Jeanne Shaheen: “I thank my colleague from Georgia for his very thoughtful comments. Senator Isakson has been working on a biennial…”

“I thank my colleague from Georgia for his very thoughtful comments. Senator Isakson has been working on a biennial budget for a very long time. I was pleased to join him in this session of Congress. And I agree with him. I believe this is one of the ways we can encourage more oversight of our spending and hopefully address some of the budget issues we face. So I appreciate and share his beliefs that this is an important change we should make. I am actually on the floor not to speak on the balanced budget amendment, however, but to talk about what I believe is very important for us to do before the end of this year; that is, address the extension of the payroll tax cut. In November, the private sector added 140,000 new jobs to our workforce. In fact, businesses have now created 100,000 jobs in each of the last 5 months. This is a positive trend we haven't seen in the past 5 years. While this is encouraging, we still have a long way to go because more than 13 million Americans remain unemployed and millions more are underemployed. These individuals and their families are struggling to make ends meet during this holiday season. At this time last year, Congress passed bipartisan legislation to put more money into the pockets of working Americans. We cut payroll taxes for workers--an effort that increased take-home pay for the average household by almost $1,000 in 2011. This tax cut isn't just good for families on a tight budget, it is good for our fragile economy.…”