[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 182 (Wednesday, November 30, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8011-S8012]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CREATING JOBS BY PROVIDING PAYROLL TAX RELIEF FOR MIDDLE CLASS FAMILIES
AND BUSINESSES--MOTION TO PROCEED
Mr. REID. Madam President, I now move to proceed to Calendar No. 238,
S. 1917.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the motion.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Motion to proceed to S. 1917, a bill to create jobs by
providing payroll tax relief for middle class families and
businesses, and for other purposes.
Cloture Motion
Mr. REID. Madam President, I have a cloture motion at the desk.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The cloture motion having been
presented under rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the
motion.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to
proceed to Calendar No. 238, S. 1917, a bill to create jobs
by providing payroll tax relief for middle class families and
businesses, and for other purposes:
Harry Reid, Robert P. Casey, Jr., Jack Reed, Richard J.
Durbin, Dianne Feinstein, Carl Levin, Jeff Bingaman,
Patty Murray, Patrick J. Leahy, Kent Conrad, Sheldon
Whitehouse, Benjamin L. Cardin, Barbara Boxer, Al
Franken, Max Baucus, Robert Menendez, Joseph I.
Lieberman.
Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the mandatory
quorum under rule XXII be waived.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. REID. I now withdraw my motion to proceed.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The motion is withdrawn.
Mr. REID. Madam President, on one of the Sunday shows, the assistant
leader, the Republican whip, my friend, the junior Senator from
Arizona, indicated that Republicans would not support the withholding
tax proposal we had made. On Monday, that was what the Senate
leadership said. So I am very happy there has been a conversion and now
they agree to support it but be careful. Remember, they are very clever
and unclear on how they want this paid for. One Republican Senator said
he didn't want it paid for, and that, in fact, has been the standard
mantra of the Republicans: Tax cuts should not have to be paid for. The
Bush tax cuts, amounting to trillions of dollars, were not paid for.
That is, of course, one reason we have this huge problem with the
deficit.
I think we also have to recognize that one thing our country lacks is
confidence. There are a lot of reasons, but one reason the country
lacks confidence is people out here are talking about how bad the
economy is doing. It is doing very poorly, and I recognize that. But we
have had growth over the last many months. Is it as significant and as
robust as we want? Of course not, but we have a growing economy; that
is to say about my friend, the prior President, President Bush, we had
no growth there. That was downhill. When he came into office, there was
a surplus of trillions of dollars. That was taken away with not paying
for all these tax cuts, the unpaid war in Iraq, the unpaid war in
Afghanistan, and at least 8 million jobs were lost. We are trying to
work our way out of that, and we have worked very hard.
My friend talks about the stimulus bill, the Economic Recovery Act.
Let's just talk about something I know a lot about, the State of
Nevada. But for that bill, in the State of Nevada, which is very hard
hit with the economic recovery, a State that for two decades had been
the No. 1 place in America to come to start a business, to get a job,
to buy property, that is no longer the case. That is no longer the
case. But the stimulus bill has kept the schools open, has allowed
people on Medicaid to continue getting some help, and we have had--
because of that bill--thousands and thousands of jobs created with
solar projects, geothermal projects all over the State of Nevada. Is it
enough? Of course not. But let's start building some confidence and
allowing people with these companies that have trillions of dollars,
let's have them start spending some of it and creating jobs.
We are for tax reform. I agree with my friend the Republican leader,
we should have tax reform. It is important because the Tax Code is not
working. It is helping the wrong people, and we look forward to doing
what we can to work that out. I was hoping in the supercommittee that
one of the things they would have given was instructions to the Ways
and Means Committee and the Finance Committee to come up with some tax
reform that would be meaningful and build the economy even more than we
could have ever dreamed, and a lot of that can be done with tax reform.
So I acknowledge that.
We look forward to working with my friends on the other side of the
aisle. They say they are in favor of now extending withholding and we
know that has created lots of jobs and we are glad they are going to do
that. But, I repeat, let's be very careful of how it is paid for. The
American people believe we should pay for it the way we have suggested.
The only people in the world who don't think it should be paid for in
the way we suggested are the Republicans in the Senate. All the polls
show
[[Page S8012]]
the vast majority of Americans believe the richest of the rich should
contribute a little bit to bringing this country out of the economic
problems we have.
So I would hope we can move forward. We are going to have a cloture
vote on this matter soon. We have to get through this very important
Defense bill, which is to take care of our troops. One of the managers
of that, of course, is someone we look to for guidance with military
matters. That is John McCain, who, as we know, is a certified war hero.
When that is finished, we will work this out on the payroll tax.
I hope that prior to the cloture vote having taken place and being
necessary, we will have some agreement on how to move forward because
there are a lot of other things to do before the end of this year.
There are other tax issues that are extremely important that
traditionally have been completed before the end of a year such as we
are in right now.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. The last time my good friend the majority leader and I
had a discussion on the floor, he reminded everyone he would get the
last word. Of course, since he has prior recognition to me, he can get
the last word if he chooses. So I will just remind him of that at the
outset. He will get the last word if he chooses to. I will not fight
for the last word, but I will make this point with regard to the
observation from my good friend.
We have just heard essentially the argument going into next year's
election. Argument No. 1 is it could have been worse. That is an
inspiring message to take to the American people. It could have been
worse.
We also heard argument No. 2. The second argument goes essentially
like this: After being in the administration in power for 3 years, No.
1, it is George Bush's fault. Among other causes of our current dilemma
that have been cited by the President and others, in addition to the
previous administration, it was a tsunami in Japan, it is the European
debt crisis, of course it is the Republicans in Congress, it is those
millionaires, it is those people in Wall Street. In short, it is
everybody's fault but ours. That is the argument they are left with
when they are going into an election year facing the American people
and they have nothing else to say.
People don't think the stimulus worked. People don't like ObamaCare.
They don't like Dodd-Frank. There is absolutely nothing, in terms of
positive accomplishment, our good friends can cite; thus the argument:
It is anybody's fault but mine.
It will be an interesting discussion going into next year, but it
strikes me that our job in the Senate is not to frame campaign
arguments on a weekly basis but actually try to get something done. As
my friend indicated, there are things that need to be done before the
end of this year: The Defense authorization bill that we will finish
this week, the appropriations bills in one way or another--either a
combination of them or a continuing resolution, each of them, through
the end of the next fiscal year.
We have tax extenders. We have the doc fix. We have the completion,
in spite of the exercise we will engage in tomorrow, with two
approaches to continuing the payroll tax extension. I have already
indicated the overwhelming majority of Republicans think it should be
extended, and so we will have to figure out how to package that and
actually accomplish something, not just come out on the floor and score
political points but actually accomplish something for the American
people on things such as unemployment insurance, extension of the
payroll tax reduction enacted a year ago, and the doc fix. These are
the kinds of things that actually have to be done. The more time we
spend on the floor with these political messaging votes, the less time
we actually have to do what the American people sent us to do.
So I will be working with my friend, the majority leader. I mean, we
work together every day. When we get past the political speeches and
the show votes, there are things that need to be done, and we will be
working together to get those things accomplished before Christmas.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
Mr. REID. I agree with virtually everything the Republican leader
said. I do think the Presidential election will be based on what took
place in the Bush administration and how we have tried to recover from
that, and how things have been exacerbated because of the tsunami and
because of the European debt crisis.
I also agree wholeheartedly with my friend that we need to work
together the rest of this Congress. It is difficult to do, but we need
to set aside Presidential politics and work in our sphere as
legislative leaders to try to move this country along. So I look
forward to that, and I appreciate the constructive remarks of my
friend.
Madam President, I note the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
____________________