[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 161 (Thursday, December 13, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8019-S8020]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE FISCAL CLIFF

  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, today I rise because middle-class 
families are counting on the House of Representatives to do the right 
thing between now and the end of the year, which is just 19 days away. 
The House needs to pass the middle-class tax cuts we sent them back in 
July.
  Families need help. When we talk about the fiscal cliff, the most 
important one is what families are struggling with every day, and we 
have just 19 days until the taxes on middle-class families will go up 
by an average of $2,200 if the House of Representatives doesn't act. We 
need to make sure that 98 percent of the American public is protected 
from tax increases. As we know, we passed the Middle Class Tax Cut Act 
on July 25. So far, the House has not acted. Nineteen days. They have 
19 days until the end of this year in order to act. Time is running 
out.
  Now, we know there is a larger discussion going on that is incredibly 
important--how we put together a deficit reduction plan for our 
country, a long-term plan for fiscal solvency and for our economy. By 
the way, we will never get out of debt with close to 12 million people 
out of work, so we better be focused on jobs and the economy, as I am 
each and every day.
  We know we need a larger plan, but when we look at the three legs of 
the deficit reduction stool that everybody talks about, there has been 
action on two of them. There needs to be action on the third as we go 
forward to put together the final plan. The first step was an agreement 
we made last year to cut spending by about $1 trillion. So that was the 
first piece, the spending cut reduction. Secondly, we needed to find 
savings in Medicare, which has lengthened the Medicare trust fund by 8 
years. We know there is more that can be done as we look at savings 
going forward. We passed over $700 billion in savings by protecting and 
strengthening benefits for seniors by cutting overpayments to insurance 
companies and making other reforms to strengthen the system and create 
more efficiencies.
  We have seen step 1 on spending reductions of $1 trillion. We have 
seen step 1 on ``entitlements,'' as we speak of it, which is Medicare 
savings coming the right way, not by cutting benefits or raising the 
Medicare age, which I strongly oppose but, instead, by creating savings 
by cutting overpayments to insurance companies and other efficiencies. 
But what happens on the third leg of the stool, which is the 
requirement that the wealthiest among us come to the table and be part 
of the solution on revenue? That is the third leg of the stool. We 
continue to see no willingness to take action there.
  We find ourselves in a situation where in 19 days the average 
American will see their taxes go up by, on average, $2,200 because the 
House of Representatives has been holding middle-class families hostage 
to their own politics. What are we talking about when we talk about 
$2,200? I asked folks around Michigan: What does that mean to you? One 
constituent said that is 4 months' groceries. Four months of feeding 
her family is what we are talking about if the House of Representatives 
does not act.
  Mr. President, $2,200 would buy 650 gallons of gas. For the average 
commuter going back and forth to work every day, that gets them back 
and forth to work for 3 years on the tax increase that middle-class 
families are facing if the House does not act.
  Mr. President, $2,200 will buy families in Michigan 550 gallons of 
milk for their families. We are talking about a lot of money that is at 
stake for families.
  In many cases that number is higher than $2,200, and House 
Republicans are holding families across this country hostage at 
Christmastime over a fight about whether millionaires and billionaires 
in this country should pay a little bit more to solve our long-term 
deficit problem.
  It is unbelievable to me that we continue to see this kind of 
inaction coming from the House of Representatives. We all know this can 
be done in just a few moments. We can send a very strong message to 98 
percent of American families, 97 percent of small businesses, that they 
can go into the Christmas season knowing they are going to continue to 
get tax cuts in the new year.
  I can assure you, in times when families are struggling now, when 
they want to provide a good Christmas for their families, we are seeing 
things like layaway--layaway is back because families are having to use 
a longer time to pay for toys and clothes and other things for their 
children for Christmas. Mr. President, $2,200 is a lot of money. There 
is a lot of uncertainty right now because the House of Representatives 
has not acted. It is time to get this done.
  Everybody says they support the bill we passed. We have a growing 
chorus of colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle in the Senate 
and in the House--we have business leaders and people across the 
country--who all agree we are never going to be able to address our 
deficit reduction problems without those who are wealthiest among us 
helping to solve the problem. That is all this is about.
  The House needs to get this done. Then we know there is a larger 
piece. All three legs of the deficit reduction chair need to be 
addressed, but now the only one where nothing has been done is asking 
people who are most blessed economically to chip in a little bit more.


                           Right-To-Work Laws

  If I might add one more thing that relates to something else 
happening in Michigan that goes to the heart of the issue about whether 
we are going to have a middle class in this country, and that is what 
the Governor and the

[[Page S8020]]

Republican State legislature have done in passing the most divisive 
piece of legislation I can remember in my lifetime in Michigan. It is 
called right to work. It is really a right to have a race to the 
bottom. It is not about economics, it is about politics, plain and 
simple.
  Instead of coming together and doing the right thing, we see the 
State legislature pursuing a political attack. Over and over, families 
in my State and across America, middle-class families, are being asked 
to sacrifice, to bear the burden for whatever is happening. They are 
fed up, and they have every right to be.
  There are huge crowds at the Michigan State Capitol Building in 
Lansing showing how frustrated, how angry people are that one more 
time, in an age where we have Citizens United and the Supreme Court 
saying corporations can give not only unlimited dollars to campaigns 
but secret money; in an age when the House of Representatives in 
Washington is willing to protect millionaires from chipping in to solve 
our deficit problem at all costs, even holding middle-class families 
hostage--over and over again, working people are saying: What is going 
on here? We will not have an economy if we do not have a middle class, 
if people do not have money in their pockets to be able to buy things, 
to be able to drive the economy, to be able to take care of their 
families.
  In Michigan it is one more blow to the whole process of whether we 
are going to have voices of working people at the table in the 
workplace able to effectively negotiate good wages, good benefits, safe 
working conditions, and know that everybody in the workplace who 
benefits from that is going to chip in to be able to make sure that 
continues.
  We know all across the country we can either have a race to the 
bottom or a race to the top. When we see wages going down in places 
where this kind of legislation has been on the books across the 
country, we know what has been done in Michigan is going to be one more 
step in creating that race to the bottom. We see wages for union and 
nonunion workers go down when we have that kind of a race to the 
bottom. We see health benefits and pensions decrease. We see lower 
consumer spending because middle-class families have less money in 
their pocket.
  These kinds of laws hurt families. It is not about economics or 
freedom, it is about raw politics. Workers need to have confidence they 
will have a voice in the workplace and they will have a decent wage and 
benefits they can count on to be able to have a good life for 
themselves and their families.
  That is really what this is all about in so many ways, where families 
are under attack right now. Middle-class people, trying to hold it 
together, people trying to figure out how to get into the middle class, 
who have been knocked down over and over. It is time to stop saying the 
words ``middle class'' and actually believe and act as if it is 
important to our country--because it is. It is essential if we are 
going to have a quality of life and an economy and have families who 
know that the American dream is not just a couple of words, but they 
have the ability to create the American dream for their families.
  We have 19 days for the House of Representatives to pass the middle-
class tax cuts that we sent to them in July, July 25; 19 days before 
families see their taxes go up and they believe one more time, at least 
in the House, that they do not get what is happening to families.
  I strongly urge the Speaker and Republican leadership to bring up 
this bill right away, get it done, and let families know they will have 
economic certainty--at least related to their taxes going into the new 
year.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.

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