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4 Takeaways from Today's Cantor-Hoyer Floor Clash

By Michael Catalini // July 12, 2012 | 2:00 p.m.

Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Democratic Minority Whip Steny Hoyer clashed on the House floor today during debate over scheduling a vote on tax cuts.

The debate at times got heated. "You're either for tax cuts or you're not," Cantor boomed. Hoyer shot back, "My way or the highway. That's what you just said."

The politics by now should sound familiar to you. So here are the highlights from today's floor action.

• At issue was a GOP measure to extend the George W. Bush-era tax cuts, which Cantor said will come for a vote the week of July 29.

• The bill to extend the cuts, which the president is unlikely to sign even if it got through the Senate, will be a straight up-and-down vote, Cantor said.

• Hoyer lamented that there would be no markup of the bill, to which Cantor replied that the Maryland Democrat could "posit his side" through a motion to recommit, a procedural move that Hoyer protested because Republicans would defeat it.

• Cantor asked Hoyer if the Democrats' motion to recommit would essentially be the president's proposal. Hoyer was noncommittal. "We're certainly going to discuss that."