[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 166 (Friday, December 21, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8324-S8325]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             THE DAY AFTER

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, most people, of course, are focused on 
what happened last night over in the House. I would like to focus on 
the press conference that congressional Democrats held just a few hours 
earlier.
  Here were the leaders of the Democratic Party in the Senate--other 
than the President, these are the folks with the greatest 
responsibility for protecting the American people from a massive tax 
hike coming in January--and what did they do? They stood in front of 
the cameras and laughed. They laughed. They giggled at a bunch of bad 
jokes and told the American people they didn't plan to do anything this 
week--nothing, absolutely nothing.
  Democrats in the House vowed they wouldn't vote for this bill, the 
majority leader vowed he would ignore it if it made it out of the House 
and landed in the Senate, and the President vowed he would veto it if 
it made it out of the Senate.
  So Democrats spent literally all day yesterday defeating a bill that 
would make current tax rates permanent for more than 99 percent of 
Americans, and they laughed about it. Ten days to go until the fiscal 
cliff, and they laughed about it.
  I don't know if anybody has looked at a calendar lately, but we are 
about out of time here, folks. This isn't funny. People's livelihoods 
are at stake. The U.S. economy is at stake. Millions upon millions of 
families are counting on us to do something.
  Look, it is the President's job--it is his job to find a solution 
that can pass the Congress. He is the only one who can do it. This 
isn't John Boehner's problem to solve. He has done his part. He has 
bent over backward.
  Mr. President: How about rallying your party around a solution. How 
about getting Democrats to support something.
  I have said it many times before: We simply cannot solve the problems 
we face unless and until the President of the United States either 
finds the will or develops the ability--the ability--to lead. This is a 
moment that calls for Presidential leadership. That is the way out of 
this. It is that simple.
  Does anybody wonder why we keep going from crisis to crisis around 
here? Does anybody notice a pattern? This doesn't have to be a crisis. 
This was an opportunity, but once again the President ignored it. He 
went out and held rallies and gave partisan speeches even after he had 
already been reelected.
  As I said yesterday, I think it is obvious at this point the 
President wants to go off the cliff. But I know most of the American 
people don't want that. Today, I am going to make an offer. With 10 
days to go, we have an obligation to act on something--something that 
can pass the House and the Senate. If the President won't propose it, 
if Senate Democrats won't propose it, I will.
  Earlier this year, the House passed a bill that extends current rates 
on everyone for 1 year, with instructions for expedited comprehensive 
tax reform by next year. We could bring up this House-passed bill.
  If the majority leader has a plan that can get 60 votes in the 
Senate, break through the disarray in his own caucus and build 
bipartisan support, offer that as an amendment and then let's vote. 
Let's vote on amendments from all sides, and then let's go to 
conference with the House of Representatives. They have already passed 
a bill--one I support--to prevent a tax hike on all Americans and 
reform the Tax Code. Why don't we take it up here? Let's get this done.
  It is called legislating. That is what we used to do in Congress. 
Democrats may be popping champagne corks today about bringing down Plan 
B, but all their efforts to do so yesterday will not protect a single 
taxpayer from a massive tax hike in just a few weeks. The American 
people are waiting. Surely, we can do better than this. Let's do it.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, if this weren't such a serious situation we 
face ourselves, it would be laughable.
  Can anyone imagine saying we should defeat a bill we have already 
defeated? We voted on the proposal at the same time we voted to pass 
that protecting middle-class Americans. That passed the Senate--one to 
give the richest of the rich a continuation of the tax breaks they get. 
As I indicated, the proposal they had for about another $50,000 for 
each of them was defeated here. It was defeated in the Senate.
  So my friend--and he is my friend--the Republican leader is 
struggling to find a way to blame Democrats, and it is a struggle, 
trying to blame us for the failure of the House to pass the Speaker's 
bill. The House is led by the Republicans. Their narrowed margin will 
be better for the country after the first of the year, but right now he 
controls the House by a wide margin.
  I have served in the House. The Speaker is all powerful in the House. 
To blame us for the travesty that took place over there is pretty 
incredible. As I tried to say in my remarks, couldn't we at least 
protect the middle class?
  My friend complains the President hasn't done enough. He put forward 
a proposal that has received criticism from Democrats because he was 
too generous with Speaker Boehner. But the President believes, as he 
said several times, both sides might have to make hard choices.
  The President released a balanced $2.4 trillion program. That is 
pretty good. It would alleviate the fiscal cliff, it would allow the 
SGR to continue so doctors get paid and patients have a doctor to go 
to. It extended unemployment benefits for people who are desperate.
  It is true that there is a crisis here, but it is because the House 
Republicans refuse to pass the Senate-passed tax bill. It is because 
the Republicans in the House are fighting among themselves.
  The Republican leader seeks to pass the House-passed bill, but we 
have already turned that bill down. The real answer lies in the 
Speaker, who controls the House of Representatives, talking to the 
President and working things out.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. All I was suggesting to my friend the majority leader 
is that you have the tax bill that originated in the House. It came 
over to the Senate. If our friends in the majority don't like that 
version of it, they could call it up, amend it, and see if there is a 
majority in the Senate for something.
  It seems to me that the time for finger-pointing is about over. The 
American people are not particularly interested in what originated here 
or there or who is doing what; they are interested in getting a result. 
I was trying to be helpful in suggesting that you have a tax bill that 
came over from the House. You have a majority here. You could take it 
up, offer amendments, and see if there is something that could achieve 
a majority of the Senate rather than just complaining because the House 
did not pass something yesterday. That is not going to solve the 
problem. Somehow, some way, we need to find a way forward, and I hope 
we can in the coming week.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.

[[Page S8325]]

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I hope we can too, but this is really quite 
remarkable. I am told that Members from this body went and talked to 
the Republican caucus yesterday saying: Send us your plan B, and the 
Democrats will take care of it and send you back something you will 
like better.
  We can all see what has happened in the press. I like John Boehner, 
but gee whiz, I mean, this is a pretty big political battering he is 
taking. What he should do is allow a vote in the House of 
Representatives on a bipartisan bill. It will pass. Democrats will vote 
for it. Some Republicans will vote for it. That is what we are supposed 
to do. But he is trying to pass everything with that majority he has 
that cannot agree on anything among themselves. Bring in the Democrats. 
That is what the country was set up for. Our Founding Fathers set it up 
that way. But he wants some other method where everything is done by 
the slim majority they have.
  This is absolutely incredible. We believe the Speaker should be 
concerned. I am confident he is, but maybe he is more concerned, as 
some have said, about his election to be returned as Speaker. He should 
be more concerned about what is going to happen to the country. If he 
showed leadership and walked out there and said: This is the right 
thing for the country, we are all going to vote on this, Democrats will 
vote for it and enough Republicans will vote for it to pass something 
that will take us away from that fiscal cliff. But this brinkmanship 
and this silliness that is going on over there you would not do in an 
eighth grade government election.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I add that the time for finger-pointing 
is gradually running out. The American people know we have a President, 
they know we have a Senate, and they know we have a House. They are 
anxiously awaiting whether we are going to solve this problem before 
the end of the year.
  Mr. REID. Would the Chair announce the business of the day.

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