[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 182 (Wednesday, November 30, 2011)]
[House]
[Page H7932]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           EQUITY IN TAXATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Webster). The Chair recognizes the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, it's a sign of maturity to be able to 
retain two different but related concepts in your head at the same 
time. For instance, taxes should not be raised on the majority of 
working Americans while the economy is in this very difficult 
situation. But a little more can reasonably be paid by those who are 
extremely well off.

                              {time}  1010

  The simple fact is that our economy and our families cannot afford to 
take the economic hit that is poised to pull a hundred billion dollars 
out of the economy with the expiration of the 2 percent payroll tax 
holiday that's scheduled to expire this year.
  There is currently a proposal that's being debated in the other body 
that I hope we'll have the opportunity to vote on here to be able to 
extend and expand the payroll tax cut and to pay for it.
  Under this proposal, employees would receive a 50 percent additional 
cut in the payroll tax, cutting it essentially in half, and employers 
would have a reduction in the payroll tax that they pay on their 
employees up to the first $5 million of payroll. This would help 98 
percent of businesses but not give unnecessary giveaways to large and 
profitable organizations, and, most importantly, it would prevent the 
typical family from suffering a significant increase in their taxes 
while the economy is still fragile. This proposal would give the 
average family $1,500 a year extra to spend. You would think that 
people ought to be able to corollate those two concepts.
  The way that this would be financed is a small surtax on not just 
rich, but superrich people. These are folks who make over a million 
dollars a year, and they would just pay the surtax on that amount that 
they earn over the million dollar threshold. It's far less than the 1 
percent that we are hearing argued about. They would still pay lower 
Bush-era tax rates on the first million, and those that have extensive 
investment income, which most of them do, would still benefit from 
those lower rates.
  Unfortunately, we find people here who are caught up in an ideology 
that trumps concern for the economy and the typical American family. It 
was this refusal to consider a balanced approach that is supported by 
the vast majority of the public that led to the collapse of the so-
called supercommittee. Americans were and are ready for action that is 
bold, big, balanced and fair.
  Now, we actually can start on the road of recovery just by going on 
autopilot. The default that is set up that will let the Bush-era tax 
cuts expire unless Congress does something and moving towards automatic 
sequestration will actually solve most of the deficit problem that we 
face just by doing nothing.
  But we can do better than nothing. We can adjust. We can craft. We 
can focus it to get the most benefit. And we can start with a modest 
adjustment.
  I hope my colleagues will not let the worship of the top one-tenth of 
a percent of the economic pyramid trump concerns for the rest of 
working families and the American economy.

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