[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 192 (Wednesday, December 14, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8568-S8569]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PAYROLL TAX CUT
Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the urgent need to
prevent a tax increase in the year 2012 if the Congress does not act to
extend the payroll tax cut from last year. This is fundamental when it
comes to working families across the country. Some 160 million working
Americans are depending upon the Congress to do its work, to do its
duty, and conclude this year on a couple of matters.
The principal focus of most people's attention right now, in addition
to making sure we have a budget in place for the next couple of weeks
and months but also, most urgently, is to make sure we are doing
everything possible to bring about a cut in the payroll tax again as we
did last year. So we should be voting today. We should not be waiting.
We know the House has acted. I would guess that what they passed in the
House will not pass in the Senate, but we should vote. Vote today. Get
that done. Then both sides can sit down and work out a compromise on
the payroll tax cut so we can give those 160 million American workers
some measure of certainty as they begin to celebrate the holidays and
prepare for our new year.
When I talk to people in Pennsylvania, they say to me basically two
things: Do something to create jobs or to create the environment or the
condition that job creation will flow from and, they say, do it in a
bipartisan way. Work together as we, meaning Americans back home, have
to work together. They have to work together at home to meet a budget.
They have to work together at their worksite to be able to move a
company or their agenda forward for an employer.
What we need is a very simple agreement on a very basic bill, and it
should be a bill that would extend and, I would argue, expand. I wish
to go beyond the payroll tax cut of last year. What we should be doing
is cutting it in half. I know there might be others who do not want to
go that far. But what we have now from the House is a 350-page bill
loaded with all kinds of provisions that have nothing to do with the
payroll tax cut and nothing to do with moving the economy forward. It
is kind of a political game they are playing.
For example, the Keystone pipeline will be the subject of a lot of
debate and discussion. But that has nothing to do with providing 160
million working Americans with a payroll tax cut, so we should set that
aside and focus on cutting the payroll tax. Some of the provisions in
the Republican bill will do substantial harm to families individually
but also to the larger economy. Cutting 40 weeks--let me say that
again--cutting 40 weeks from unemployment insurance is one provision.
That is the wrong thing to do when have you between 13 and 14 million
Americans out of work, in Pennsylvania over half a million people out
of work, at last count 513,000 people out of work. They are telling us
that we should cut unemployment insurance by 40 weeks.
Does that make any sense at all? Oh, by the way, what they leave out
in that debate is what unemployment insurance does to the wider
economy. You spend a buck on that, you get a lot more than a buck in
return in terms of the economic impact. So unemployment insurance, when
it is provided to people who lost their jobs through no fault of their
own, helps the larger economy in addition to helping an individual
worker or his or her family.
When it comes to the issue of the payroll tax cut itself, what we are
talking about here is not something complicated and theoretical. We are
talking about take-home pay, what goes in your pocket from your
paycheck. We have got a choice here. If we go the right way and we
extend the payroll tax cuts from last year, there is as much as $1,000
in take-home pay as a result of that.
I had a bill which we worked to try to compromise and change--we
changed our bill in order to compromise, I should say. I thought it
would be better if we cut the payroll tax for workers in half. That
would be as much as $1,500 in your pocket for 2012. The other side
objected to that. They wanted no payroll tax cut, apparently, for
businesses, which I thought was a good idea. Then they also wanted to
scale back what we could do for employees. But we are where we are. We
will see what they are willing to do now. But let's not lose sight of
what this is all about. If we do the right thing, we will have $1,000
extra in take-home pay for 160 million American workers, but if we go
the way of some people here in Washington and play political games, it
will be zero extra dollars of take-home pay. Very simple. It is a very
simple choice.
I would hope our friends on the Republican side would allow us to
vote today on the Republican House bill.
It is not going to pass, but it does provide clarity so that both
sides can then sit down. They have rejected my compromise. Now the
House version will come over here. But we will have some clarity about
where both sides stand.
We can sit down and negotiate and get a payroll tax cut done, but we
cannot do that until they let us vote on what the House did. We need to
have that vote today. I don't know why the Republican side would want
to hold it up in the Senate. We should vote on that. It is about take-
home pay and also about peace of mind. I think a lot of Americans would
like to know now that they can celebrate the holidays and move into
2012 with some peace of mind, knowing they are going to have some money
in their pockets they might not have otherwise. It will have a
tremendous impact on the economy. We know that from the data and from
what happened in the first few months of 2011.
If the Congress fails to act, here is what it means for a State such
as Pennsylvania. You can replicate this, I am sure, in other States as
well. Mark Zandi, a respected economist on both sides of the aisle in
Washington, looked at Pennsylvania and the impact of not extending the
payroll tax cut for 2012. He said it would cost our State a little shy
of 20,000 jobs in calendar year 2012--in a State, by the way, where in
2011 we created--or I should say the increase in jobs in Pennsylvania
was more than 50,000 in 2011. That is not enough, and we need to do
more, but certainly when you are creating jobs at that rate--and
possibly in 2012 it could go above 50,000 jobs created in Pennsylvania.
But not to act on the payroll tax and reduce that 50,000 or more by
20,000 jobs--and that is just one State--if you don't pass the payroll
tax cut, that is the adverse impact on 1 State--20,000 jobs, according
to Mark Zandi. That is a big mistake. We cannot afford to make those
kinds of mistakes at this moment, which is very precarious in our
economy, just when we are getting some--although not enough--good news
about the economy.
We need to kick-start, jump-start job creation across the country. We
can do that in large measure--although not completely--by a payroll tax
cut.
It is time to move forward and time to move on. We should get this
vote done on the House version, and then we can go to the negotiating
table. While we are doing that, we can get some other things done. To
hold up a vote on the House bill doesn't make any sense at all. We only
have 17 days until the end of the year. We have other work to do as
well. But the main thing we have to do right now is come together to
protect 160 million American workers so that they can conclude the year
and go into the holiday season and begin a new year with peace of mind
to know they are going to have that payroll tax cut in their take-home
pay and also to give those who are out of work and their families,
their communities, and the country some assurance on unemployment
insurance.
It is not time to play politics in Washington. This is the holiday
season. If there is anytime in the year when people expect us to work
together, it is at this time when we celebrate the holidays. We need to
come together and compromise. I have compromised a couple of times in
my legislation. I will not review that now, but I did that on my
version of the payroll tax cut. We can all compromise more. We need to
come together and stop putting up roadblocks to voting on measures that
will lead us to a compromise.
The simple message for today is this: Let's vote on the House bill.
If that doesn't pass, then we can go to the negotiating table and come
up with a compromise to cut the payroll tax and put more take-home pay
in the pockets of 160 million American workers.
[[Page S8569]]
With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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