[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 191 (Tuesday, December 13, 2011)] [House] [Pages H8740-H8741] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] PAYROLL TAX EXTENSION The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen) for 5 minutes. Mr. COHEN. Over the last 3 years, much progress has been made in an effort to recover from the economic fallout, the Great Recession that the President inherited from the previous administration. More needs to be done to stabilize our economy and create jobs for the millions of Americans still out of work. That progress may get derailed this week if the Republican majority refuses to extend tax cuts for 160 million Americans and unemployment benefits for 1.3 million Americans. You'd think congressional Republicans who routinely label Democrat as the ``party of taxes,'' which is something Oliver Wendell Holmes said was the price we pay for civilization, that's what taxes are, would eagerly support tax cuts for 160 million Americans; but they don't. I'm buffed. But you listen to the other side, they've got all kinds of reasons. They've got extensions. They've got all kinds of riders. The bottom line is it's a political fight to defeat the President of the United States. It's been their agenda since he was elected. Every day my Republican colleagues come to the House floor to call for lower taxes, particularly for the millionaires. They call them the job creators. Yet, when the time comes to support a Democratic payroll tax proposal that lowers taxes and creates jobs, Republican support is not found. Under the Democratic proposal, a family making $50,000 a year and struggling would save $1,500 next year. But this tax cut does more than put money in the pockets of more than 160 million hardworking Americans and ensure they won't see a tax increase. It also creates jobs. Mark Zandi, the previous Republican Presidential candidate John McCain's economic adviser, said that expanding the payroll tax cut for employees would create 750,000 jobs. Conversely, he said the failure to do so would cost a million jobs. But, apparently, tax breaks for those people, 160 million Americans, and creation of those jobs is not enough for my colleagues on the Republican side. They need more enticement to support a payroll cut. So what's the red meat that gets them to do this? They have to break their pledge. They made a pledge to America. They said they wouldn't put extraneous legislation together with other legislation to pass a mass bill. It would circumvent the will of the people. They promised to advance major legislation one issue at a time, but Republicans violated this pledge this time by stuffing anti- environmental riders into a must-pass payroll tax bill. While cutting taxes for 160 million Americans seems like something Republicans would unequivocally support, the GOP leadership felt they had to violate that pledge and cram divisive riders into the bill to get support from people who want to put a potentially dangerous line in environmentally sensitive areas of pipeline that has shown repeatedly a failure to be done in an appropriate way, something that has been said would be a carbon bomb being set off and the end of the global warming fight. It would end the game. Despite their claims that the riders would create jobs and stimulate the economy, reality doesn't align with those arguments. The reality is they would destroy our economy, our environment, and the lives of thousands of Americans. The Boiler MACT provision in the bill would delay air toxin rules for at least 3\1/2\ years. That would result in 28,350 premature deaths, 17,000 heart attacks, nearly 19,000 hospital and emergency room visits, more than 1.2 million days of missed work, and 150,000 cases of asthma attacks. The health benefits of these regulations are estimated to save up to $67 billion and save all of those lives. It's astonishing the Republicans would consider delaying a public health rule that [[Page H8741]] would prevent 8,000 premature deaths a year and save up to $67 billion, the sweetener that was needed to try to get these tax breaks for 160 million Americans. I urge my colleagues to see the folly of their ways and pull these harmful riders out of the bill, to stop their effort to just defeat President Obama, and do what's right for the American public--to create jobs and to help people on unemployment, which will stimulate our economy. In their Pledge to America, they describe what they called ``circumventing the will of the American people.'' That's what they're doing today. The will of the American people is not to have deaths and injuries, health and environmental policies destroyed, but to create jobs and to help people through this difficult recession. I would ask that we defeat this bill, come back, work together, and do what's right for the American people. ____________________