[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 20179-20180]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       PAYROLL TAX CUT EXTENSION

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise this morning to talk about an issue 
that the American people expect us to take action on, and that is to 
provide another extension of the payroll tax cut we put into place in 
2010.
  I want to provide a little bit of background by way of recent 
history. We started this debate a number of weeks ago when I proposed 
legislation which would do the following--this is a brief summary. But 
here is what I proposed: that we would not only continue the payroll 
tax cut for workers, but that we would enlarge it, make it a bigger 
cut. So instead of having the payroll tax cut for employees across the 
country that would amount to $1,000, as we did last year--that was the 
right thing to do last year as part of the larger bill--I thought we 
should go further and cut the payroll tax in half for workers across 
America.
  What we are talking about here is 160 million American workers. This 
is not some small matter. This is a major issue for the American people 
and for those 160 million families in America. That is what I proposed 
on the employee side; instead of cutting it to the level we did last 
year, we cut it even more--cut it in half.
  Then I added to that a provision for business so that you would have 
businesses across the United States, 98 percent of them, also get their 
payroll taxes cut in half as well. So you have employees and employers 
getting a cut of their payroll tax obligations in half. I added a third 
element, which would be a credit, so that if you are a business and you 
add to your payroll, meaning you hire someone, you increase wages, you 
somehow increase your payroll, you could get not just a cut in your 
payroll tax as applies to those new employees or wages, you would have 
a full cut. In other words, you would pay zero, zero payroll tax if you 
added to your bottom line.
  What you have here is three elements in legislation that would not 
only help 160 million workers but would help most of the businesses in 
America. I put into the legislation a provision that says if we are 
going to do all of this, we need to pay for it. We had a full series of 
ways to pay for it. One of those was, of course, the provision of the 
surtax on individuals with incomes above--the key word is ``above''--$1 
million. So if you are making $1 million, that entire million dollars 
was tax free; not a dime of surtax until you went above it. We had it 
at 2.2 percent. We had a vote on it. It was rejected by the other side. 
I said: Well, okay, let's come together. We will work with the other 
side, our leadership, and take into consideration some of the concerns 
the other side raised, trying to be reasonable, trying to compromise 
and come together.
  What we did is we reduced the surtax substantially to 1.9 percent, a 
big cut, a big reduction in the level of the surtax. As I said, I 
wanted to have a payroll tax cut for businesses across America. The 
other side did not want that, for whatever reason. The other side did 
not want to cut payroll taxes for business. I do not understand that, 
but that is what they wanted. They wanted that out of the bill. So that 
was out of the bill. The surtax was reduced. We are at the point where 
we are talking mostly about expanding and extending--I should say 
extending first, extending and hopefully expanding the payroll tax cut 
that we put in place last year for workers, 160 million workers, and as 
we cut it in half, $1,500 in the take-home pay of workers, $1,500 in 
your pocket, so you would not have, absent this action, as last year, 
$1,000 dollars in your pocket in take-home pay, because of the action 
we took last year.
  Here we are now, all of these days later, several weeks now of 
debating this issue. For whatever reason, the other side does not want 
to have a vote on a measure the House passed. I do not understand that. 
I realize the votes are not there, but I think it is very important 
that we move forward and come to an agreement on a very fundamental 
issue for the American people.
  They know, as well as everyone here knows, this is not in dispute, it 
is a fact, that if we pass a payroll tax cut for 160 million Americans, 
the impact on the economy will be seismic, substantial--you can pick 
your word--it will have a huge positive impact on our economy.
  The corollary to that is if we do not do this, it will have a very 
adverse, negative impact on gross domestic product and on jobs. So if 
you want to reduce the number of jobs created in America in 2012--I do 
not know anyone who wants to do that, but if that is what you want to 
do, not taking action is a way to do that.
  We hear phrases in Washington all of the time: Job killer. Not 
passing a payroll tax cut extension for 160 million Americans is a job 
killer, without a doubt.
  Anyone who is credible in this town knows that. This is something the 
American people want us to do. They are tired of the finger-pointing 
and whining and the politics of Washington. They want us to get this 
done. We should get it done--if we are doing the right thing--today or 
tomorrow, but we have some people who are playing games.
  I hope our friends on the other side of the aisle, who talk a lot 
about tax cuts and a lot about helping folks through this recession, 
will vote with us to cut the payroll tax and end this long debate that 
doesn't make much sense. We have a lot of other issues to debate, but 
this should not be one of them because we have been working on this for 
weeks.
  The American people understand what this is about. This is about 
take-home pay. This isn't a complicated issue. We are either going to 
put more money in their pockets or we are not. It is very simple. We 
believe, on this

[[Page 20180]]

side of the aisle--and I think the overwhelming majority of Americans 
believe this--that if workers have more take-home pay in their pockets, 
the impact on the economy will be very positive.
  We had Mark Zandi do some analysis. He is a great economist who has 
provided data and information for people on both sides of the aisle for 
a long time. He is a very credible, capable economist. Our staff asked 
him to look at the impact just on Pennsylvania--just one State but a 
big State, and I think it is reflective of the country in a lot of 
ways. The basic analysis was, if we don't pass the payroll tax cut for 
workers, what happens in Pennsylvania? The impact in 2012 would be a 
loss of just shy of 20,000 jobs, roughly 19,500 jobs. This is in a 
State where we need to create a lot more jobs. But we know that in 
2011--the year is not over--the most recent number of jobs added in 
Pennsylvania in the last year was over 50,000. I believe we can come to 
a number like that in 2012.
  If we don't pass the payroll tax cut for those 160 million workers, 
in a State such as Pennsylvania the effect is that we lose 20,000 jobs. 
You can do the math and extrapolate from that to indicate what would 
happen to the country. So in a State where we had a net gain of more 
than 50,000 jobs last year, we are talking about not putting in place a 
tax cut policy, and that would cut that job gain a little less than 
half. So instead of creating 50,000 jobs, you would create 40 percent 
less. That doesn't make any sense under anyone's analysis about what we 
should be doing.
  It is critically important that we take steps in the next few days--I 
hope in the next few hours--to finally pass a payroll tax cut and to 
also make sure we don't harm the economy as well by failing to take 
action on unemployment insurance. Again, unemployment insurance is not 
just for that worker and his or her family to get back on their feet 
after they lost their job through no fault of their own, it also has a 
positive impact on the economy. You spend a buck on unemployment 
insurance, and you get back almost two bucks--$1.90. Whether it is 
$1.50 or $1.90, we know that if you spend a dollar, all of us get in 
return something much more substantial than that dollar we put in.
  We need to do both of these things, take both of these actions for 
the larger economy. This isn't about one group benefiting and another 
group not. Both of these actions--reducing the payroll tax for workers 
and unemployment insurance--will have a substantial impact on 
everybody. It will help the economy for the American people.
  In the payroll tax cut, there is a particular significant group of 
Americans who would be most positively impacted; that is, those 160 
million American workers. I believe most folks out there who are in the 
holiday shopping season--maybe they are finished shopping or maybe they 
are still making purchases--would like the peace of mind to know they 
can spend a little extra for that gift for a loved one, and maybe they 
can have a little more peace of mind knowing that the economy is still 
in difficult shape but that their own lives--and so many people are 
leading lives of struggle and sacrifice and anxiety about the future. 
But this is one step we can take--passing the payroll tax cut--that 
would give them some peace of mind that moving into 2012 they will have 
more dollars in their pockets. I hope it will be $1,500, but at least 
we should do what we did last year and make sure those 160 million 
workers in America have as much as $1,000, on average, in their 
pockets. That would be good for that worker and his or her family, the 
community, and all of us because it would help kick-start, jump-start 
economic growth and job creation when we badly need that in the midst 
of a still very difficult recession.
  Mr. President, we are going to keep on this, keep pushing, and keep 
making sure the American people know what is at stake. For those 160 
million Americans who are waiting for us to take action, as well as 
what is at stake for the larger economy, if we do this--pass the 
payroll tax cut--and if we do the right thing on extending unemployment 
insurance, we can move into 2012 with some confidence, while being 
aware it is still difficult, that the economy will grow a little more, 
jobs will be created at a higher rate, and we can have some confidence 
that we can end 2012 with a stronger economy than we had at the end of 
this year.
  I hope our friends will come across the aisle, so to speak, and work 
with us to get this done because the American people are tired of the 
politics and the fighting. They want us to come together on a new 
payroll tax cut for 2012. We can do it, they support it, and we should 
get this done.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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