[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15304-15305]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       AVOIDING THE FISCAL CLIFF

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Tennessee (Mrs. Black) for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. BLACK. Mr. Speaker, while the President returned from the 
campaign trail last week with a slightly more conciliatory tone, his 
insistence on a year-end tax hike on small businesses is unchanged, and 
frankly, that is completely unacceptable.
  It is unacceptable for more than 23 million Americans struggling for 
work right now. It's unacceptable for millions of middle class 
Americans struggling to support their families with rising gas prices 
and higher health insurance costs. And it's unacceptable because it 
will destroy jobs and hurt our economy.
  Yesterday, the President said that his reelection victory is a 
mandate to help the middle class. He can start with helping the middle 
class by stopping his job-killing tax hike on small businesses.
  The President continues to call for increased tax rates for the top 
two brackets, which hit more than 1 million small businesses and 53 
percent of all small business income. That's a big problem, considering 
that small businesses create two out of every three jobs in America.
  According to the Ernst & Young report, the President's plan will 
result in the elimination of 700,000 jobs.
  The position of the congressional Republicans on extending current 
income tax rates for all Americans is far from extreme. It is actually 
the same exact position that President Obama espoused 2 years ago when 
he agreed to extend all Bush-era tax rates for 2 years on the basis 
that raising tax rates would hurt our weak economy.
  That logic still stands. In fact, our economy is even weaker today 
than it was in 2010. GDP growth is lower than in 2010, in large part 
due to the looming cost of the President's health care law and his 
administration's dramatic increase in regulations.
  With more than 23 million Americans struggling to find work, that is 
not the time to be raising taxes on anyone, period.
  We must also find common ground on the defense sequester to ensure 
that spending cuts are implemented, but in a way that does not weaken 
our military or threaten our national security.
  Both the tax and spending issues we face in lame duck are a microcosm 
of our Nation's massive fiscal and economic long-term challenges. 
Entitlement reform and comprehensive, pro-

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growth tax reform in the 113th Congress are key to addressing our 
Nation's greatest challenges.
  The policy outcome and the narrative that transpire from this lame 
duck session will set the stage for what is possible in 2013 and 
beyond. We have a critical opportunity right now to avert the fiscal 
cliff and lay the groundwork for bipartisanship with policies that 
reflect our economic and our fiscal realities.

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