[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 18430]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      SENATE NEEDS TO GET TO WORK

  (Mr. SCALISE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, here we are on New Year's Eve working to 
avoid this latest fiscal cliff. Of course, if you wonder why we're 
here, just look at the fact that we shouldn't have to be here.
  Back on August 1, this House, with a bipartisan vote, passed a bill 
that would have avoided this fiscal cliff. It would have protected 
every American family from seeing a tax increase. The bill passed on 
August 1, and it's been sitting over in the Senate every day since 
then. But here we are on New Year's Eve, and the Senate is finally 
rolling up their sleeves and working to avoid this crisis.
  Well, here we are at another crisis, and, unfortunately, as we look 
towards this New Year tomorrow, this is not the last time that we may 
be here. We passed a budget here in the House months ago. It's been 
more than 3 years since the Senate passed a budget, yet months from now 
we'll be hearing another cliff approaching of a government shutdown 
because the Senate hasn't passed a budget.
  It's time for the Senate to start doing their work and stop creating 
these crises and forcing American families to wonder what's going to 
happen next and what's going to be the next crisis. We should not have 
any American family facing a tax increase. Let's get the American 
economy on track.

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