Nancy Pelosi upped her rhetoric on the surtax on Wednesday. | JAY WESTCOTT/POLITICO Pelosi keeps pushing millionaires tax

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi got aggressive Wednesday on her push for a higher tax on the wealthy, insisting that a millionaires’ surtax should be part of a deal to extend the payroll tax holiday.

During her weekly news conference at the Capitol, she called the surtax the “simplest, easiest way” to pay for a package that would include extension of the payroll tax holiday, jobless benefits and the Medicare reimbursement for doctors.


“This is a middle-income tax cut,” Pelosi told reporters on Wednesday. “It is not going to be paid for by a penalty to the middle class. So you have another idea? Tell us why the surcharge is not the best way to go.”

Democrats pushed for a millionaire’s surtax before the December recess, but that flopped due to opposition from Republicans. Congress has passed a two-month extension of those provisions that expires at the end of February, and Democrats have been signaling that the surcharge could resurface when the 20-member conference committee begins to meet.

Right after the current two-month extension passed Congress in December, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters that “there is nothing off the table, everything is on the table” regarding a surtax.

Pelosi upped her rhetoric on the surtax on Wednesday.

“If the Republicans have some other suggestions, let them put them forward,” she said. “But Democrats are not going to give with one hand to the middle class and take away with the other hand.”

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