On the recordFebruary 17, 2012
I thank the gentleman for yielding. In December, this Congress gave 20 conferees three tasks to achieve by February 29: to extend the payroll tax cut for 160 million middle class Americans; to ensure Americans who lost their jobs through no fault of their own receive their unemployment insurance benefits; and to guarantee our seniors on Medicare have access to the doctors of their choice and the care that they need. We achieved this goal. But let's be clear, this agreement is by no means free of controversy. The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) eloquently illustrated that. Our Republican colleagues succeeded in extracting a pound of flesh from middle class working Americans who also serve ably in our Federal Government. But what was the alternative that we faced? A House Republican bill passed in December that quadrupled the cuts to workers in their salaries and their benefits; that increased the cost of Medicare for millions of seniors; that eliminated and restricted access to physical speech and occupational therapy in hospital settings for Medicare patients; that eliminated the child tax credit for millions of modest- income families; and that eliminated unemployment insurance benefits for nearly 3 million Americans who had lost a job through no fault of their own. This agreement represents a rejection of the approach in the House Republican bill of December. It is a compromise, free of the controversial and extraneous measures in that Republican bill in December.…
