WASHINGTON — The year’s most important tax package was in trouble Friday as the House passed a key part of it that the White House threatened to veto and the Senate said was a dead end.
On the table were four tax initiatives wrapped into one bill by the Senate last week: preventing more than 20 million people from being victimized by the alternative minimum tax, incentives for renewable energy, extension of expiring tax breaks and disaster relief.
All are must-do tasks for Congress before it adjourns for the year, but the House, in three bills covering those issues, has taken the same approach as the Senate on only the alternative minimum tax. The Senate has made clear that any House divergence from its compromise will kill the whole package.
The House has insisted on a basic principle, that relief should be paid for by increasing revenues elsewhere so the budget deficit doesn’t worsen. That concept is opposed by the White House. The Associated Press
