[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19836]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




        THE MIDDLE CLASS TAX RELIEF AND JOB CREATION ACT OF 2011

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Reed) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. REED. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my support for H.R. 
3630, the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2011.
  First and foremost, I was glad to hear my colleague on the other side 
of the aisle recognize that lowering taxes, be them payroll taxes, 
income taxes, or whatever taxes you want to refer to, lowering taxes is 
a job creation policy initiative that should be supported by both sides 
of the aisle.
  Now, I'm concerned about the payroll tax cut that is continued in 
this payroll tax bill today because these are the revenue sources for 
Social Security. But I have come to the conclusion that allowing all 
Americans to keep more money in their pocket, rather than allowing it 
to come to Washington, D.C. and to fuel the beast that has been created 
here in Washington and that is causing the national debt crisis that we 
now face and the out-of-control spending of Washington, I believe 
allowing Americans to keep more money in their pocket is a better 
policy position to take once and for all. And so I support the 
extension of the payroll tax rate where it is at.
  This is not the time, in this economic climate, to take money out of 
hardworking American families and small businesses and their financial 
resources that they have to work on as they go forward putting people 
back to work. So I support the extension of the payroll tax cut.
  But I would have to be very sensitive and clear with all Americans 
that this type of tax policy must be offset by a reduction in the 
spending that is the root cause of the crisis that we now face in 
Washington, D.C., so we must offset these tax cuts, and we will do and 
have done that in this bill.
  I also am glad to see that our unemployment reform measures that are 
set forth in this bill have the opportunity to go into law. Right now 
we are at 99 weeks of unemployment. The President, in his own proposal, 
says we need to reduce those weeks of unemployment by 20 weeks. We, in 
this bill, want to go further, and we'll reduce the number of weeks to 
59.
  Why? Not because we're cold hearted, not because we're mean spirited, 
but we are being open and honest with the American people and saying 
that there is a cost to this indefinite unemployment extension policy 
that is coming from the other side of the aisle. What we have to do is 
realize that we have to live within our means once and for all.
  And so, what this does is it lowers those numbers of weeks, it puts 
in commonsense reforms by making it a requirement that people are 
looking for a job. It gives the States the flexibility to implement 
drug testing and drug screening to make sure that the workforce of 
America has the ability to go back to work when those jobs are 
available.
  I have been back in my district, and we do town halls all the time. 
And what I've heard from small business owners across our district is 
that one of the main reasons that they cannot hire individuals is 
because they simply cannot pass a drug test.

                              {time}  1110

  This commonsense reform that's contained in this bill will allow us 
to develop the workforce of America in a stronger and a better fashion 
so that people can be put back to work once and for all.
  The other issue in this bill that I've been supportive of is the doc 
fix. Now, our health providers in America are being faced with major 
cuts, be it through ObamaCare, the Health Insurance Care Act, the 
Affordable Care Act, whatever you may call it. We're also seeing it in 
the possible sequestration that we're going to face next year.
  But what we're doing in this bill is we're giving some certainty to 
our providers that over the next 2 years they'll know what their 
reimbursement rates will be. That is critical to the future of our 
health care industry, and therefore we support it. But we cannot be 
satisfied with this temporary solution. We must come up with a 
permanent fix to the doc fix so 2 years from now we are not right back 
in the situation we find ourselves today.
  The final point that has caused me to support this bill as vigorously 
as I will today is that it is a jobs bill. The Keystone pipeline piece 
of legislation that is attached to this is being used as a political 
football. The President has said we can't wait to put people back to 
work. Well, in this bill with a stroke of a pen, the President will be 
able to put 20,000 families back to work with one signature--his 
signature. To me, that's what we should be doing in this Chamber. 
That's why I ask my colleagues to support this legislation.

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