[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 191 (Tuesday, December 13, 2011)] [House] [Pages H8739-H8740] From the Congressional Record Online through the 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 [[Page H8740]] 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. ____________________