wealthy Americans.
Boehner spoke at a press conference in the U.S. Capitol to update the news media on how the House of Representatives is transitioning to a Republican majority.
“Extending all of the current tax rates and making them permanent will reduce the uncertainty” about the economy, Boehner said.
Tax cuts instituted by the Bush Administration are set to expire at the end of this year.
President Barack Obama said he agrees the tax cuts should be extended for middle-income Americans but is reluctant to extend them for the wealthy.
A permanent extension of the tax cuts is “the most important thing we can do,” said Boehner, an Ohio Republican.
He is set to become the new Speaker of the House after the midterm elections gave Republicans the House majority they need to replace Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
Boehner plans to meet with Obama next week to discuss the tax cuts and other transition issues.
The cuts lowered taxes for individuals earning less than $200,000 a year and families earning less than $250,000. The two categories include 98 percent of Americans.
Obama said recently in a “60 Minutes” television interview the U.S. Treasury would lose $700 billion over the next decade if tax cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000 per year remain in effect.
Boehner took a jab at Pelosi during his press conference in the Capitol when he said he would continue to commute between Washington, D.C., and his home district in Ohio by commercial aircraft.
Pelosi uses military aircraft to fly home to California.
Meanwhile, Boehner’s Republican colleagues are pressuring him to abandon the traditional seniority system in assigning leaders to House committees.
Committee leaders are appointed by the Speaker of the House. Traditionally, the most senior members of committees are given the chairmanships.
Republican congressmen Jerry Lewis of California and Hal Rogers of Kentucky said recently that Arizona Republican Jeff Flake should be given a prominent role on the House Appropriations Committee.
Lewis and Rogers both have seniority over Flake on the Appropriations Committee.
However, Flake is known as a conservative budget-cutter and tax break advocate.
The Appropriations Committee designates how tax revenue is allocated among House committees.
The American Conservative Union is circulating a petition on Capitol Hill that urges Boehner to search for new talent in committee leadership rather than relying on seniority.
Appointing committee chairmen based on seniority “would be a signal to the millions of independents and members of the Tea Party movement who took a chance on Republicans in the election, that you have ignored their message of change, and that instead it will be business as usual in Washington,” the petition says.
Any decisions on how Boehner will choose Republican Party leaders in Congress is likely to come out of the transition team meetings that continued Wednesday.
The 22-member transition team is meeting to set rules they will follow during the move into a new Republican majority in Congress.
“Our goal is to look at how we can make the U.S. House of Representatives more open, more transparent, more accessible to the American people … in terms of how to improve legislative policy, how we can get to job number one, which is creating jobs, and how we can get at reducing deficit spending,” Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), chairman of the transition team, said during a press conference.
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