Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Senate Amendment to H.R. 3630, the Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011. Unfortunately, this isn't the legislation we will be voting on today. The Majority has decided to side-step that bill, which passed the Senate this weekend on a bipartisan 89-10 vote. Instead, the House Majority's aim is to reopen negotiations in an attempt to force the Senate to include in the bill many poison pill provisions, like requiring a high school diploma to receive unemployment benefits. President Obama has said that the Senate's compromise bill is ``the only viable way to prevent a tax hike on January 1.'' The legislation the Senate passed this weekend, and that we should be considering today, would provide for a two-month extension of several measures that will help keep our economy moving in the right direction. These include extending unemployment benefits, the payroll tax cut, the temporary assistance for needy families (TANF) program, and preserving the rate of Medicare payments to doctors. Let me be clear Mr. Speaker, the Senate bill is a modest proposal at best. However, extending these vital measures are necessary to keep our economy moving forward and growing. Failure to reach agreement is unacceptable. If we fail to pass the Senate bill, 700,000 workers in Hawaii will see their paychecks shrink and taxes increase in January. Nearly 3,000 people in Hawaii will lose their unemployment benefits in January.…”