[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 192 (Wednesday, December 14, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8579-S8581]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            PAYROLL TAX CUT

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, we are at a time in the calendar that 
usually is a time of excellent anticipation. Christmas is coming. The 
holidays are coming. People are trying to

[[Page S8580]]

get their families in order, do the shopping, and all the things we 
have to do. It would seem this is a moment of fairly happy days and the 
holiday season is here. But these are not happy times for many 
Americans.
  Across our country, families are fighting to keep their heads above 
water. Some parents do not know how they are going to put food on the 
table tonight, much less presents under the Christmas tree or during 
the Hanukkah holidays. That is why our side of the aisle is fighting to 
continue and expand a tax cut that has benefited millions of working 
families this year. This is a tax cut for people who need it--families 
who depend on a paycheck. With the payroll tax cut, the typical family 
in my State, the State of New Jersey, would receive an extra $40 a 
week, starting next year. That is what a typical household in the 
Northeast pays for gasoline or health care each week.
  Mr. President, $40 a week adds up to $2,100 a year. For parents who 
are struggling--as many are--to make ends meet, an extra $2,100 goes a 
long way to help buy groceries or pay the electric bill or purchase 
medicines. It can help pay for childcare, preschool or college 
tuition--the necessities that help ensure children succeed in life.
  To make sure all working families continue receiving this much needed 
relief next year, we are asking America's millionaires--people who earn 
over $1 million a year--to pay their fair share of what the country 
needs to get ourselves back into reasonable balance. But the 
Republicans will not even allow us to vote on a bill that their 
colleagues in the House approved last night.
  I wish to just spend a minute here. The House passed a bill last 
night. It included tax relief for some and we should take it here and 
consider it. But the Republicans will not even let us bring up the bill 
that passed in the House last night, and there is a question as to why. 
Why will they not let us do it? There is, obviously, a hidden meaning.
  But what we see is, the Republicans are acting like Scrooges. This 
picture I have in the Chamber shows a mean-looking guy, as we see. That 
is what they want to do for Christmas.
  For GOP Scrooges, this is not the season of giving; it is time to 
take things away. He said: No payroll tax cut for you this year.
  They want to take away the tax cut for ordinary working families. The 
Republican Scrooges want to take away unemployment insurance benefits 
for 1 million people--imagine, people who are dependent on unemployment 
insurance at times when they are out of work, to help sustain their 
families, put food on the table, to try and just keep their heads above 
water. But that does not matter to our friends on the Republican side.
  Today in America there is only one job available for every four 
unemployed people. This is not the time to cut unemployment benefits.
  Republicans also want to weaken safeguards that keep our air clean--
filling our atmosphere with poisons and endangering the health of our 
children. They want to weaken those safeguards.
  To add insult to injury, the Republicans are also trying to ram 
through a massive pipeline that will carry toxic materials into our 
country--toxic materials. We are so conscious of what damage the toxic 
environment can do to our families, to our children. But they want to 
have a pipeline that will carry toxic materials into our country. They 
want to make it easier for coal-fired industrial facilities to foul the 
air, spew toxins into our neighborhoods.
  It is hard to believe. Instead of gifts, the Republican Scrooges want 
lumps of coal in the stockings and coal pollution in our lungs.
  In many families, it is a tradition to teach children to welcome 
Santa Claus during the holidays. This year, we are going to tell our 
kids to hide away from the Republican Scrooges. We are not going to 
alarm our children and tell them things that are difficult may be even 
more difficult if some tax relief that is proposed for working-class 
families is not available to them.
  The Republican priorities are different. They want to raise taxes on 
middle-class families--families who work for a living--to protect 
luxuries for millionaires: nice boats, airplanes. I do not mind--they 
have made the money; it is what they buy with it--but at least carry 
their fair share of our financial needs in this country.
  The Republican priorities say they are for lower taxes, but that only 
goes for the jet set. When it comes to cutting taxes for working 
families, the Republican mantra is: Hey, we have to take care of the 
wealthy. We have to watch out for the wealthy, make sure they are OK. 
Don't ask them to carry more of the load. It is not a good time to deal 
with them. After all, maybe they will be big contributors to our 
political campaigns.
  Let's not kid ourselves. American millionaires do not need help. They 
do not need the Republicans' help. Since the 1980s, our country's 
wealthiest 1 percent of the working people have seen their average 
household income increase by 55 percent. Let me restate that. Since the 
1980s, our country's wealthiest 1 percent have seen their average 
household income increase by 55 percent--enormous--but for the bottom 
90 percent average household income has not increased at all. As a 
matter of fact, it has gone down because the cost of living has gone up 
much faster than even any raises that come through.
  Even though incomes are growing for the very wealthy, their tax rates 
are actually going down. Their taxes are going down. We can also look 
at the chief executive officers to see how well the wealthy are faring.
  CEOs at the largest companies are now paid an average salary of $11 
million a year. Note that. The largest companies' CEOs are now paid an 
average salary of $11 million a year. That is 343 times as much as the 
average worker's salary of $33,000 a year. This comparison is so hard 
to reconcile. The CEOs of the largest companies have an average salary 
of $11 million a year, and the average worker's salary is $33,000 a 
year. Where is the equity in this? When we send the people out to 
fight, put on the country's uniforms, do the jobs, build the 
foundations, make sure the country is strong--$33,000 a year. That is 
tough.

  Just a few decades ago, the pay gap between CEOs and workers was much 
more modest. The CEOs--again, the CEO, people at the top of these 
companies--were paid an average of 42 times as much as the average 
worker, as we see on this chart. The chart demonstrates that in the 
1980s, the CEOs made 42 times the average worker's pay. So the 
difference was not that obvious or that big. In 2010, CEOs made 343 
times the average worker's pay. There is no equity there.
  I come from the corporate world, and I know what big salaries are. I 
have seen it in my own company. But the one thing you have to do is at 
least encourage the people who are working for you to understand that 
they have a chance in life to provide the things we all talk about for 
our children--a college education, the prospect of a decent job, the 
prospect of being able to take care of our own family.
  The numbers make it clear: Our goal should not be protecting 
millionaires. They do not need our help. We should be focused on 
protecting Medicare, food safety, home heating for the poor, and Head 
Start for little kids who have a first chance to learn--to learn--to 
understand education, to see how important it is to learn, to start 
reading books at an early age, to start having conversations with their 
parents about what is going on in this world.
  They want to take those children out of the Head Start facility--so 
many of them, 200,000; it has been proposed in some of the House 
budgets--take them out of the Head Start school.
  But our Republican colleagues do not want to hear about that. They 
continue asking the poor, the middle class, the elderly, and our 
children to bear the entire burden of these tough times.
  The Republicans now remind me of what accountants are like. They are 
people who are obsessed, obligated to deal with the bottom line. There 
is no soul, no humanity, no compassion--not around here--unless it is 
for the wealthy. They have compassion for themselves.
  Let's be clear: It does not hurt those of us who have been successful 
to pay our fair share. I remind those within my voice, who hear me, we 
have two wars going on. We have people paying a terrible price to serve 
our country's needs--a terrible price. This is a time

[[Page S8581]]

for those who are fortunate enough to make above $1 million to say: 
Hey, I want to help carry this burden. I do not want to ask people who 
are scratching for a living--just trying to make ends meet--I do not 
want to ask them to do more without saying I want to do my share.
  I was lucky. I ran a very big company. I want to do my share. That is 
why I am here. That is what I am talking about. To those who make more 
than $1 million a year, I say: Look in the mirror. Ask yourself if you 
could succeed without help from anyone else or did your country help 
you achieve your prosperity. Was it people who built the buildings and 
built the infrastructure and manned the jobs all across the country--
service jobs? They built the foundation upon which those who make $1 
million a year build their futures, build their fortunes. That is what 
happens. But there is not the respect for the hard-working families 
that we like to see.
  I ask our Republican colleagues, think about the true meaning of the 
holidays.
  It is not Halloween, it is not trick or treat, because otherwise that 
is what the game looks like. This time of the year is about coming 
together, caring about your fellow man. This should be a season of 
giving, not taking away the necessities from our country's most 
vulnerable.
  We all remember at the end of a ``Christmas Carol'' when Ebenezer 
Scrooge opened his heart and became a hero. We need the same kind of 
miracle here in Congress. We need the Republican scrooges to have a 
change of heart and work with us to help our fellow Americans this 
holiday season. We need them to help us continue and expand the tax 
cuts for working families. We need them to help us continue 
unemployment insurance benefits for the jobless and clean air 
safeguards for our children. We need them to help us protect the 
programs that benefit the people who need them most, whom we need to 
keep our foundation strong.
  To our Republican colleagues, we say, come on, let's work together. 
Let's do this. Let's put the acrimony aside. Let's put the selfishness 
aside and say, those who work every day for a living and try to keep 
things together--and we have millions of people who are looking for 
jobs who cannot find them right now--let's work together to make sure 
our children and grandchildren inherit an America that is even stronger 
than the one we inherited. Show the heart of America. That will be the 
best gift we can ever give them.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.

                          ____________________