Joe Crowley: “Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank my friend from Michigan as well for this debate. I listened very closely and very…”

“Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank my friend from Michigan as well for this debate. I listened very closely and very intently to the words of Speaker Boehner, a man whom I have tremendous respect for, and I know that he's having some difficult times with his side of the aisle. I know he'd like to be able to wrap up business for the end of the year and be able to move on into next year to do good things for the American people. But the rejection by his caucus of the compromise bill that was passed in the Senate is preventing him, and I think preventing some of the like-minded Members on the Republican side of the aisle, to pass the Senate bill and go home for the holidays. I also listened very intently to the Speaker when he said that the passage of this bill today would only be a 2-month extender, that somehow by just passing this it would only mean about 160-some-odd dollars for the average American worker in tax savings. I would just suggest the absence of doing anything is a thousand dollar increase on average to the average working middle class American today. A thousand dollar increase, the absence of doing nothing. Now, we all know the Senate can't get 60 votes to even say that December 25 is Christmas. We understand that. They've gone home for the holidays already. They're not coming back. So we either pass this bill today or we see that no bill will pass and an increase in the middle class taxes will take place. Now, you will argue, how did we get here? I don't know.…”