[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 191 (Tuesday, December 13, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H8740-H8741]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         PAYROLL TAX EXTENSION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Cohen) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COHEN. Over the last 3 years, much progress has been made in an 
effort to recover from the economic fallout, the Great Recession that 
the President inherited from the previous administration. More needs to 
be done to stabilize our economy and create jobs for the millions of 
Americans still out of work.
  That progress may get derailed this week if the Republican majority 
refuses to extend tax cuts for 160 million Americans and unemployment 
benefits for 1.3 million Americans.
  You'd think congressional Republicans who routinely label Democrat as 
the ``party of taxes,'' which is something Oliver Wendell Holmes said 
was the price we pay for civilization, that's what taxes are, would 
eagerly support tax cuts for 160 million Americans; but they don't. I'm 
buffed.
  But you listen to the other side, they've got all kinds of reasons. 
They've got extensions. They've got all kinds of riders. The bottom 
line is it's a political fight to defeat the President of the United 
States. It's been their agenda since he was elected.
  Every day my Republican colleagues come to the House floor to call 
for lower taxes, particularly for the millionaires. They call them the 
job creators. Yet, when the time comes to support a Democratic payroll 
tax proposal that lowers taxes and creates jobs, Republican support is 
not found.
  Under the Democratic proposal, a family making $50,000 a year and 
struggling would save $1,500 next year.
  But this tax cut does more than put money in the pockets of more than 
160 million hardworking Americans and ensure they won't see a tax 
increase. It also creates jobs. Mark Zandi, the previous Republican 
Presidential candidate John McCain's economic adviser, said that 
expanding the payroll tax cut for employees would create 750,000 jobs. 
Conversely, he said the failure to do so would cost a million jobs.
  But, apparently, tax breaks for those people, 160 million Americans, 
and creation of those jobs is not enough for my colleagues on the 
Republican side. They need more enticement to support a payroll cut.
  So what's the red meat that gets them to do this?
  They have to break their pledge. They made a pledge to America. They 
said they wouldn't put extraneous legislation together with other 
legislation to pass a mass bill. It would circumvent the will of the 
people. They promised to advance major legislation one issue at a time, 
but Republicans violated this pledge this time by stuffing anti-
environmental riders into a must-pass payroll tax bill.
  While cutting taxes for 160 million Americans seems like something 
Republicans would unequivocally support, the GOP leadership felt they 
had to violate that pledge and cram divisive riders into the bill to 
get support from people who want to put a potentially dangerous line in 
environmentally sensitive areas of pipeline that has shown repeatedly a 
failure to be done in an appropriate way, something that has been said 
would be a carbon bomb being set off and the end of the global warming 
fight. It would end the game.
  Despite their claims that the riders would create jobs and stimulate 
the economy, reality doesn't align with those arguments. The reality is 
they would destroy our economy, our environment, and the lives of 
thousands of Americans.
  The Boiler MACT provision in the bill would delay air toxin rules for 
at least 3\1/2\ years. That would result in 28,350 premature deaths, 
17,000 heart attacks, nearly 19,000 hospital and emergency room visits, 
more than 1.2 million days of missed work, and 150,000 cases of asthma 
attacks.
  The health benefits of these regulations are estimated to save up to 
$67 billion and save all of those lives. It's astonishing the 
Republicans would consider delaying a public health rule that

[[Page H8741]]

would prevent 8,000 premature deaths a year and save up to $67 billion, 
the sweetener that was needed to try to get these tax breaks for 160 
million Americans.
  I urge my colleagues to see the folly of their ways and pull these 
harmful riders out of the bill, to stop their effort to just defeat 
President Obama, and do what's right for the American public--to create 
jobs and to help people on unemployment, which will stimulate our 
economy.
  In their Pledge to America, they describe what they called 
``circumventing the will of the American people.'' That's what they're 
doing today. The will of the American people is not to have deaths and 
injuries, health and environmental policies destroyed, but to create 
jobs and to help people through this difficult recession.
  I would ask that we defeat this bill, come back, work together, and 
do what's right for the American people.

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