1099 repeal is repeatedly defeated in the Congress even though both parties favor the repeal
Democrats and Republicans do not agree on the healthcare reform law, that goes without saying, but there is one aspect of the law that both sides believe needs to be eliminated. And that is the portion of the healthcare reform law known as the 1099 tax reporting provision, which requires businesses to report all transactions over $600 with the IRS. This is seen by both sides as too burdensome on small businesses.
Both parties claim that they want to repeal this unpopular part of the healthcare reform law, but both sides have had chances to pass this repeal, and so far every attempt to repeal this provision has failed. Why would an unpopular portion of this bill that both sides want to see repealed still be on the books?
The answer is simple–politics. The 1099 repeal has become a political tool that both sides are using in attempts to pass other, less agreed upon legislation. The 1099 repeal is being held hostage to the parties who are more interested in playing politics and worried more about who will get the credit for the repeal, instead of doing what is best for the small businesses that this provision effects. Instead of passing the 1099 repeal bill on its own merits, politicians on both sides of the aisle are attaching this bill to other bills that do not have bipartisan support in an attempt to pass legislation that would otherwise fail.
But both parties, and both chambers of Congress, have played politics with the repeal, offering amendments or bills paid for with provisions they knew the other party would never accept.
This is precisely the type of game that the American people are sick and tired of. This is one of the things the American people voted against last month, and yet we can see that neither side understands what the election was about. We can only hope that when the new Congress convenes in January that the incoming Senators and Representatives understand the job the American people sent them to do. It is about time someone in Washington represented the PEOPLE!
The 1099 repeal bill should be held to an up or down vote solely on its merit alone, but both Republicans and Democrats view this bill as having more value to them as an attachment to less popular legislation. This highlights what I feel is one of the biggest problems in Washington today: all bills should be voted on by themselves and not as part of an amendment to another bill. Then and only then will the best interests of the American people be represented in Washington. The time for attaching amendments to existing bills in a partisan attempt to pass otherwise unpopular legislation has come and gone. It is time for al bills to be voted on separately.
John Boehner was on the right track when he suggested that all spending bills be separated into smaller bills so that there would be more transparency in Washington. This is a start in the right direction, but it is only a start. I would suggest that ALL bills–not just spending bills–should be voted on individually. This would provide the American people with more transparency on all bills and would eliminate a situation as demonstrated above where a bill that both sides agree upon is held up simply because neither side wants to hand the other a victory.
The only loser in this case is the small business owner–which both sides claim to care about–because the politicians in Washington have decided that winning a political victory for their side is more important than doing what is right for the small business owner.
If Washington politicians are unwilling to pass legislation that both sides agree on simply because they are afraid it will help the re-election prospects of the other side how can we trust them to honestly take on more divisive issues in the future and do what is right for the American people and not for their self-interest?
America's Watchtower 
Just my two cents: You can’t fix stupid, thus I would argue that the Health Care Bill is such a disaster on so many levels I don’t want to see them chipping away at this or that. REPEAL the whole thing and start over. All the other arguments are a waste of precious time we don’t have since it’s the economy stupid. [Stupid directed at our fearfull leader who does not seem to get it, and instead messes around with everything else] Screw the 1099 argument and get on with repealing a bill that is such a disaster it accomplishes nothing except to bankrupt us.
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I agree, this bill should be repealed. But I just don’t think the votes will be there to override the president’s veto, so let us dismantle and defund this disaster!
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How did that even get in the bill? It sounds like something concocted by Charlie Rangel-when he still headed a committee.
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I think they claim it will boost revenues and help pay for part of the cost of the health care law.
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Probably did have something to do with Rangel, but this is what happens when nobody reads the bill. Who knows what other gems are in there.
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I have a similar question. What the hell does tax reporting have to do with health care?
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I didn’t understand this until I started reading the recent decision that said the requirement to purchase insurance was unconstitutional. The tax reporting requirement, as well as the IRS being the one’s in charge of enforcement (always thought this one was weird too), was needed so that liberals could say the “penalty” for not buying insurance was actually a “tax” – thusly allowing them to regulate through taxation something they are not expressly enumerated to regulate in the constitution.
Fortunately the judge saw this for what it was, a penalty, not a tax and shot it down, as two other judges have also done.
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I thonk fleeceme nailed the answer to your question!
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I couldn’t agree with you more, Steve. Congress can not seem to help themselves when it comes to this practice. Maybe because it has been used for so long, they don’t know how to do things any other way. I hope the new Congress can change some of this, but if they don’t, they need to be held accountable, Republicans and Democrats alike.
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I can understand the policy of adding related amendments to a bill, but this policy of attaching seperate, non related bills to other bills needs to be stopped. I would guess this is the whole slippery slope thing here: the amendment process was added to speed up legislation by fixing the bill as it goes through the Congress and eventually if morphs into what we see today.
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