anxiety among the public. that is shameful and disappointing. as a result, on january 1, if there is no agreement, those of you who vote to send this to conference today and against this motion to instruct will be responsible for 160 million americans seeing their taxes increase next year. for 2.3 million people seeking jobs who will lose their unemployment lifeline by mid february and for 48 million americans having their access to doctors placed in jeopardy. those are the stakes. america thought we had an agreement this weekend. john mccain thought we had an agreement this saturday, and,

yes, speaker boehner thought we had an agreement on saturday. america thought there was reason to hope that middle-class americans would be spared this entirely preventable tax increase. i tell you, my friends, if this were about the upper tax -- upper income tax increase, this would pass like lightning. like lightning. no, this is about putting in jeopardy the middle-class tax increase and we can play games with that. we are now watching the convungs of confrontation and obstruction in this most unproductive tea party-dominated partisan session of congress. as a result, speaker boehner decided he wasn't for the

agreement. now, speaker boehner some years ago -- excuse me -- some months ago said this, because there's a lot of talk about this one-year extension, let me tell you what speaker boehner said six months ago. he called proposals to extend or expand the payroll tax cut at that point by a year, quote, another little short-term gimmick. same rhetoric, different circumstances, but both put at risk the middle class. and senate republican leader mcconnell's own words, the compromise that you are rejecting today was designed to pass. i ask for -- i yield myself an additional minute. in fact, the bill that you passed and you knew it was designed to fail, and because

you knew it was going to fail, your republican leadership in the senate objected to it being considered on the floor of the united states senate. just as you have refused to consider the senate's compromise on this floor. it did so in the senate, that bill that was designed to pass according to senator mcconnell. it did so in the senate with an overwhelming support with 83% of republicans and almost every democrat, including the entire senate republican leadership and the entire democratic leadership. democrats, mr. speaker, are fighting to prevent a painful tax increase for the middle class. the way to do that is to pass the senate compromise while we continue to work on a year-long extension. that's what senator reid said it will do, mr. speaker. that's what we're prepared to do, mr. speaker, but we don't want to put at risk january 1

coming and that tax cut disappearing. if they fail to pass the compromise, house republicans will have to answer to the american people whose taxes will go up. one additional minute. to the innocent, unemployed and medicare seniors seeking services from their doctors. we must not leave this work unfinished just days before the holidays and new year. that's what the senate did. they gave us time. they gave the american people time. instead, we ought to be bringing relief to middle-class families that are increasingly anxious about their future during what should be a joyful and hopeful holiday season. we ought to pass the bipartisan senate bill. that's what this motion to instruct says. that is what the american people want to happen in washington, to see us work together, come to agreement, act, bring certainty, stop the blame game. we can send the bipartisan agreement to the president today and he will sign it.

vote yes on this motion to instruct. vote for the american workers, the medicare recipient and the unemployed. vote for this motion to instruct, and i yield back the balance of my time and, mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to yield for the purposes of balancing the remainder of the time to my good friend from new york, joe crowley, a member of the ways and means committee. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from new york will control the time. the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: mr. speaker, i rise in opposition to the motion to instruct and i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. camp: i would just say to my good friend from maryland, we just voted on the senate amendment. they were rejected by this house. just yesterday minority leader pelosi told the media, i don't think we should go to conference. that's a quote. in those same reports the minority leader said if the house passes a motion to go to conference on the middle-class tax relief and job creation

act, she would not appoint any house democrats to participate in the negotiations. set aside for a moment that a conference committee is the established way for resolving differences between the house and the senate, and it's an idea that was best articulated by thomas jefferson, one of the founding fathers, and someone who provided the foundation for the rules of this house. set aside the fact that democrats are with two weeks left before critical programs expire refusing to work. instead, let's just focus on what the leader of house democrats said. the minority leader declared she would not appoint any house democrats to a conference committee. senate jord harry reid, senate majority leader harry reid he canowed the same comments. i am asking, who are the democrats seeking to instruct with this motion? if the democrats won't even

appoint conferees, how can they instruct conferees? clearly, this is nothing more than a partisan, political stunt that keeps us from doing what the president has asked us to do and what house republicans agreed to do, pass a one-year extension of the payroll tax holiday and a one-year extension of unemployment benefits. turning to the substance of the motion to instruct for a minute, it seems like we've already debated this today. the motion asks the house to recreed to the position of the senate -- recede to the position of the senate, meaning the deeply flawed bill that would sunset in two months and that payroll providers, job providers, experts have said would be administratively unworkable. and that even the administration concedes would pose challenges for employers. i urge defeat of this motion to instruct and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from new york. mr. crowley: thank you, mr.

speaker. just sitting here i was -- the speaker pro tempore: does the gentleman yield himself such time as he may consume? mr. crowley: yes. i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. crowley: just sitting here i was contemplating the end of the year and at the end of business that we will conduct today, men and women from both sides of the aisle will pass each other in the well or in the hallway and we will wish each other health for the new year. we will wish each other goodness, happiness. we will all look forward to going back to our home districts and spending time with our family, with our friends, looking back at what happened, some of the goods things and not so good things, primarily focusing on the good things that happened to us this year. the thing that comes to mind

when i often say to people i wish you peace, i wish you peace in the new year, i wish you a peaceful mind is what i'm suggesting. go home and relax. nothing that we are doing today will give peace of mind to the middle class in this country. nothing that we will do today will give them that peace of mind. and i think that is more than regrettable. it's unacceptable. there are men and women in this country, hardworking middle-class people who are desperately trying to keep their homes to afford education, college education for their children, to afford health care, to be able to see their doctor, who are trying to put food on the table, pay the heat bill, maybe afford the

rent. they're struggling. this is not a story that's only in my district. this is in every district, be they democrat or held by a republican. now, what we've seen over the past few months is a complete turnaround. two months ago my colleagues on the other side of the aisle rejected the president's proposal for a payroll tax cut for the middle class. and now we come to the end of the year and we're running out of time, and my friends on the other side of the aisle have had a conversion. they now see the wisdom to extending this payroll tax. but now you're criticizing us because we have a bill before us that has passed in a bipartisan way in the senate, 89 votes that will extend this payroll tax, tax reduction for the middle class for an additional two months.

now, i can understand if that is all we were going to do you can complain about it. but when i have an opportunity in the next two months and do it for the rest of the year -- quite frankly, we can make it permanent, for all i am concerned, we ought not to be squabling about time -- squabbling about time that's only two months. don't pretend that you are working on behalf of the middle class. don't pretend you are the working class hero. you're not. you're not. a constituent of mine from the bronx, one of the many middle-class workers in my district, will have to pay an extra $1,000 a year to afford heating oil for their home if they do not get this tax decrease that they have been hoping for and they have been reading about that is going to happen. now all of a sudden it may not happen. i just want to remind my colleagues, this is not cotton

candy economics. one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, mr. ryan, used the term this is cotton candy economics. this is not cotton candy economics, mr. speaker. this is bread and butter economics for my constituents and for the middle class. the word disingenuous doesn't do justice to describe what's happening here today. this is either an extension of $1,000 tax credit or -- tax cut or it's not. it's simple as that. this is either a tax cut for the middle class or it's not. a no vote is a vote against the middle-class tax cut. it is simply that simple. don't do this now, give people, the american people the peace of mind they deserve this holiday season. let them know that this tax cut will be extended. with that i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: at this time, mr. speaker, i yield one minute to the distinguished gentleman from ohio, the speaker of the house. the speaker pro tempore: the speaker of the house is recognized.

the speaker: let me thank my colleague for yielding. as i was attempting to eat my lunch, i heard my name invoked more than once about what i did and about what i didn't do. i just want all my colleagues to know that the president asked us to extend the payroll tax credit for a year, asked us to extend unemployment benefits and asked us to extend the payment schedule, the current payment schedule for doctors who treat medicare patients. my colleagues and i in a bipartisan basis last week passed such a bill. the same kind of bill that was requested by the minority leader and the minority whip and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. this bill was going to cost about $200 billion. we found reasonable offsets to make sure that we were taking

care of the social security trust fund and not depleting it unnecessarily. as i said, the bill passed the house with a bipartisan vote. unfortunately, our colleagues on the other side of the capitol decided to do what happens around here all too often. too hard to figure it out. getting close to christmas, we're going to punt and we're going to send a two-month bill over. now my colleague from new york was arguing for what's basically $1,000 tax cut for the average american family and i'm here to say to my colleague, that's exactly what we're fighting for. as i see the debate today, you're arguing for $166 tax cut because it's only for two months. i want to give the average american family $1,000 tax cut, and that means doing this for

12 months as the president requested. who doesn't believe that if we don't do this now that when we get to february 28, guess where we'll be? we'll be right here doing the same thing that we're doing right now. i just think the american people expect us to do our work. we've got 10 days to do our work. we can resolve the differences between the house and senate bill. everybody wants us to extend them for a year, but it just happens to be inconvenient for some to try to resolve it at this point. why? because we're getting close to the holidays. my colleagues and i are here and prepared to do our work. we've just made a motion to go to conference with the senate. as my colleagues know, this is the regular order of how congress works. the house passes a bill, the senate passes a different bill, we go to conference to resolve

the differences. and all we're asking is that our colleagues on the other side of the capitol come back to town, sit down and resolve our differences and let's do this once and let's do it the right way for once. so i would ask my colleagues, we can turn the rhetoric down. we don't have to get overly excited. there's no disagreement here. there's no disagreement at all. about the fact that everyone wants to extend this for the next year. the only question is, when do people want to do it? some want to kick the can down the road and wait until february and on february 28 we'll be sitting here looking at each other the same way. why don't we just do it now and give the american people a real christmas present? i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york. mr. crowley: mr. speaker, we have three months to do this bill. unfortunately we waited until the last two weeks to take this bill up. it's unfortunate. with that, mr. speaker, i'll yield two minutes to the

gentleman from new york, mr. israel. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. israel: i thank my very good friend, the distinguished gentleman from new york. mr. speaker, with all the respect in the world, the speaker of the house said we shouldn't kick the can. what they are doing, mr. speaker, is they are kicking the middle class in the stomach. this is a partisan middle class mugging. the only part of the middle class tax cut that the republicans don't like is the middle class part. which is why they are trying every flip flop, every execution they can come up with. the latest excuse is, we ought to go to regular order. i cannot imagine a single american opening up their paychecks in january, seeing that there's 100 -- $100 or $200 less and saying, if only they had gone to regular order. if only they had gone to a house senate conference. a house senate conference?

i'm sorry that my tea party republican colleagues campaigned on coming to congress to support regular order and go to conference for the american people. no, they came here saying they wanted tax cuts. but when it comes time to give tax cut, suddenly they're saying, we don't need tax cuts. we need a house-senate conference to debate the tax cuts. give me a break. the american people want two things from this congress, mr. speaker. they want tax he can loo -- tax relief for the middle class, they want a congress that can compromise. house democrats gave both. house republicans said no to both. house democrats wanted a full one-year extension of the middle class tax cut. all we said is, let people who are making over $1 million pay a small surcharge on the dollars over $1 million. house republicans said no.

we want to take it out of medicare cuts. house democrats said, our partisan differences should not cost middle class taxpayers. house republicans said no. the more you say no, the more it costs the middle class. i thank the gentleman. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: earlier, the gentleman from maryland, said the senate gave us time. no, the senate gave themselves a vacation. the house is prepared to work to ensure americans don't face a tax hike in two months and with that i yield two minutes to the distinguished gentleman from maryland, mr. harris. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. harris: thank you for yielding some time. the americans who are watching, they're probably going to have a deja vu. last time they watched congress in action on a contentious bill near the christmas holiday was in 2009 when the senate had plenty of time to come into town and pass the obamacare bill. and the house, under the leadership of the -- of what is now the minority party, thought

it was just fine to do whatever the senate wanted. how'd that work out for you, america? today we're actually going to do what we should be doing which is going to conference and compromising with the senate. now, the motion is to conquer with the senate amendments -- concur with the senate amendments. the senate amendments say 60 days. mr. speaker, that's not kicking the can down the road, that's barely nudging the can down the road. and why doesn't that work? because as a physician i will tell you, the real danger to our seniors is passing something that is short-term time and time again with the 111th congress did. and i work with these docs. they tell you, especially in rural areas where physicians are in short, they say, if you're only going to give me a two-month or a two-week extension as has been done, i'm going to have to stop seeing medicare patients because i want to take care of medicare

patients but that uncertainty that those short-term extensions create, i can't deal with in my practice. under this -- you know, if a senior wants to see a specialist, they might -- especially a good specialist, they might have to wait two or three months. hear going to have to wait until after this -- they're going to have to wait until after this extension. that specialist is going to say, i'm not going to see a patient. you know, the minority whip says, the republicans pretended to support a tax cut. i ask america, let's look at the record. we had a vote last week on the tax cut. go look and see which party rejected the tax cut for middle class americans. the gentleman from new york says we pretend to be for the working class. mr. camp: i yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds. mr. harris: i would ask that america go to house.gov and look at the vote last week. which party rejected a one-year-long middle class tax cut and which party was in the majority to move that tax cut?

the minority doesn't want a one-year tax cut, they made it clear in last year's vote. the senate made it clear in this action they took last week. yes, we're going to drag them kicking and screaming to a conference. that's too bad that that's what the legislative process has come to. we need to support going to conference and compromise. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from new york. mr. crowley: mr. speaker, i inquire as to how much time we have remaining. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york has 17 1/2 minutes. the gentleman from michigan has 24 minutes. mr. crowley: mr. speaker, i yield myself just 10 seconds. by rejecting these senate tax cut package, mr. harris' constituents in queens ann county, maryland, will see a tax increase of $1,503 in 2012. with that i yield a minute to the gentleman from vermont. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from vermont is recognized for one minute. mr. welch: thank you. i thank the gentleman. mr. speaker, for the fourth time this year congress has failed to reach a consensus on a significant issue that will affect the lives of every

american and imperil our fragile economic recovery. today we are on the brink of imposing the consequences of this dysfunctional congress on those who can least afford it. if we do not act today taxes will go up on 160 million middle -- middle and low income americans. if we do not act today hundreds of thousands of americans will lose the safety net of unemployment conference in the middle of the -- coverage in the middle of the worst recession since the great depression. and doctors who are caring for seniors -- senior citizens will have their pay slashed, playing -- placing in jeopardy their ability to have that care. this is an unacceptable situation to the american people. we should be here as long as it takes to get this done and we should be voting yes or no. is the majority more committed to gridlock than progress? once again, for the fourth time in a year, the answer appears to be yes. the people we represent deserve

better. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: i yield two minutes to the distinguished gentleman from idaho. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from idaho is recognized for two minutes. mr. labrador: mr. speaker, i want the american people to understand something very clearly. this debate today is not about policy, it is only about politics. it has always been about politics. number one, there is no senate bill. our friends on the other side keep talking about a senate bill. there has never been a senate bill, there was only a republican house bill. that's the only thing that we had. now, republican house bill was passed with a bipartisan majority. it passed this house and it went to the other house and the senate decided to amend it. when they amended it they took out everything that we wanted here in the house to extend this payroll tax cut. and we decided today to reject

the amendment. one of the gentleman from the other side said that some of us did not campaign on going to conference. you know what? we did campaign on one thing. we campaigned on following the constitution and doing the things that the constitution requires us to do. if you go back to your civics classes it's very simple. the house passes a bill, the senate passes something different, we go to conference. that's what the american people understand. you ask any third grader about civics lessons and they will tell you that's the way it's supposed to work. the reason they're objecting to it today is because that's never the way that they have done it. because their idea of compromising is making sure that our ideas are off the table and their ideas are the only ones that stay on the table. that's not compromise. that's capitulation. and that's what we are unwilling

to do. and you're upset. you're upset because you're unwilling to work for the american people during this week and during the next week. we just voted on the senate amendments. we turned them down. it's really important for the american people to understand that we have turned down the senate amendments. mr. camp: i yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds. mr. labrador: the democrats only want to have a political tool to keep hitting us over the head again and again and again. they want to spend the next two months debating this issue. if the middle class does not get this tax cut they will only have one party to blame, mr. speaker, and that party is the democrats. thank you very much. the speaker pro tempore: members are reminded to address their remarks to the chair. the gentleman from new york. mr. crowley: mr. speaker, i remind mr. labrador that constituents in idaho will see a tax increase of $860 in 2012 because of the games your party is playing. with that i would yield two minutes to the gentlelady from

nevada, ms. berkley. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized for two minutes. ms. berkley: i thank the gentleman from new york for yielding. mr. speaker, let's be clear on what's happening here today. with thousands of nevadans who are struggling to make ends meet, house republicans are trying to sentence this middle class tax cut to death by committee. by conference. instead of allowing an up or down vote, house republicans are trying to kill this middle class tax relief bill by burying it in one more washington bureaucracy. death by committee. conference. the american people have had enough of these cynical washington games. i know that i certainly have. if house republicans don't want a middle class tax cut, they should have the courage to stand up and vote no. 1.2 million nevadans who will see their taxes go up would be grateful to know the truth. 28,000 unemployed nevadans who are unemployed through no fault of their own, they would appreciate knowing the truth, why their unemployment benefits are going to disappear on

january 1. so why won't the republicans do this? why won't they just come clean and express their opposition to middle class tax relief and extension of unemployment benefits? washington republicans had no problem passing taxpayer giveaways to big oil companies making record profits. they had no problem passing tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas. they had no problem passing a bill to kill medicare by turning it over to private insurance companies. but when it comes to tax cuts for middle class families, they say, no, no, we can't do this. we have to send it back to another committee, conference, let's kip -- let's kill it. mr. speaker, it's time to stand up for the middle class and the unemployed in this country, in the state in of nevada. i urge my colleagues to reject this republican employ. let's not -- ploy. let's not send this middle class tax cut to die in another washington bureaucratic committee. let's pass the bisubpartisan senate bill and help our fellow

citizens when we need the help the most. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: at this time i yield two minutes to the distinguished gentleman from arizona, mr. flake. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from arizona is recognized for two minutes. mr. flake: i thank the gentleman for yielding. one year ago, mr. speaker, many of us stood at this chamber and pleaded with the leadership on both sides of the aisle not to put this payroll tax holiday in place. it was bad policy to put it in place and it's bad policy to extend it. by the end of this year we will have taken a quarter of a trillion dollars from the social security trust fund and for what purpose? in our candid moment wes must confess that this effort -- moments we must confess that this effort is more toward securing votes than economic growth. we may point fingers across the aisle, but it's a pox on both of our houses. democrats paint themselves as champions of social security yet they blissfully endorse taking another $120 billion out of the

social security trust fund. we republicans paint ourselves as fierce guardians of the public purse yet we're eager to pretend that the payroll tax holiday is paid for by fleeting fees and phantom spending cuts. we keep hearing that we're kicking the can down the road. we're $15 trillion in debt. 10,000 baby boomers retire every year into a program that is already running in the red. mr. speaker, we're out of road. the responsible thing to do is to not extend this payroll tax holiday for two months or for 12 months. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york. mr. crowley: i appreciate the gentleman's honesty. with that i will yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from virginia. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for 1 1/2 minutes. >> i thank my friend from new york. mr. speaker, this is shameful. shame, shame, shame. mr. connolly: who are we kidding? the republican leadership is

ignoring an 89-10 vote in the united states senate and they want us to believe they support the underlying bill of 12 months. that's not what they've said all year long. the speaker, who was just here a few minutes ago, dismissed the payroll tax itself as gimmick. the minority leader has said -- the majority leader said there are better ways to grow the economy. tell that to the 160 million americans whose taxes will increase in january 1. republicans consistently chipped away at medicare and managed to eliminate it completely in a voucher system with the ryan budget earlier this year. tell that to the 48 million seniors who are at risk if we don't take care of the doctors' bill through the s.g.r. and republicans have made no secret of their desire to gut unemployment insurance, despite the fact that it actually helps keep the economy moving during down times. more than 2.3 million americans will lose benefits if we don't pass this bill and millions more will have their benefits reduced. mr. speaker, are we to believe

all of a sudden that the house republicans have had some kind of miraculous and are ready to compromise? that is laughable and the actions of our colleagues on the other side frankly make scruge look like a charitable humanitarian today. i yield back to the gentleman from new york. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: at this time i yield two minutes to the distinguished gentleman from florida, mr. southerland. were -- mr. southerland: i thank the gentleman for yielding time. if we ask the american people what they want it would be glaring, do they want us to protect doctors for 24 months or cothey want the senate version for two months? do they want federal employment benefits for 24 months or for two months? do they want payroll tax extensions for 24 months or two months? do they want a payroll tax break for $1,000 or do they

want it for $167? do they want pay freezes for members of congress and for federal workers or do they want those freezes to go away like the senate version states? do they want unending unemployment and food stamp benefits for millionaires or do they want that to continue, then they'd want the senate version. do they want requiring social security numbers for refundable child tax credits or do they want that to go away? you know, this is a good one, do they want to prevent access to welfare benefits at strip clubs and liquor stores like the house version we passed last week or do they want that go away in the senate version? i think if we ask the american people i think their answer will be glaring and clear. they want certainty. right now the senate version throws the american family a life preserver drifting in a

sea of uncertainty. the house version pulls them out of that sea of uncertainty and put them in a life boat. i ask them, do you want a life preserver or do you want a life boat? any commonsense american would say, put me in the boat that extends this for one year rather than two months. this isn't difficult. this is common sense. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york. mr. crowley: mr. speaker, i remind mr. southerland failure to pass this bill will have an incretion of $879 to his constituents in bay county, florida. i yield two minutes to the gentleman from pennsylvania. the speaker pro tempore: how much time? mr. crowley: two minutes. mr. fattah: i thank the gentleman for yielding. and in this christmas season, let me wish all of my colleagues a merry christmas, happy hanukkah, and for our country there is good news. it has just been reported that unemployment has dropped in 43

states. this is the most states we have seen unemployment drop in eight years. the policies that have been put in place by president obama is working. car sales are up. home sales are up. the stock market is above 10,000. how better off would we be if we get the majority here in the house to agree to work with the president? we have three caucuses out of four that have agreed to move forward on keeping in place the obama tax cuts that make work pay. that is a tax cut on their payroll taxes. and we have one caucus that's decided they want to go their own way. that somehow they know better. they want to go their own way. but the other three caucuses have agreed. let's put in place a continuation of this tax cut and let's work towards a one-year extension. i hear my colleagues complain that they didn't get everything they want. well, they're going to be

christmas trees all over our country. and there will going to be presents under those trees. but we cat always get everything we want. we need to have common sense and an ability to cooperate. i would ask my colleagues, my friends in the holiday spirit, can't we come together and help this president who's lifting this economy through policies that are working? 43 states, unemployment's dropped, the most we've seen since 2003. these policies work. let's keep them in place and let's ask our republican friends to come on, let's put partisanship aside, put america first because counting against this country is a bet you shouldn't place. america is coming back and coming back stronger than ever. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: i yield two minutes to my distinguished colleague from colorado, mr. tipton. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. tipton: i thank the gentleman for yielding. our colleague on the democrat

side is citing the amount of tax increase that americans will have inflicted on them. that's what we're talking about as well. we have an opportunity here, mr. speaker, to stand up today for the american people and a very clear choice. two months or 12 months. easy math. we talk about waiting till february. it will be followed by march. the same challenges affecting the american people right now will be present then. this is our opportunity as a legislative body to stand up for a change rather than politics as usual. we can't afford to let them down. the american people, american business, american seniors deserve some certainty.

certainty that we can provide. out of this house we passed bipartisan legislation. the senate passed their version. it now needs to go to conference so the american people can be better served. this issue is not one that we should be debating but one we should be standing together as republicans and democrats because this isn't a political issue. this is about standing up for the american people. this is our opportunity to do just that. thank you, mr. speaker, and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york. mr. crowley: i inquire as to how much time we have, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york has 10 1/2 minutes remaining. the gentleman from michigan has 16 1/2 minutes remaining. mr. crowley: i would remind mr. tipton that his constituents in colorado will see taxes of an increase of $786 if this bill is not enacted. i yield one minute to ms. lee from california.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from california is recognized for one minute. ms. lee: thank you very much. i thank the gentleman for yielding and for his leadership. mr. speaker, i rise in strong opposition to the political games that the republicans continue to play. we know that an extension of unemployment insurance is one of the most effective ways to get our economy going again and it's the right thing to do. especially because people are just living on the edge right now. yet, the g.o.p. is ready to cut unemployment benefits for 2.2 million americans. they're ready to raise taxes on 160 million americans by $1,000, yet, they want to lower taxes for those in the 1%. the g.o.p. is ready to tell 48 million seniors that they will no longer have access to their doctors. this is really outrageous. it's un-american and it's wrong. this jobs crisis is a national emergency and long-term unemployment is at unprecedented levels. we need an up or down vote on

the senate compromise. this recession and, yes, for many it is still a depression, it's still hurting so many, many people. half of all americans are either in poverty, near poor or low income. and it's really so sad that during this holiday season republicans are playing with the lives of millions. why -- the speaker pro tempore: the time has expired. mr. crowley: i yield the gentlelady 15 seconds. ms. lee: thank you, mr. crowley. why in the world won't you bring the senate bill to the floor and let the country see whose side you are on? thank you, again, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. which bill -- the house bill or the house bill, as amended, has a bigger tax cut? which bill? my friends on the other side seem to be confused. i ask unanimous consent to enter in the record the joint committee on taxation --

ms. lee: will the gentleman yield? mr. camp: i will not yield. i ask unanimous consent to he want into the record the joint committee on taxation their anational sieves both proposals and what they'll show, they'll show that the house bill that extends the payroll tax for a year provides $120 billion in tax relief to the american worker. the house bill, as amended by the senate, only provides $20 billion of tax relief to the american worker because they only extend it for two months. now, i've heard my colleagues talk about their two-month extension guaranteeing $1,000 tax cut. this is just flat wrong. the senate amendment caps the tax cut for that tax cut at only $167. that's shortchanging hardworking americans and house republicans won't stand for it. let's be clear, the average american worker would have more than $800 in their pocket next year under the house bill and with that i yield two minutes to the distinguished gentleman from colorado, mr. gardner. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. gardner: i thank the gentleman from michigan for yielding time. this argument seems a little confusing i'm sure to most people in america today. several months ago house republicans were accused of just disagreeing with the president because, oh, geez, the idea was the president so we wanted to disagree with him. well, here we are today agreeing with the president on a one-year, 12-month extension of the payroll tax holiday. let me read a quote from what this president said. this congress cannot and should not leave for holiday vacation until they've made sure that the tax increase doesn't happen. let me repeat. congress should not and cannot go on vacation before they have made sure that working families aren't seeing their taxes go up by $1,000 and those who are out there looking for work don't see their unemployment insurance expire. we passed a bill. the house bill that we passed with bipartisan support would provide $1,000 a year. i heard it many times. on the house floor as people come and say, this is $1,000 tax relief to the middle class. not under your plan.

the plan that the democrats put forward in the senate, the plan put forward in the house by our democratic colleagues would provide $167 -- mr. camp: i yield one minute. mr. gardner: would provide $167 worth of tax relief. $167 worth of tax relief is what they are fighting for today. let's talk about real reform. let's talk about real certainty that our economy needs. we've argued for $1,000 of tax relief to america's working families. you're talking about $160 of tax relief. you're willing to risk unemployment insurance, willing to risk the payroll tax increase because you're insisting on a $167 tax break when we're sitting here, let's provide $1,000 tax holiday? we can get our economy going again if we have the willingness to work with each other. and i hope that after today there is willingness by our friends in the senate to get the job done, to get our economy moving again and to make sure that this country

focuses on the real priority. that's the men and women in this country looking for work, finding a way to make ends meet. i urge to do what's right, appoint conferees. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york. kragh kragh i want to say -- mr. crowley: i want to say the absence of passing this bill today will have an increase of $1,026 in his county. and for the purposes of answering the gentleman from michigan's question, i'd yield to ms. lee for 10 seconds. ms. lee: i just wanted to say perhaps the gentleman was confused about which bill i was talking about. i was talking about the senate compromise which 39 republicans voted for which came over to the house which is bipartisan. that's the bill i was talking about. mr. crowley: i thank the gentlelady from california. with that i yield to the gentleman, mr. scott, for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. scott: let me talk about this one year. all of a sudden they wanted a one year. all of a sudden they want to do what president obama wants to do. you talk about certainty. you talk about uncertainty. nothing could be more uncertain than not giving the american people the secured knowledge and the confidence that at the end of the day that their taxes are not going up the first of january, that 2.2 million americans will get their unemployment. we can do that today. the senate has already given us that certainty. we're not talking about just a two-month extension. we're simply talking about putting into place a compromise that we could get that would get us into next year when we come back to finish the job and get a -- continue to get a one-year extension. so this facade of using this one year is nothing but a charade. you know it. doesn't matter what the time is. you don't want anything. two months, one year, 10 years.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: i would just yield myself such time as i may consume, mr. speaker, and let's just get back to the facts. the facts are that the house bill as amended by the senate is a two-month bill. the tax relief under that bill for the average american worker is $167. the house bill extends unemployment insurance for a full year. the tax relief under that bill is $1,000. but don't listen to me. look at the joint committee on taxation, the nonpartisan body that analyzes our legislation for the impact of tax policy on taxpayers. that's what they say. that's within the record. i will yield two minutes to the distinguished gentleman from michigan, mr. hughesener. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan is recognized for two minutes. mr. huizenga: thank you, chairman camp. i appreciate that and i'm a little confused myself. i saw one of our senate colleagues from new york on television this morning talking about how we needed to pass this

two-month extension and he would be the first one on an airplane back to washington, d.c., so that we could negotiate a year-long deal. i'm confused. why don't we just do that right now? that's what the american people expect. the american people expect us to get this deal done right now and to provide them some certainty for an entire year versus two months. now, this monday morning i had a breakfast with my joint chambers of commerce and we had almost 500 people there and when i asked the question, who here thinks that this two-month extension is a good idea, not a single hand went up. i said, ok, maybe i need to ask this a little differently. who here thinks this is a dumb idea to do a two-month extension? virtually every single hand in that breakfast went up. the american people are looking for long-term solutions. employers are looking for long-term solutions. it's called quarterly reports, all right? i'm a small business owner, oftentimes people have to file quarterly reports. we're not even doing them the service of giving them a full

quarter to change their paperwork, we're doing two out of three months. now, you want to talk about a burden on small business, i can tell you it is. it's time for this house to go to work, which we have done, it's time for our senate colleagues to do the exact same thing because guess what? my three employees, they're all at work today. why isn't that good enough for the senate? there's two things that fundamentally need to be included in this. first and foremost is 12 months of certainty. let's get through that debate of how we are going to offset the costs and how we are going to make sure that this works for the employee, the employer, those with a job and those without a job. we also need to make sure that we don't lose sight of the keystone pipeline in here. immediate 20,000 jobs that can be provided here in the united states. 20,000 jobs that could come to this country and help alleviate the need for these systems. the need for unemployment insurance. and it's the right thing to do. thank you, mr. chairman. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york. mr. crowley: i yield myself 15

seconds. i get it, you know, you guys were against, it i appreciate that. now you're for the middle class tax cut. you were against it but now you're for. it but what i don't understand is why can't we get through these next two months and we'll come back? eventually we're running out of time. well, we're not in charge. you all are. you could have done this back in september or october or november. now it's december. i get that you were against it, now you're for it. with that i yield -- the speaker pro tempore: the chair would remind all members to drecked their -- address their remarks to the chair. mr. crowley: i apologize, mr. speaker, i will do that through the chair. with that, mr. speaker, i will yield one minute to mr. butterfield. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. butterfield: thank you. let me thank the gentleman for yielding this brief time for me to respond. mr. speaker, i want to join my friend from georgia, mr. david scott, in trying to expose some of the hypocrisy that we're seeing playing out here on the house floor today. i'm just so terribley

disappointed that house republicans want -- terribly disappointed that house republicans want to ignore the overwhelming bipartisan senate vote a few days ago and are you failing to realize the devastation that millions of americans will experience. they're going to lose their unemployment benefits, the average family is going to realize a $1,000 tax increase on january 1 and let's not forget our doctors. there's some medical doctors sitting on that side of the chamber. medical doctors in this country who treat medicare patients will see a 27.3% decrease in their reimbursement rates. we can do better than this, mr. speaker. i urge my colleagues to reconsider their position, let's go ahead and vote for the two-month fix and let's get on into february and let's have this debate that you have been talking about over the last two hours. i thank the gentleman for the time, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: mr. speaker, can we -- mr. crowley: mr. speaker, can we inquire of the time? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york has six minutes remaining. jafflet michigan has 10 minutes remain -- the gentleman from

michigan has 10 minutes remaining. mr. camp: i yield two minutes to the distinguished j in a -- gentleman from louisiana, dr. fleming. mr. fleming: i thank my friend, the gentleman, mr. camp, for giving me time to speak. i just want to say, mr. speaker, that this boils down to one of two choices here today. we're going to be either voting for a two-month extension of the payroll tax or a one-year extension of the payroll tax. we'll either be voting for a two-month fix for reimbursement for physicians, health care providers in general, or we'll be voting for a one-year fix. now, for my money it should be one year versus two months. i don't understand really what the problem is. but having said that, let me also mention to you that this affects me and many of my friends back home in this way and that is, i'm a physician

myself and have many friends in the health profession, they're asking me, john, why in the world do you keep us upset like this all the time? why is it that we can't predict what our reimbursement rates are going to be from one month to another? they're desperately begging for us, not only to extend that for a year, but for two years and even beyond that. they're desperately asking for a fix. and we've been promising them that we would try. so that's a lot behind what we're here today about and that is to have a long-term solution to physicians. i also come from the small business sector. and i can tell you that when you do your tax defrls or the income -- deferrals or your income tax for your employees, that's usually done on a quarterly basis. well, how do you do it on a quarterly basis when you only have an extension for two

months? so, we have the associated bill -- builds and contractors and many that say that it is just absolutely flatly untenable. so i encourage that both chambers vote today to be in favor of sending this back to the senate, have the conferees get together. let's do it the way the constitution asked us to do it. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york. the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: thank you, mr. speaker. at this time i yield two minutes to the distinguished chairman of the energy and commerce committee, the gentleman from michigan, mr. upton. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. upton: i thank, my friend from michigan, chairman of ways and means. let's face it, mr. speaker. people across the country are not very happy and they are frankly so tired of washington games. they know that we have a divided government, they don't want to deal, they want -- want a deal, they want a solution. yes, they want to reform unemployment, yes, they want to extend the payroll tax deduction and yes, they want a doc fix.

without the doc fix we put literally millions of americans in jeopardy of decent health care because their physicians are not going to have the proper reimbursement for medicare. but coming from the state of michigan, i know that what americans want most are jobs. this bill, the republican alternative, provides jobs for keystone. 20,000 shovel-ready jobs in a $7 billion private investment right away. boiler mact regs, something that will protect as many as 200,000 businesses across the country. and spectrum, the sale of spectrum will create literally perhaps as many as 50,000 to 100,000 jobs as well. the last congress didn't deal with the budget. and we spent the first couple of months of this year dealing with what we thought was lucy and the football. bringing up a continuing resolution, watching it be extended for a week or two and then coming back with another

one. if we don't deal with these issues today we're going to have the same trouble in the next year, in the next couple of months. so let's stop playing lucy and the football. let's get a real solution to a problem that americans want us to solve. please support the republican alternative on this and respect the wishes of the house and i yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york. mr. crowley: i appreciate the gentleman's comments about the only games the american people want to see this holiday season is football but the reindeer games that are going on in this house is something the american people do not want to see any more of. with that i will yield two minutes to the gentlelady from texas, ms. sheila jackson lee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized for two minutes. ms. jackson lee: mr. speaker, we are doing what the american people have asked us to do.

i thank the gentleman for -- from new york for championing the cause of the american people and i thank our whip, mr. hoyer, for understanding that we need an up or down vote on the senate compromise and a motion for this conference that will not occur, to do what is right for the american people. i've already said that the holiday season for so many has just gone up in smoke. the lights on the christmas tree have just burst and the tree is burning. the candles throughout the house are now down and smolering. and people are bemourning the condition that this washington republicans have put them in. mothers, single mothers, families without are now begging for a lifeline and the gigantic ship, the cruise ship, is cruising on by and allowing them to drown in the dusty and dark waters of this land. i don't understand where there is no mercy, where there is no understanding. my good friend from michigan will see that his constituents, 70,000 of them, will lose unemployment benefits. the speaker from ohio, 58,000

will lose unemployment benefits. texas, 134,000. they understand that this is smoke and mirrors. i sat in the rules committee at 7:05 last night. we had a right to vote on the senate bill that was put before us. that rule was changed mid stream. the american people need to understand. we had in line through the rules committee controlled by the republicans to put on the agenda for us to vote up or down on the senate bill. we were not allowed to do that because they thought the senate bill for reasonable people might pass. they thought that the senator's words might prevail in the ears of the washington republicans that said, do what is right for the american people. they thought senator snow's words might prevail which is to say, we all have disagreement but let us not hold up the unemployment. mr. crowley: i yield the

gentlelady an additional 15 seconds. ms. jackson lee: thank you. let us not hold up the unemployment, let us not hold up the payroll tax because those individuals said they didn't want it in the first place. mr. president, if you have executive order powers, let's just pass it, let's just rule on it, let us come back and deal with it for a year because they know they're not serious and i'm not going to see the holiday season go up in smoke. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: mr. speaker, at this time i have no further speakers. i'm prepared to close if the gentleman is prepared to close. mr. crowley: we have two additional speakers including myself and with that i will yield to mr. cohen for -- one minute to mr. cohen. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. cohen: thank you, mr. speaker. this is a very sad day for the american people. there was an opportunity with the democrats in the senate and the republicans in the senate, 89 of them, including my senior senator, senator heller, former colleague and classmate in this

class, senator lugar, senators collins and snow and others came together, they said, we need to protect the american people, protect the opportunity to see doctors when you're on medicare, get on insurance and keep the tax break. they came together and said, let's do it for 60 days, we can come back later and then we can work on it for the rest of the year. they knew what was possible within the time allotted to it. unfortunately my colleagues on the other side don't realize what time makes available. there is no possibility of the senate coming back and having a exro conference committee. they are saying, bah-humbug to the compromise and bipartisanship we saw in the senate. it's an unfortunate day for the american people and i'm sorry for my folks who will not be able to get doctors to treat them, unemployment compensation or tax -- or a tax break. with that i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan. mr. camp: mr. speaker, i do have an additional speaker and i yield two minutes to the distinguished gentleman from georgia, dr. gingrey. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. gingrey: mr. speaker, i thank the gentleman for yielding and i rise in opposition to this

democrat motion to instruct the conferees, assuming that they're going to instruct the conferees to adopt the senate amendment. clearly this house has spoken in a bipartisan way with h.r. 3630. in fact, we will follow this debate with a resolution, h.res. 501, restating the provisions of h.r. 3630 which basically gives that tax break to 160 million middle income americans for a full year. it extends the unemployment insurance to 99 weeks, for those who have been out of work for more than six months, for an additional year, and last but certainly not least, mr. speaker, it gives the assurance of the physicians in this country that provide care for our blessed senior citizens under a medicare program that

their reimbursement will not be cut 27%. no, indeed, it not only mitigates that cut, but it pluses it up by 1% for two full years. . this gives the doctors the ashunes they know they can continue to treat medicare patients. i can't help but believe, mr. speaker, that the other side of the aisle agrees with all three of these provisions. it's beyond me that they would disagree with the job creating keystone x.l. pipeline, 120,000-plus jobs. it's hard for me to understand how they could oppose any of that. no, i think really this is all about how we pay for it. what the democrats want to do, mr. speaker, is they want to charge increased taxation on the job creators in this country. what we want to do is pay for it by freezing the pay of all these federal employees, yes, including ourselves, for three additional years, in a very responsible way.

and other provisions on this side that make sense for the american people. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. gingrey: reject this motion to instruct. mr. crowley: may i inquire how much time is left? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york has 2 1/2 minutes remaining. the gentleman from michigan has four minutes remaining. mr. crowley: thank you. with that i'm prepared to close. in the meantime, while we're waiting for a speaker, i want to remind mr. gingrey that his constituents in cobb county will see a potential increase of $1,258 in their taxes in the absence of passing this bill today. the speaker pro tempore: who yields time? mr. camp: i'm prepared to close. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york. mr. crowley: i thank you, mr. speaker. i thank my friend from michigan as well. for this debate. i listened very closely, very

intently to the words of speaker boehner, a man whom i have tremendous respect for. i note he's having difficult times with his side of the aisle. i know he would 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 two-month extender. somehow by just passing this it would only mean about 160-some-odd dollars for the average american worker in tax savings. i would suggest the absence of doing anything is a $1,000 increase on average to the average working middle class american today.

$1,000 increase. the absence of doing nothing. now, we all know the senate can't get 60 votes to even -- to say that december 25th is christmas. we understand that. they have gone home for the holidays already. they are not coming back. we need to pass this bill today or we see that no bill pass and an increase in middle class taxes will take place. now, you will argue how did we get here? i don't know. i'm not minority. you are in the majority. the president suggested extending this payroll tax cut back in september. in fact, he wanted to enhance it back in september, but we didn't take it up then with the jobs bill. quite frankly we haven't taken up a jobs bill yet in this house. a full year has almost expired and not a jobs bill on the floor to put americans back to work. i listened again to my colleague, mr. fattah, from pennsylvania, when he said he reeled off a number of positive things happening today that home builder numbers are up.

2459 -- that the economy is improving. we have seen jobs increase in this contry. people who are on unemployment insurance decreasing. that's happening right now. why is it, i ask, why is it when something good happens to the american people and to our economy somehow it's perceived as being bad for the republican majority? isn't it sad? that somehow that's the sense that people have. mr. speaker, i hope that we can pass this bill. send the miles per hour people a message we can work together on -- send the american people a message we can work on their behalf. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from michigan ecked have. mr. camp: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. camp: the minority seems fixated on this notion since the senate passed their version of a house bill by 89-10, somehow the house needs to take their work product, no changes to accept it. vote for it. less than three weeks ago the senate passed the defense authorization bill by a vote of

93-7. did the house just accept that and send it to the president? no. we requested a conference on december 7 and a week later that conference report was approved by the house. there's no reason other than the senate's insistent that a month-long vacation we can't do the same here to provide a year-long solution to the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance for a year and a two-year fix on the physician payments in medicare. what's known as the s.g.r., sustainable growth rate formula. vote no on this motion to instruct. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. all time for debate has expired. pursuant who house resolution 502, the previous question is ordered. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the noes have it. mr. crowley: mr. speaker, i request a recorded vote. the speaker pro tempore: sew does the gentleman ask for the

yeas and nays? mr. crowley: i ask for the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20 , further proceedings on this question will be postponed. the gentlelady from maryland, for what purpose does the gentlelady rise? ms. edwards: pursuant to clause it 2-a of paragraph 9 i rise to give notice to offer a resolution to raise a question of the privileges of the house. the form of the resolution is as follows. resolution, raising a question of the privileges of the house. whereas in article on december 15, 2011, on the politico newspaper website quoted the representative from florida, mr. west, as saying, quote, if joseph goebbels was around he would be very proud of the democrat party because they have an incredible propaganda machine. i think that you have and let's be honest, you know, some of the people in the media are

complicit in this in enabling them to get that type of message out, end quote. whereas joseph goebbels served as the third riket's -- reich's ministered of public enlightenment and propaganda from 1933 to 1945. whereas joseph goebbels openly used racism in his quest to denewmanize european jewry. whereas he made jews a scapegoat of german economic insecurity fostering anti-semitism. whereas the united states holocaust million morial museum reports, quote, that joseph goebbels delivered a passionate anti-is he met eck speech to the nazi party on november 9, 1938. after this speech, nazi officials ordered the storm troopers, s.a., and other party formations to attack jews and destroyed their homes, businesses, and houses of worship. the violence against jews lasted -- lasts into the morning hours of november 10,

and becomes known as the kristallnacht, the night of the broken glass. several dozen jews lose their lives and tens of thousands are arrested and sent to concentration camps, end quote. whereas nazi germany and their collaborators killed six million european jews and millions of others as part of their final solution. whereas by invoking the specter of joseph goebbels the representative from florida, mr. west, thoroughly belittles the horrors and suffering experienced by the victims and survivors of the holocaust. whereas the american jewish committee issued a december 15, 2011 statement saying, quote, to make a linkage between any main stream political party in the united states and the heinous atrocities committed by the third reich should be simply beyond the pale, whatever political differences may arise in a heated electoral season. by invoking the image of joseph goebbels and the gestapo,

representative west displayed a complete lack of understanding of the worst again sidal era in human history. moreover, he's diminished and trivialized the evil perpetrated by the their reich through his unfortunate use of language. whereas the anti-defamation league said in a december 16, 2011 letter to the representative from florida, mr. west, quote, we were deeply dismayed by representative west's remarks -- remark comparing the democratic party's attempts to articulate views to the america people through the media to the efforts of the nazi propaganda minister, joseph goebbels. such outrageous holocaust aal gees have no place in our political dialogue. they are offensive. they trivialized real historical events, and they diminish the memory of the six million jews and millions of others who perished in the holocaust, end quote. railroadas the representative from michigan, mr. conyers, wrote in a letter to the

representative from florida, mr. west, that the representative from florida should, quote, help raise the level of congressional discourse in a vigorous debate, end quote. whereas the representative from florida, mr. west, responded back in a letter to the representative from michigan, mr. conyers, that, quote, the democrat party does indeed have a vicious propaganda machine. it espouses lies and deceit and the master of deexceptive information would be truly proud, end quote. whereas in the repetition of this abhorrent and outrageous sentiment to the representative from michigan, mr. conyers, the representative from florida, mr. west, demonstrates not only the willful and maliciousness application of history but also his disdain for the decorum of the congress. and whereas, the conduct of the representative from florida was repugnant now therefore be it resolved that the house of

representatives disapproves of the behavior of the representative from florida, mr. west, for bringing discredit to the house by offending the memory of those who died during the holocaust. the speaker pro tempore: under rule 9 the resolution offered from the floor by a member other an the majority and minority leader as question of the privilege of the house has immediate precedent only at a time designated by the chair within two legislative days after the resolution is properly noticed. pending that designation, the form of the resolution noticed by the gentlewoman from maryland will appear in the record at this point. the chair will not at this point determine resolution whether it is a question of privilege. that determination will be made at the time designated for consideration of the resolution. ms. edwards: thank you, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia rise mr. price: pursuant to house resolution 5202, i call up h.res. 501 and ask for its immediate consideration. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the resolution. the clerk: house 501, resolution expressing the sense of the house of representatives regarding any final measure to

extend the payroll tax holiday extend federally funded unemployment insurance benefits, or prevent decreases in reimbursement for physicians who provide care to medicare beneficiaries. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to house resolution 502, the resolution is considered as read. the gentleman from georgia, mr. price, and a member to be recognized later, each will control 30 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from georgia, mr. price. mr. price: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. price: thank you. mr. speaker, clearly the economy and jobs is the number one issue for the american people all across this land. and if you ask the folks who create jobs, what's the greatest impediment to job creation, they say it's uncertainty. businesses don't know what taxes are going to be. job creators don't know what the rules and regulations are going to be. employees and workers don't know if their job will be lost. doctors don't know whether or not they are going to be able to see medicare patients. patients don't know whether or not they are going to be able to see their doctors.

therefore the house believes what the american people already know, that more certainty, greater certainty is imperative if we are going to get this economy rolling again. consequently we, the house, passed a bill that provides that certainty. our bill provides for one year extension of the payroll contribution of social security, offset so that social security resources are not depleted. our bill provides for a 13-month extension of federal unemployment benefits with real reform, including job training and helping folks get g.e.d.'s and allowing drug screening by states for those receiving benefits should they so desire. our bill provides a two-year extension of payments to doctors caring for seniors, for medicare patients, so that our parents and grandparents can continue to see their doctors. so the house passed a one-year extension of payroll tax deductions and paid for it with

reducing spending elsewhere, and the senate, mr. speaker, wants 60 days and more uncertainty. the house passed a 13-month extension of federal unemployment benefits, the senate wants 60 days and more uncertainty. the house passed a two-year continuation of funding for doctors to see medicare patients. the senate, that's right, mr. speaker, 60 days and more uncertainty. republicans and democrats in both the house and senate agreed that we ought to extend these items, there's no debate about that. . the difference lie with whether or not we get our job done now or do we punt on fulfilling our responsibilities for another two months. the senate's action is unworkable and unacceptable. various organizations representing job creators have already said that a two-month punt is unworkable and costly, therefore harming more job creation. now, we're ready to sit down with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle and or the other side of the capitol to get

a one-year extension put in place before the end of this year. that's what you do when there are differences in the house and the senate. both sides have passed legislation but we have disagreements. so now we ought to sit down like congresses have done for over 200 years and work out those differences. and we ought to do that today. not two months from now. this resolution makes it clear that the house supports taking care of middle class families, seniors and job creators. it makes clear that the house stands ready and willing to work with the senate to get this done. if our colleagues on the other side of the aisle support providing relief and certainty for middle class families and for seniors and for job creators, then they ought to support this resolution. there's a bipartisan support for the proposals within this resolution. and there's bipartisan support for a one-year extension. i call on my colleagues to support this resolution and support the efforts under way to work out our differences with

the democrat-led senate and put in place a set of solutions that will create certainty for families, job creators and seniors. and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from south carolina will control 30 minutes. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i rise to claim time in opposition as the designee of mr. levin. and yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. >> thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, unemployment rates, according to a recent report this morning, has fallen in 43 states in the month of november. mr. clyburn: the most states to decline since 2003. the media are reporting that the economy has generated 100,000 or more jobs five months in a row.

the first time that's happened since 2006. before the great recession. mr. speaker, 89 senators, 50 democrats and 39 republicans, have passed a bipartisan agreement to extend the current payroll tax, unemployment insurance benefits and medicare doctors' payments for another 60 days so that we can continue to seek common ground for a full 12-month extension and keep these great numbers in front of us. let there be no mistake, the only way for the members of this body to prevent a tax increase on 160 million working americans is to pass the senate's bipartisan agreement.

the only way to prevent cutting off unemployment insurance for 2.2 million americans who are currently unemployed and looking for work is to pass the senate's bipartisan agreement. let be be crystal clear -- let me be crystal clear. the only way to prevent cutting funds to pay doctors who care for medicare patients is to pass the senate's bipartisan agreement. the senate democratic leader and the senate republican leader demonstrated to the american people that democrats and republicans can work together. they passed a bipartisan compromise to get this done. and, mr. speaker, my constituents continue to ask time and time again why can't

you guys work together? -- again, why can't you guys work together to get something done for the american people? it is a good question, it is a fair question. and the senate has answered that we can. it is my fervent hope that we in this body join them today and do the right thing for the american people. mr. speaker, i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from georgia. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i respectfully suggest to my friend from south carolina that the best way to provide certainty for families and job creators and for seniors is to have a house-senate conference committee work together for the end of the year and i'm pleased to yield 1 1/2 minutes to my friend and colleague from tennessee, mr. roe. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for 1 1/2 minutes. mr. roe: i thank the gentleman for yielding. mr. speaker, last week the house passed middle class tax relief and job creation act with the support of both sides of the aisle. the economy is struggling. perhaps getting better, but struggle -- struggling.

the president asked for a one-year extension of the payroll tax holiday for one year. we agreed with that, a one-year extension. ex -- the unemployment insurance plan benefits, we agree with that. a two-year extension of the so-called doc fix. i'm a physician. i have been here now for three years and in the three years i have been here, mr. speaker, we've had six temporary extensions, this will be number seven, for access to care for patients we must get a permanent fix for s.g.r. or no patients are going to have access. and i have spoken to numerous colleagues who totally disagree with this 60 days and a true shovel-ready project which is the keystone pipeline which will give us access to energy in this with one of our best neighbors, canada. all of these issues are paid for with spending cuts, not tax increases and not deficit spending. the senate, however, passed only a 60-day extension, the house,

one year. 60 days versus one year. the distinguished senator from tennessee, senator bob corker, just said, senator reid should stop this political gamesmanship, call the senate back into session and follow regular order which means, both sides of the aisle distribute house and the senate -- aisle, the house and the senate, produce a conference bill to produce better legislation which reflects the will of the house and the senate. we should be at work this week to finish the business they elected us to do. please support this amendment. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina. mr. clyburn: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, i now yield two minutes to the gentlelady from new york, mrs. maloney. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized for two minutes. mrs. maloney: i thank the gentleman for his leadership and for yielding. the senate has gone home for christmas and just five minutes before i came to this floor the president made an announcement from the white house that he supported the bipartisan senate

compromised bill that passed the senate 89-10. and we need to pass it and wrap up this christmas present for the middle class. instead of the pattern of obstruction that is constantly coming from the other side of the aisle we should introduce the senate bill here in the house and pass it for the american people. the house leadership should allow an up or down vote and extend the payroll tax cut, the unemployment benefits and the doc fix for the middle class. without this two-month extension 160 million americans will face a tax hike starting january 1. the idea that it's somehow acceptable to let this happen is to be blind to the economic struggles that the american middle class families have now facing. and to be totally, totally deaf

to the cries of help from the many people, the 2.2 million americans who will see their unemployment benefits expire if we do not pass the senate bill. this is an exercise in partisan ideology that will also result in an additional 48 million seniors being denied access to their doctors. no bill would make everybody happy, but to stop this senate bill now, one that is so important to so many americans, just to please the rigged ideology of the very few, it is the -- rig i had ideology of the very few, it is -- rigid ideology of the very few, it is the tail wagging the elephant and it is just in time for christmas and it is indefensible. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia. mr. price: thank you, mr. speaker. i'm pleased to yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from texas, mr. barton. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentleman is recognized for 1 1/2 minutes. mr. barton: i thank the distinguished policy chairman. i thank the gentleman from idaho for his even-handed leadership in the debate. and i would ask unanimous consent to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. barton: mr. speaker, i voted to send the senate bill to conference and i hope that both parties in both chambers appoint serious conferees and really try to come up with a solution to the problem. i do want to point out a few facts that have been avoided on both sides of the aisle. it's really not a payroll tax, it is a social security dedicated trust fund tax. since franklin roosevelt and the congress created social security in the 1930's payroll social security taxes go into the system by workers, employers and self-employed individuals and then benefits come out. last year for the first time we reduced the amount of social security taxes going into the system and gave an i.o.u. from

the treasury into the social security trust fund. the extension, whether it's for two months or one year of that same policy this year, is taking $120 billion to $150 billion out of the system that's real money and putting into it an i.o.u. that we will pay at a date in the future. it would be like if i went to the doctor and the doctor tells me that i've got lung cancer and say, well, what should i do, doctor? he says, smoke more cigarettes. i mean, we pay more out in social security benefits this current year than we paid in and this exacerbates the problem. i would ask that we come up with a permanent solution, mr. speaker, and not keep avoiding the problem. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina. mr. clyburn: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield four minutes to the gentleman from california, mr. waxman.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for four minutes. mr. waxman: mr. speaker, this has been a terrible year in could congress. the intransigence of the republican leadership and the tea party republicans has brought us to the brink of crisis again and again and now we're playing another game of chicken with the lives and well-being of millions of american families at stake. >> mr. speaker, the house is not in order. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is correct. the house will be in order. members at the back of the chamber, please take seats, move conversations from the floor. the gentleman from california. mr. waxman: did the republican leadership in the house just learn today that in the end of this month, in 10 or 11 days, these tax breaks, the unemployment insurance, the physician reimbursements were going to expire? no. they learned about it earlier so they packaged a bill and the only way they could figure to

pay for it was to take it out of the federal employees, ask the elderly to pay more for their medicare, to cut back on spending, never to raise taxes on people who make $1 million a year. the senate had the same issue before them. and the democrats there wanted to have a tax increase. they couldn't get that through. so the senators negotiated a short-term extension for two months. because they couldn't agree to a year and that passed overwhelmingly. that's what we should be voting on today. instead the house republicans are bringing a tax increase starting january 1 to 160 million americans, forcing two million americans to the edge of despair as their unemployment benefits run out and scaring 48 million seniors who worry about their doctors opting out of

providing services under medicare. and to add insult to injury, this resolution seeks to impose the republicans' extreme -- extreme antienvironment agenda. this has been the most antienvironment house of representatives in the history of congress and this resolution is a fitting capstone to this dismal record. the house republicans are holding payroll tax cuts, unemployment insurance, payment to physicians under medicare hostage to the demands of the oil and gas industry. the house republicans want to force the president to approve the keystone x.l. tar sands pipeline. they forget that the future of our economy lies in clean energy, not increasing our reliance on the dirtiest source of gasoline imaginable. they would like to hold the

pipeline as one of the prices for their lack of bill but they also want to give some other special interest favors. a lump of coal for american families but at the same time they want e.b. -- e.p.a.'s public health standards, which would prevent 51 -- 5,100 heart attacks a year, they want to eliminate those public health benefits that come with clean air and instead they want provisions in this bill which has nothing to do with this issue, they want these provisions to allow more mercury, lead, arsenic pollution in the the air we breathe. . we have seen this over and over and over again. they cannot agree on a compromise to pay for anything. they cannot agree on letting something happen without putting in the anti-environmental riders. once again the republican leadership has shown the lengths to which they will go to impose their radical extreme agenda.

sacrificing the public health and welfare of the american people. the senate has least came up with a bipartisan compromise for two months. this house republican leadership will put us in a situation where all of these expiring -- expiring provision also expire and the american people will be done a great disservice by this action. yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia. mr. price: i'm pleased to yield one minute to a productive and excellent member of our conference, mr. wilson from south carolina. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. wilson: thank you, mr. speaker. i'd like to thank the chairman for yielding. i want to thank him for his leadership of the republican policy committee and his work on this legislation. last week the house passed a one-year payroll extension which included a provision to override the administration's decision against the keystone pipeline. a real shovel ready project. the president's decision will delay the project until 2013. after the election which clearly reveals this is a

political not scientific decision. on august 26, department of state deemed the project to be environmentally sound after three years of analysis. in late october i was fortunate to visit alberta, canada, america's largest trading partner, and witnessed firsthand the canadian oil sand development and extraordinary environmental safeguards to produce oil in north america. the construction of this environmentally advanced project will create the 120,000 new jobs in america. with record unemployment, americans need jobs now, and i know parent that the workers of michelin tire corporation of lexington, south carolina, are ready to produce huge earth mover tires. and m.t.u. will produce engines. i yield the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina. mr. clyburn: thank you. mr. speaker, i want to remind my good friend from south carolina that the keystone pipeline is in the senate bill.

with that, mr. speaker, i would like to yield two minutes to the gentlelady from california, mrs. susan caves. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized for two minutes. mrs. davis: we are here today because the senate did a terrible thing in the eyes of the house majority, they had the audacity to work together and come up with a compromise. at the request of the speaker of the house, the senate majority leader and the senate minority leader reached a compromise on a payroll tax cut extension. there are even high fives around senate republicans after that saturday vote. 89 senators voted for it, including 82% of senate republicans. the speaker called it, and i quote, a good deal. but then came the revolt from house republicans. people are asking, mr. speaker, and i think it's a fair question to ask, do house republicans really want congress to function? by denying a vote on this

bipartisan compromise, it allows them to continue to push their theme that washington is dysfunctional and does not work. had the house majority brought up a clean tax bill last week, we would not even be here today. but instead they offered a bill that was loaded with special interest riders that was designed to fail and in fact it did fail. the majority claims that it wants certainty, with a long-term extension of the middle class tax cut. yes, many here, clg myself -- including my sex we do want a long-term extension and those negotiations will continue. if the house majority was talking about tax cuts for the wealthiest americans, they would roll out the red carpet. but when it comes to help and support for the middle class, they pull the rug out from under them. it is clear, mr. speaker, that we are willing to support 120 billion that they are willing

to support $120 billion tax increase on americans fighting to restore the american dream rather than accepting this bipartisan compromise that is before us today. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia. mr. price: thank you, mr. speaker. how much time remains for each side? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia has 22 1/2 minutes remaining. the gentleman from south carolina has 19 minutes remaining. mr. price: thank you, mr. speaker. i'm pleased to yield one minute to the gentleman from california, mr. mcclintock. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. mcclintock: i thank the gentleman. in all of this debate i think both parties have overlooked a critical problem. both versions of this bill impose a permanent new tax on every mortgage backed by fannie mae and freddie mac. to pay for additional two months of tax relief under the senate version or 12 months under the house version, more than 3,000 -- $3,000 of new taxes would be imposed on over

$150,000 mortgage backed by fannie and freddie. a family making $250,000 mortgage will pay $5,000 more in taxes directly and solely because of this bill hidden in their future mortgage payments. this is atrocious public policy. it shifts the burden for this bill to future home buyers, kicks the housing market when it's already down, makes it that much more expensive for home buyers to re-enter the market, and adds to the pressures that have chronically depressed the home values. that's the reason the senate and house versions need to go back for major revision. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina. mr. clyburn: thank you very much, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, it is now my clesh sure to yield two minutes to the -- it is now my pleasure to yield two minutes to the gentleman from rhode island, mr. langevin. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from rhode island is recognized for two minutes. without objection. mr. langevin: i thank the

gentleman for yielding. mr. speaker, i find it thoroughly unconscionable that house republicans are preventing congress from working its will by stifling a vote to support a bipartisan senate compromise to extend unemployment benefits to the middle class for two months. while i strongly believe the middle class tax cuts and other provisions within the bill deserve a full-year extension, the other intransigence of tea party republicans have made a compromise without a self-imposed crisis impossible. we could have spent better part of a year work on this bill and others like it to buoy our economy and help americans get back to work instead the republican majority spent the entire session considering multiple bills repeal health reform, and further deregulate the financial industry, none of which helps create jobs for my constituents back in rhode island. now my colleague on the other side of the aisle have made a last-minute decision to derail a compromise on the one bill

that economists agree would satellite the economy. as a result when -- stimulate the economy. as a result when families across rhode island come together to face the holidays, they face the possibility of paying higher taxes or seeing their unemployment benefits expire in the new year. this is unacceptable and it is unnecessary. mr. speaker, americans are weary of the political games and the broken promises that have brought it to this point. they want a congress that can come together and legislate in their best interest. instead, house republicans are holding the middle class tax cuts hostage to further their political agenda despite calls from members of their own party asking them to accept a bipartisan compromise which overwhelmingly passed the senate 89-10. mr. speaker, i urge my republican colleagues to stop risking the welfare of the american people for their political leverage. give us the opportunity to pass a two-month extension so that our constituents have some reassurance that they won't be worse off come new year's day.

the interest of the american families deserve to be put odd before the interests of political partisanship during this holiday season, i pray this congress can honor that. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia. mr. price: thank you, mr. speaker. i'm pleased to yield 1 1/2 minutes to a dear friend and a wonderful member of the energy and commerce committee, the gentlelady from tennessee, mrs. blackburn. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized for 1 1/2 minutes. mrs. blackburn: thank you, mr. speaker. i thank the gentleman from georgia for his excellent work on h.r. 501, which expresses what we as republicans stand for. as we fight to provide accountability for hardworking american taxpayers. we are for certainty for these taxpayers. we are for unemployment insurance reforms. we are for freezing federal salaries. we are for certainty for our seniors. we are for fairness for our doctors and hospitals.

we are for jobs for the american people in the form of the keystone x.l. pipeline, in the form of boiler mact and the other bills that will help put thousands of americans back to work. we all know that washington takes too much and washington wastes a lot of the money that it takes in. the american people want to see more of that money left in their pocket. indeed, mr. speaker, part of the debate that is taking place today is about a transition that we are going through and house republicans are grateful for the opportunity to lead this transition from a government that is addicted to the taxpayers' money. yes, indeed, it never gets enough, to a government that is going to be accountable to the hardworking american taxpayer. now, for some of my colleagues they may want to call that radical. they may want to call it

extreme. they may want -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. mrs. blackburn: that it is holding ideas hostage. it is about freedom. we stand -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. mrs. blackburn: i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina. mr. clyburn: thank you, mr. speaker. i remind the gentlelady from tennessee that that's exactly what this bill is designed to do. put into the pockets of 160 million americans an extended tax cut. with that, mr. speaker, i'd like to yield two minutes to the gentleman from minnesota, mr. ellison. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. ellison:let me thank the gentleman. we are here because for the last year the majority could have come down here and we could have had this debate all this time, but at the 11th hour after they signaled to the senate, work it out, get a deal together because we have not done it, the senate did work that deal out and now that it has come back, our friends in the house majority has said,

not good enough. conveniently after the senate has gone home. it feels like a setup. i don't question motives, but it feels that way. and it goes to the heart of the matter. is the government here of the people, by the people, for the people, and for the benefit of the people or do people basically have hostility to government and want to make government look dysfunctional at every turn? the fact is, mr. speaker, there was an agreement in the senate. and it was coming over here. and it looked like government was going to prevail and that we had gotten our act together and worked it out. but before that could ever happen, the people who stand in opposition to good government broke their deal apart. the people who believe the government should be -- to the size it could be drowned in the bathtub, could not possibly have let it go through and they smashed that deal and right now this year the clock is running

out. the senate has gone home. and our friends on the other side of the aisle are playing a dangerous game with the lives of 160 million americans. it's a shame and disgrace. we ought to pass this bill the senate sent over here and stop messing around with the livelihood of americans. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia. mr. price: mr. speaker, i'm honored to yield three minutes to our republican chair of our conference, the gentleman from texas, mr. hensarling. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. mr. hensarling: mr. speaker, if my friends on the other side of the aisle are confused why we are here, let me enlighten them. it's because the president's policies have failed. in the obama economy, unemployment has been at, near, or above 9% ever since the gentleman was elected. one in seven on food stamps. small business start-ups at a 17-year low. mr. speaker, that's why we are

here today. i think almost everyone in this chamber agrees, yes, we want to extend the social security payroll tax holiday, but what is so cheerest to me, mr. speaker, i hear my friends on the other side of the aisle we need to do it for a year, but we are only willing to vote for 60 days. i don't understand that, mr. speaker. and i hear my friends on the other side of the aisle say, middle income families deserve this $1,000 tax cut. yet they are only willing to vote for 1 $160. then they say we have to pass it today. we can't let new year's day come without passing this. and yet they won't appoint anybody to a conference committee and everyone's getting ready to run to the airport. i don't understand it, mr. speaker. so the question is, are my friends on the other side of the aisle, are they interested in making a law that will help american families and

hardworking taxpayers, or are they interested in making a campaign issue that they can recycle every 60 days? now, only they can answer the question. mr. speaker, it is inconvenient in tough economic times that our constituents have to work over the holidays. maybe it should be inconvenient to us as well. we stand ready, we just can't do our job if the senate democratic leader refuses to appoint anybody. if the house democratic leader refuses to appoint anybody to sit down and negotiate in good faith. . i'm sorry it's inconvenient for my friends on the other side of the aisle to work on the holidays. and last but not least i hear my friends on the other side of the aisle say we need something that works for the american people. well, guess what? once again they didn't consult with the american people. all of the employers that we hear about are saying this is

unworkable. the associated builders and contractors, i quote, talking about their 60-day plan this sort of temporary fax underscores congress' uneven, ad hoc approach toward the economy and causes more harm than good for america's job creators. i hear from job creators from my own district in texas, quote, the two-month extension is more hassle than a help. it's impossible to budget and plan for an unknown. mr. speaker, if you want a year of tax relief, vote for a year of tax relief. if you want $1,000 of tax relief, vote for it and be willing to work over the holidays. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina. mr. clyburn: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, i remind my friend from texas that according to our reports last month 43 states registered a decrease in unemployment, the first time that's happened since the year 2003.

with that i would like to yield two minutes to the gentleman from new york, mr. towns. mr. towns: i thank my friend for yielding. i rise because i believe we have lost sight on why we are here. i want to remind my colleagues that we are here to represent the american people. we are here to ensure that as many as possible have the resources they need to pay their bills, feed their families and maintain a suitable place to live. today there are millions of americans who are struggling and do not have a suitable place to live. many people are suffering because of an economy that is beyond their control. the bottom line is they need us to do something about it. they need us to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance for at least the next two months until we can agree on

how to do it for an entire year. the last thing working americans need to see is a reduction in their paychecks. because we failed to extend the payroll tax cuts. we can today make sure that at least get some assistance for the next two months, then we can reach an agreement on how to do this for the entire year. that doesn't seem to be unreasonable. it's just two months. we need to vote on the senate bill today. my colleague was talking about not leaving town. you're right. we should not leave town until we pass this bill and we need to let millions of struggling families and children know that they will have some relief at least for the next two months so they can enjoy the holidays, so

they can really believe in merry christmas and a happy new year. and that's all we need to do before leaving here, is to pass it for two months, just two months. and on that note i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia. mr. price: thank you, mr. speaker. i'm pleased to yield one minute to my physician colleague from indiana, mr. buechon. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. boucher: -- mr. buchanan: mr. speaker, i rood today -- mr. bucshon: no one chooses when they have a heart attack. i did my job. i'm here today to do my job and i'll work through the holidays if that's what it takes. we have 11 days to pass a tax relief bill, along with an extension of unemployment insurance, temporary assistance for needy families and finally 11 days to prevent a 27% cut to medicare that will put american seniors at risk for losing their access to quality what health care. seniors rely on being able to

see their doctors, this 60-day patch does nothing to create certainty for providers or seniors. in fact, it jeopardizes their care. i support the bill we passed last week, i support this resolution, i urge my colleagues to vote yes on house resolution 501. thank you and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina. mr. clyburn: mr. speaker, may i inquire as to how much time i have remaining. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina has 12 3/4 minutes remaining. the gentleman from georgia has 16 minutes remaining. mr. clyburn: mr. speaker, i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from georgia. mr. price: thank you, mr. speaker. i'm pleased to yield one minute to a freshman member from mississippi, mr. nunnelee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. nunnelee: thank you, mr. speaker. i'd like to thank the chairman for yielding. i rise in support of the house-passed provisions, specifically the provisions relating town employment insurance reform. we passed a full year, we extended the benefits but we added commonsense reform.

things like strengthening enforcement of waste, fraud and abuse in unemployment benefits. strengthening work search and education requirements. and allowing states to test for drugs for those that are receiving benefits. it's very simple. if men and women that are working have to pass a drug test in order to draw their paycheck, those receiving unemployment benefits ought to have to pass the same drug test. so i call on harry -- harry reid to bring the senate back to work so we can reach a full year's agreement that includes these reforms to our unemployment insurance. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina. mr. clyburn: mr. speaker, i continue to reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from georgia. mr. price: thank you, mr. speaker. i'm pleased to yield to another physician colleague and a colleague from the state of georgia, my friend, mr. gingrey, 1 1/2 minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for 1 1/2 minutes. mr. gingrey: mr. speaker, i thank my colleague for yielding and i rise in strong support of

h.res. 501 and commend the gentleman for the work he has done. colleagues, of course, resolution 501 restates the provisions in house bill 3630, that we passed last friday in a very bipartisan way, sent it over to the senate, things like, yes, extending the payroll tax cut to 160 million middle income americans for a full year, allowing 99 weeks of unemployment insurance coverage for those individuals that have been out of work for more than six months, we do that for an additional year, and last but not least, to mitigate the payment cuts, the 27% payment cut to health care providers who need to be there for our senior citizens. with you do this all and we pay for it in a responsible way. now, let's be serious about the controversy here in regard to this senate amendment versus our bill, h.r. 3630.

and it's time, mr. speaker, to end the mendacity. there is not one scintilla of logic in the senate amendment to house bill h.r. 3630. the only thing that makes sense is the democratic majority in the senate wants to pay for these things by raising taxes on job creators. we in the house want to pay for it in a much more responsible way, raising taxes on nobody, but freezing salaries for federal employees, yes, including ourselves, for the next three years. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. gingrey: if the gentleman would yield me an additional 15 seconds. mr. price: an additional 15 seconds. mr. gingrey: i thank the gentleman. the sale of electric nag netic spectrum -- magnetic spectrum which will create thoupses of jobs. so, let's don't make any pretenses about this. the house and the senate have choices them. can name the conferees, they can come to conference and they can

get this done or they can let these bills fail and fail the american people. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina. mr. clyburn: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield two minutes to the gentlelady from alabama, mrs. sewell. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized for two minutes. ms. sewell: mr. speaker, instead of doing what's best for the american people, we are once again dealing with the same old partisan politics that has plagued this congress this entire year. the senate amended and passed a bipartisan bill that would extend the payroll cuts for millions of workers and families and protect unemployment benefits for americans while ensuring our seniors have access to critical health care. this senate version reflects a compromise that was negotiated in good faith, mr. speaker. by both senate democrats as well as senate republicans. it was overwhelmingly approved by 89 senators including 39 republican senators. as members of congress, it is

absurd, i believe, that we are being deprived the opportunity, denied the opportunity to vote for a bill that would add certainty to the economy and to the people that we represent. it is unacceptable that some of my colleagues in the house, the republican colleagues in the house, have once again refused to compromise. our constituents elected us here to make their lives better, not worse. this latest republican grandstand will cost the american public dealer. as a result, 160 million middle class americans will see a payroll tax increase and over two million americans, including almost 25,000 alabamans, will begin losing their unemployment benefits. while i had hoped for a one-year extension like many here, this two-month compromise is better than the alternative which is to let millions of americans suffer economic hardship. you know, it was martin luther king who said that the time is always right to do what is

right. it is right this holiday season to make sure that the american public enjoyed the blessings of this holiday season by being ensured of the protections that they've already so greatly earned. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia. mr. price: thank you, mr. speaker. i'm pleased to yield one minute to the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. duffy. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from wisconsin voiced for one minute. mr. duffy: i appreciate the gentleman for yielding. i am sick of the demagoguery. i think it is important that we truly talk about the facts. this is not a debate about whether we're going to extend the payroll tax holiday or not. this is a debate about what kind of extension we're going to get. is it going to be one year or is it going to be 60 days? to be clear, we are advocating for a one-year extension which is a $1,000 pay cut -- tax break for every american in this country. my friends across the aisle are advocating for a $170 payroll tax cut, $1,000 versus $170.

we are talking about christmas gifts, $170 payroll tax gift is not a christmas gift to the american people. $1,000 would be. the only gift i hear being offered here is a gift to the senate colleagues who want to go home for christmas. let's stay here and do the work of the american people, make sure we extend the payroll tax holiday and make sure we give certainty to every american throughout the country and yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina. mr. clyburn: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, it's now my pleasure to yield two minutes to the gentleman from california, mr. garamendi. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. garamendi: i think somehow i made a mistake. i came over here to listen to the debate and it's almost like als i in wonderland -- alice in wonderland. white is black, black is white. this is confusing to the folks out there. so let's just try to understand where we are at this moment. we sent a bill, that is a republican -- that is the republicans in this house sent a bill to the senate that was

rejected, rejected for several reasons. one of them was the pay-for. how it was going to be paid for. ways that dealt, i think, unfairly with workers who were unemployed, it shortened the period of unemployment, not to 99 weeks but even shorter to just over 50. and it also went after medicare recipients, causing them to pay more. it was rerejected by the senate. the senate put together a complo mice. 90% of the senators, well, just short of 90%, 89 senators, democrat and republican, voter fod a two-month compromise that was paid for. with the understanding that they would spend the next two months trying to figure out how to make this thing last a whole year. we really fall apart on many of the underlying things. and so here we are running up against the deadline and by the way, if we what conference committee -- if we had a conference committee, we actually had a conference committee and they came to a conclusion before the end of the year, did anybody consider the senate rules?

there's the potential of 90 hours of debate in the senate before it could be taken up and passed. so, what are we doing here? we ought to think about the people out there and about the foolishness of all that's going on around here. let's just agree to where the senate is, we've got two months to figure out how to make the rest of the year work. and the rhetoric goes back and forth and we're not in alice in wonderland here. this is about the people of the united states. we have an opportunity to get this thing done only for two months, that's not in anybody's happy about that, but at least we can get it done and come back and deal with some very difficult underlying issues for which there is no agreement at this moment. we need time to do that, the conference committee could surely not do that. i yield back. mr. price: i'm pleased to yield one minute to the gentleman from virginia, mr. griffith. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. griffith: i think if thomas jefferson had dropped back into this body he would think he was

alice in wonderland because when he wrote the wonderful jefferson manual of parliamentary procedure he made it very clear that we had two bodies in this government, the senate and the house, and each was to act independently, one of the other, in order to come up with what was right for the american people. we are now told today that we are supposed to accept a compromise that the senators compromised on and then left town to go home to celebrate their holiday. ladies and gentlemen, i don't think that's appropriate. i think we should do what the system calls for when our founding fathers put it together, that is they do their business, we do our business and we do what we think is right. we are trying to do what we think is right here today. this resolution includes many parts, one of those parts that i think is extremely important is the boiler mact part. it had 41 democrat votes in this house, it has 13 democrat

co-sponsors in the senate, it is a very bipartisan and popular measure and i hope we adopt the resolution. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina. >> how much time do i have remaining? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina has four and a half minutes remain, the gentleman from georgia has is 1 minutes remaining. >> i reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia. mr. price: i yield to the gentleman. >> let me say that president obama, many house republicans and democrats agree that 12 months would be better than two months. the senate disagrees. the constitution says that if the house and senate disagree, the two come together, have a conference, they compromise, common ground is found and then both houses vote upon it.

for some reason, we don't want to go through that process. for some reason, senator reid does not want to bring his people back from vacation to vote. now i will say that all this other conversation about issues kind of obscures, i think almost is there to obscure the fact about whether the regular order will be followed, where the constitutional method of resolving differences will be employed. i will say i ask the senators to pay attention to what the constitution says to do the work of the american people, i know it's inconvenient, i know it's a holiday but this is too important. let's not give up on the process. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina. mr. towns: i continue to reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia. mr. price: i yield one minute to the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. murphy. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one minute.

mr. murphy: families are doing christmas, planning budgets, we're being asked to do a budget here, congress needs to be doing more than rehashing this again. we immediate to be dealing with unemployment, the deficit and not just spend manager time over two months. we're telling families to accept $166 instead of $1,000 of for that $166, that's about a week and a half of groceries for a family of four. for the same family of four, we're talking about 12 months of gas bills, 11 months of diapers, 10 electric utility bills, nine months of baby formula, eight months of cable, seven months of autoinsurance, five months of gasoline, three student loan bills and one mortgage payment for your house. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina. mr. towns: it is my pleasure to yield --

mr. clyburn: it is my pleasure to yield to the gentleman from missouri for two minutes. mr. cleaver: thank you, mr. chairman. i sat in my office and listened to this debate and the one thing i know is that neither side is listening to each other, everybody is trying to say something, the people at home are probably trying to figure out if there's any sanity anywhere in washington. we're having fact-free debates and the truth of the matter is that we're putting ideology over lonlic. -- over logic. i'm not going to be here on christmas. you can get whatever people you want, you can send all kinds of things into my district. we are on the verge of the second holiest holiday in my religious tradition. i'm going to be home, i'm going to be in church, this is sick.

this is sick. and the people all over the country, the people in the gallery, they know that they are watching dysfunctionality at its best. i'm ashamed, ashamed that this kind of thing is going on in the world -- and the world is watching. all we need to do is wait until another -- a better season so that we don't look as bad. every minute we debate, our poll numbers drop. it's probably at a point now where they can't drop any further, but can't we stop this and start trying to rationally deal with the business of the public? we don't listen to each other, the media wants to listen to see if anybody will see if says

anything caustic. the red meat crowd is waiting for somebody to say something insulting to the other side. we ought to be listening to our better selves. we ought to call the best in us out right now, solve this problem and go home and be our families. i'm going to be with my family. you guys can stay here and scream at each other all you want, i'm going home. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia. mr. price: thank you, mr. speaker. i would remind my friend that it was president obama who said this congress cannot and should not leave for vacation until that -- until they have made sure that tax increase doesn't happen, let me repeat that congress should not and cannot go on vacation before they have made sure that walking -- working family aren't seeing their taxes go up by $1,000. mr. speaker, in order for their taxes not to go up by thrs 1,000 the length of time for the payroll deduction has to be up with year, not 60 days.

i'm pleased to yield a minute and a half to my good friend from texas, mr. culberson. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. culberson: we're sending this back to conference because we share the core governing principle to do the right thing for the right season. -- reason. and the right thing is to make sure payroll taxes don't go up for at least a year. if you want to your payroll taxes to go up in two months, support the senate bill. we are sending this bill back to conference because the senate bill, unlike the house bill, the senate bill does not require people applying for unemployment to either get a g.e.d. or show that they're working their way toward a degree. the senate bill doesn't do those things. so we're obviously sending this bill back to conference. the house bill also gives states the flexibility to require unemployment beneficiaries to submit to drug testing, which is something, common sense that everybody in the country can understand. the speaker also included in

the house bill the ability for businesses to expense 100% of the money they invest in new investments. that obviously is going to create jobs immediately. the senate took that language out. this is not complicated. if you want your payroll taxes to stay the same for 12 months, then you would support the house bill. if you want your payroll tax -- >> will the gentleman yield? >> will the gentleman yield? >> no, ma'am. we in the house want to make sure that nobody's -- mr. culberson: we want to make sure nobody's taxes go up for at least one month so businesses can plan, predict, and we want to make sure that businesses in america can continue to create jobs. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina. mr. clyburn: thank you, mr. speaker. it is my pleasure to yield one minute to the gentlelady from maryland. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentlelady is recognized for one minute. ms. edwards: 160 million americans are asking why republicans want to raise their taxes on january 1. 2.2 million americans are wondering why what republicans think what unemployed need is a drug test instead of a job or in the absence of that, unemployment benefits. doctors across the country who treat medicare patients are wondering why republicans want to ensure that their doctors receive 25% less than they should for treating medicare patients. i am with the american public. i'm completely confused about why republicans in this congress want to send americans into, 2012, without an unemployment check, with a raise in their taxes, and cutting their medicare benefits. that's what the american people want to know and don't understand. they want to know why these house republicans can't go along with what house democrats want to do, what senate dels

already voted to do, what republicans in the senate already voted to do and it's time for us to do the business of the american people. with that, i yield. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia. mr. price: may i inquire how many speakers my colleague has remaining? mr. clyburn: two speakers left. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina has 5 3/4 remaining and the gentleman from georgia has 7 1/4 minutes remaining. mr. price: i'm pleased to yield a minute and a half to my colleague from the great state of maryland, mr. harris. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for a minute and a half. mr. harris: last time the senators passed a major bill over just before christmas was 2009. it was the obamacare bill. that last congress, 211th congress, decided not to go to conference and to accept what the senate sent over.

mr. speaker, i ask those americans watching, ask themselves, how did that work for you? that's what they want us to do with this piece of legislation. just accept what the senate says. they want to go home for christmas. and we'll just see how it all works out. department work out so good that time, won't work out so good this time. the gentleman from california said you almost need a playbook to feg your out what's going on. thank goodness we have one, it's called house.gov. you can go and see exactly how your representative voted on a one-year tax cut extension. we took a vote last week, you can go see that one. we're going to take three today. whether you want a one-year or a two-month. go to house.gov. you don't have to believe what anyone says o-- says on the floor, go to house.gov. let's talk about the other part of the bill a two-career medicare fixed g.r. i say to the seniors working --

watching, pick up the phone, call your doctor's office, and ask them, do you want a two-month fix or a two-year fix? let's see what the doctors want. i know we in washington like to think we know best for everything that goes on, including what our medicare seniors want and their doctors want. i ask our seniors to do that. they'll get the results. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina. mr. clyburn: thank you, mr. speaker. i'm pleased to yield two minutes to the gentleman from virginia, mr. scott. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. scott: thank you, mr. speaker. i thank the gentleman for yielding. some have suggested we are choosing between one-year and two years. the fact is that by rejecting the senate bill, which would have created certainty for two months, we are instead replacing that uncertainty that begins in two weeks. we won't know in two weeks --

in the direction we're going in, in two weeks we won't know what the situation will be for payrolls that start on the first of january. a full-year consideration is not going to be achieved in the next two weeks. the doc fix we've been working on for years, unemployment compensation and tax policy we've been working on for a long time. the idea that we're going to appoint a conference committee and they're going to meet and agree and figure this stuff out in a couple of day we tried that with the super committee, that didn't work. this conference committee isn't going to solve all the problems in the next 10 kays -- days. so we have a choice. two months of certainty or a few days of total uncertainty. who knows what's going to happen. the economists have said if we don't extend the payroll tax and unemployment compensation

it will have significant adverse effects on the economy. so we should do this. we should do it for two months, work on it for two months, hopefully we'll have a solution at the enof two months. we certainly won't have a solution in the end of two weeks. and so, that's the choice. when people talk about certainty, this is a group to talk about certainty and then change the regulations on light bulbs that have been in effect for four years on a two-week notice. here we are with certainty for two months and they say well, uncertainty is a problem, so let's do it in two weeks. let's have some certainty two. months of serbity, let's work on it, we can get a four-year solution. we're not going to do that the way we're headed. i would hope, mr. speaker, that we would adopt the senate amendment, leave town, send the bill to the president and be finished with it rather than invite the uncertainty which is going to befall us if we don't do that. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from depea.

mr. price: i'm pleased to yield a minute and a half to my colleague from the great state of texas, mr. conaway. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. conaway: this is hard to listen to in the sense that we are being asked to accede to the wisdom of the senate. the wisdom of the senate would say long-range planning is too much. the wisdom of the senate would say, let's pay for two months of fixes by a permanent increase in mortgage insurance. that's unwise. i'm not going to abdicate my responsibility to know what's in the best interest of the country simply because it's christmas. we've got two weeks to work this out. the house has passed an extensive bill that fixes and addresses the bill across the broad spectrum of the fixes. to have the other side over and over say it's the wisdom of the senate, look what the senate did. it's irresponsible on every level. to simply say two months is going to fix these problems that we can avoid dealing with

the issue for two months and then that's wise, i would argue that my colleagues on the other side are wrong headed in this regard. we have a bill that fixes this for two years, one year on the unemployment and taxes. we've got the pay-fors in place, the conferees can come together and get this worked out over the next week and a half before these things go into effect and bad things happen. to ask us to yield to the senate to accede to the senate's wisdom is wrongheaded on every level and i refuse to do that, mr. speaker, and would argue that the house-passed bill we passed last week should be the pace for the conference and work out these differences, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina. mr. clyburn: i yield myself one minute. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. clyburn: there is much more to legislation than a timeline.

two months of certainty or we could go with the bill that this house passed, it was a year. what did they do in that year's time? they cut 40 weeks off of unemployment. now, that might be good for them. but it's not good for the people in my state where in spite of the great numbers that i spoke about this afternoon, 100,000 people, more private sector jobs created over the last five months, the biggest number in the last since 2006.

i yield myself an additional 30 seconds. now, the only way for us to really instill certainty in the unemployed are in those 160 million americans who would like to continue to have their tax cut is for us to pass the senate compromise and for us to really say to those people that would want you to have a pleasant holiday season and we'll all come back here the first of the year and give you an additional 10 months. with that, mr. speaker -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman has 2 1/4

remaining. mr. clyburn: may i yield to the gentleman from virginia? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from virginia. mr. scott: we can have two months of certainty if we follow our lead. the republicans have said that we'll get one year of extension if we follow their lead. tomorrow -- by tomorrow afternoon we'll see who's telling the truth. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from virginia. mr. price: mr. speaker, i may say to my colleague that i'm prepared to close if the gentleman is prepared to close. we're prepared to close. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina has two minutes remake. mr. clyburn: mr. speaker, -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina has two minutes remaining. mr. clyburn: mr. speaker, i will close by saying we have been getting tremendous, what i would call tremendously positive numbers for our economy in the past several

months. and i believe that the american people are beginning to create more certainty in their lives. i would hate to see us disrupt that by continuing to debate this issue when we know full well that our failure to pass this bill will almost guarantee that 160 million working americans will see their taxes go up, their paychecks go down. 2.2 million people had are currently unemployed through no fault of their own, looking for work, would like to contribute to the deficit reduction that we are trying to gain but will

see them continue in unemployment status without their ben pets if we fail to pass this bill. -- benefits if we fail to pass this bill. also, the 48 million seniors who have developed reconciliationships with their doctors -- relationships with their doctors, who during this time of year depend upon the medical profession for their quality of life could very well see their doctors experience a 27% decrease in their reimbursements if we fail to pass this bill, and we know what will happen. these doctors will walk off the field and will refuse to treat medicare patients. i would hope -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. clyburn: that my friends would come to their senses and pass the senate-passed compromise, and with that i

yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia. mr. price: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on h.res. 501. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. price: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, somebody once said that whether you say you can or you can't you're right. the other side says they can't. the other side says we can't. we believe we can. mr. speaker, we have two different versions of h.r. 3630. there's a house version and a senate version, and everybody who knows about united states government knows when you have two different versions you come together in a conference committee and you come to common ground, work out the differences and move the bill back to each chamber. what are the differences? well, for the house bill, we protects -- protect seniors' access to doctors for 12 months. the house bill, two months.

the payroll tax cut extension, house bill, 12 months. senate bill, two months. payroll tax cut for workers earning $50,000 a year in the house bill, it's $1,000. in the senate bill, $167. pay freeze for members of congress and federal workers included in the house bill, not in the senate bill. ending unemployment and food stamp benefits for millionaires, in the house bill, not in the senate bill. so, mr. speaker, this is about two different bills. and it's about certainty. it's about certainty for families and job creators and for seniors and it's about real jobs for real people. our bill provides certainty and 20,000 jobs with the keystone pipeline construction and another 120,000 new jobs in the supply chain for the pipeline. positive policy. why wait? why wait, mr. speaker? why not make a decision in the

next few days on these tax and health care and unemployment extensions? what's the economic or the policy argument for putting this off for another two months? the truth is that there is none and there are strong arguments against delay. we ought to be working on alleviating the uncertainty that would bring about, not adding to it. mr. speaker, i call on my colleagues to support this resolution and move forward positively for families, for job creators and for seniors and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. all time for debate has expired. pursuant to house resolution 502 the previous question is ordered on the resolution in the preamble. the question is on ordering the previous question. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. mr. clyburn: mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from south carolina. mr. clyburn: i request the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: those in support of taking this yeas and nays will rise. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, further proceedings on this

question will be postponed. for what purpose does the gentlelady from maryland rise? ms. edwards: mr. speaker, -- the clerk: on the "politico" newspaper website reported that mr. west saying if joseph was around he'd be very proud of the democrat party because they have an incredible propaganda machine. i think that you have -- let's be honest, you know, some of the people in the media are complicit on this. in enabbling them to get that type of message out. -- enabling them to get that type of message out. where he served as the public enlightment and propaganda in nazi germany from 1933 to 1935. whereas joseph gerble's racism in his quest to dehumanize european germany. where he made the scapegoat of german economic insecurity,

whereas the united states holocaust memorial said that joseph gerbel had an anti-semitic speech on november 9, 1938. after the speech, nazi officials ordered the storm troopers s.a. an other party formations to attack jews and to destroy their homes, businesses and houses of worship. the violence against jews last into the morning hours of november 10, and becomes known as crystal knock, night of broken glass. several dozen jews lose their lives and several hundreds are sent to concentration camps. whereas nazi germany and their collaborators killed six million european jews and others as part of their final solution. whereas by invoking the spectrum of josef gerble mr. west belittled the horrors and sufferings experienced by the survivors of the holocaust.

whereas the american jewish committee issued a december 15, 2011, statement to make a linkage between any main street political party in the united states and the heinous atrocities committed by the third reich should be simply beyond the pale whatever political differences may arise in a heated political season. by invoking the gestapo, representative west has displayed a complete lack of understanding of the worst genocidal era in human history. moreover, he diminished and trivialized the unique evil perpetrated by the third reich through his unfortunate use of language. whereas the anti-defamation league said in a december 16, 2011, letter to mr. west, we are dismayed by mr. west's remarks comparing the democratic party's attempts to articulate views to the american people through the media through the propaganda

man, josef gervel. they are offensive. they trivialize real historical events and they diminish the memory of the six million jews and millions others who perished in the holocaust. whereas the representative from michigan, mr. conyers, wrote in a letter to the representative from florida, mr. west, that the representative from florida should help raise the level of congressional discourse in a vigorous debate. whereas the representative from florida, mr. west, responded in a letter to mr. conyers that the democrat party does indeed have a vicious propaganda machine. it is a master of -- and in his outrageous sentiment to the representative from michigan, mr. conyers, the representative from florida, mr. west,

demonstrates not only the willful and misapplication of history but also his disdain for the decorum of the congress. and whereas the conduct of the representative from florida, mr. -- whereas the conduct of the representative from florida was repungent. now therefore be it resolved that the house of representatives disapproves of the behavior of the representative of florida, mr. west, for bringing discredit to the house by offending the memory of those who died during the holocaust. the speaker pro tempore: the resolution qualifies. for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia rise? mr. price: i move to table the resolution. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on -- to lay the table on the resolution. all those in favor say aye. all those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. ms. edwards: mr. speaker, i'd ask for the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. those in support of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. this will be a 15-minute vote. pursuant to clause 8 and clause

9, this 15-minute vote on the motion to table will be followed by five-minute votes on motion to instruct on h.r. 3630 and adoption of the house resolution 501. this is a 15-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 228. the nays --

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 231. the nays are 188. the motion is adopted. without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the unfinished business is the question on the motion to instruct on h.r. 3730 offered by the gentleman from maryland, mr. hoyer, on which the yeas and nays are ordered. the clerk will redesignate the motion. the clerk: motion to instruct conferees offered by mr. hoyer of maryland. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to instruct. members will record their votes by electronic device. this will be a five-minute vote. [captioning made possible by

the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 183. the nays are 238. less than the majority voting in the affirmative, the motion is not adopted. mr. hoyer: mr. speaker. mr. speaker. mr. speaker. mr. speaker. mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to speak out of order

-- the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the house will be in order. mr. hoyer: mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from maryland. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman. mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to speak out of order for one minute for the purposes of inquiring of what the schedule will be as we go forward. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. hoyer: thank you. >> mr. speaker, i'd like to reserve the right to object. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady reserves the right to object. the gentlewoman from west virginia is recognized on her reservation. mrs. capito: i just want to get a chance to react. the gentleman may proceed. i withdraw my reservation. the speaker pro tempore: the reservation is withdrawn. the gentleman from maryland. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentlelady for withdrawing her reservation. i have just been handed -- it may have been sent out earlier but a member's advisory which

says that the house will be in session as necessary to consider a conference report on h.r. 3630, the middle class tax relief and job creation act of 2011. the house's request for a conference will be transmitted to the senate this afternoon while it will await appointments of conferees. h.r. 3630 will physically reside in the u.s. senate by the close of business today. and it goes on to say, members will be provided with at least 24 hours' notice prior to the house's next recorded vote. what i wanted to ask the majority leader, does he expect his members to go home this afternoon? i yield to my friend. mr. cantor: mr. speaker, i respond to the gentleman as he has just read, we have sent out a notice electronically to all members. our intention is for the conferees to do their work. we have requested that the senate do the same, appoint their conferees. we can out -- iron out the differences so we can have a tax relief for the working

class. mr. hoyer: reclaiming my time. i understand the majority leader's position, but he didn't answer my question as to whether his members intend to go home this afternoon. mr. cantor: mr. speaker, i will say to the gentleman, it is very clear, i know he is holding the same piece of paper that i am. and it reflects the electronic message that went out to all members. our intention is for the conferees to go to work, to iron out the differences that are narrow, to ensure -- to ensure -- the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. mr. hoyer: reclaiming my time, mr. speaker. mr. cantor: the gentleman knows we want to afford year-long tax relief to all working people in this cupry. i yield back. mr. hoyer: reclaiming my time, mr. speaker, i appreciate the

majority leader's observations. i don't think that i got an answer to the question but having said that, if in fact an agreement is not reached prior to the, say, middle of next week, is the house prepared to preclude the eventuality of 160 million people losing that tax cut? are you prepared to preclude -- are you prepared to preclude the possibility of 48 million people losing their medicare benefits? are you prepared to preclude 2.3 million people losing unemployment insurance by acting on an overwhelmingly bipartisan agreement that was reached in the united states senate? i yield to my friend. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman. mr. speaker, what i would say is the house has acted. we have again taken the position that all people, i think in this building, have

taken, which is it's so much better, more desirable, for us to provide certainty to the working families of this country who deserve the year-long certainty of tax relief. no one thinks -- no one -- no one thinks that 60 day-extension is even workable and i think most experts would say could cause unnecessary uncertainty, could cause additional costs to be incurred by businesses and could hurt workers. so i say to the gentleman, the house has acted, it is up to the senate to act to stave off this tax hike. mr. hoyer: reclaiming my time, mr. speaker, while there is clearly a different in this -- a linches in this house on a number of things, one of the things i don't think we differ on is a confidence or lack of confidence that the senate will do its job.

i don't think we differ on that greatly because our experiences shows us differently. so what i am asking the gentleman is, that we do not put at risk the 160 million people who are expecting their tax cut to continue, the 48 million people, seniors, who want access to their doctors and the 2.3 million people who are going to go off unemployment, contingent upon whether the senate acts as the gentleman wants it to. my experience has not been great confidence that that will happen. if, i will tell the gentleman further, we have tried to prepare for that contingency and have introduced a bill with 170 co-sponsors which adopts the -- which adopts the compromise agreement so that we will give that certainty of which the gentleman speaks, allay the anxiety which we know

exists, and give to those 160 million people the certainty they'll get the tax cut, the 48 million, the certainty they'll have access to their doctors and the 2.3 million the certainty that they will not be kicked off the unemployment rolls so they won't be able to support themselves and their families. i ask my friend if he will be prepared to bring that bill to the floor if in fact the senate doesn't act. mr. cantor: i say to the gentleman if the gentleman wants to do his part in trying to make sure that the process moves forward, certainly the democratic side of the aisle and the minority leader has the obligation to appoint conferees. and if we are all to continue to work together, which i believe we can, because i think the people of this country are tired of hearing what washington can't do and want to see what we can do.

and frankly, mr. speaker, the people of this country are beginning to wonder about the body on the other side of this capitol and are wondering what the leader over there has against the middle class of this country. we would say, mr. speaker, it's time for us to come together, all of us including the president believe it's inexcusable to not allow for year-long extension of the payroll tax relief. mr. hoyer: reclaiming my time. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the gentleman from maryland has the time. mr. hoyer: thank you very much. six months ago, the speaker said that he thought the one-year extension of the middle class tax cut was a short-term gimmick he said that six months ago of the year

extension. so we're somewhat concerned about the commitment to a one-year extension. but that aside, let me say to my friend, one of the problems that i'm worried about is, a, whether we can get this work done in the next 14 days because we know that the -- even if we had a conference, they take a long time, very significant differences between us, in fact, we have compromised on something that you indicated in our colloquies a week ago was very important, the keystone bill which your side believes will create significant number of jobs, that, of course, is in the bill that the senate sent us because even though the democratic majority was not for it, they cared enough about the middle class tax cut to compromise. unfortunately, i will tell my friend, too often we have seen on this floor unwillingness to compromise even on your bills. we had a c.r. on the floor, we

had a c.r. -- we had a c.r. on this floor on march 15, unfortunately, 54 of your members walked away from that. on april 15, we had a continuing resolution to keep the government open. 59 republicans walked away from that. on june 23, you left the biden talks. on july 22, speaker boehner walked away from the debt limit negotiations between him and the president. on august 1, 66 republicans walked away on the debt limit extension, which was your bill, not ours, your bill, on november 17, some 101 republicans walked away from passing an appropriations bill which would keep agencies funded. on december 18, 86 republicans

walked away from the bill to fund the balance of government. so i might say to my friend, it seems to me what we're doing today is walking away today from those 160 million people, walking away from those 48 million seniors and walking away from those 2.3 million unemployed. i yield back the plans of my time. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, five-minute voting will resume. the unfinished business is the vote on the adoption of house resolution 501 on which the yeas and nays are ordered. the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: house resolution 501, expressing the sense of the house of representatives regard anything final measure to extend the payroll tax holiday, extend federally

funded unemployment insurance benefits or prevent decreases in reimbursement for physicians to provide care through medicare beneficiaries. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on adoption of the resolution. members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a five-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote, the yeas are 226, the nays are 185, the

resolution is adopted. the speaker: without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the clerk will read the chair's appointment of conferees. additional conferees may be appoint those opposed, no recommendation of the minority leader. the clerk: the chair appoints the following managers on the part of the house for consideration of h.r. 3630 and the senate amendment and modification committed to the conference, messers camp, upton, price of georgia, reid of new york, mrs. ellmers, and ms. hayworth. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from illinois rise? >> mr. speaker, pursuant to clause 4 of rule 16, i move that when the house adjourns today it adjourn to meet at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion, those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is adopted.

the speaker pro tempore: the unfinished business is the question on suspending the rules and concurring to the senate amendment to h.r. 2056 which the clerk will report by title. the clerk: h.r. 2056, an act to instruct the inspector general of the federal deposit insurance corporation to study the impact of insured depository institution failures and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: the question is will the house concur in the senate amendment. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 having responded in the

affirmative, the rules are suspended, the senate amendment is agreed to and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the question is on suspending the rules and concurring on the senate amendment of h.r. 1801 which the clerk will report by title. the clerk: h.r. 1801, a bill to amend title 49, united states code, to provide for expedited security screenings for members of the armed forces. the speaker pro tempore: the question is will the house suspend the rules and concur in the senate amendment. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the senate amendment is agreed to and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the unfinished business is the question on suspending the rules and concurring in the senate amendment to h.r. 1059 which the clerk will report by title. the clerk: h.r. 1059, an act to protect the safety of judges by extending the authority of the judicial conference to redact sensitive information contained in their financial disclosure reports, and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: the

question is will the house suspend the rules and concur in the senate amendment. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the senate amendment is agreed to and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the unfinished business is the question on suspending the rules and concurring in the senate amendment to h.r. 515 which the clerk will report by title. the clerk: h.r. 515, an act to re-authorize the belarus democracy act of 2004. the speaker pro tempore: the question is will the house suspend the rules and concur in the senate amendment. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the senate amendments are agreed to and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the chair will entertain requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the gentleman from virginia seek recognition?

without objection, the gentleman from virginia is recognized. the house will come to order. members are advised to take their conversations from the floor. the gentleman deserves to be heard. >> mr. speaker, i rise today to pay respectful tribute to a fallen hero, major samuel mark griffith, united states marine corps. major griffith, known as sam to his family and friends, was killed in action in afghanistan last week. mr. speaker, the house is not in order. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. >> mr. speaker, i attended sam's memorial yesterday. a letter was read that was written about a marine in sam's unit. it described had sam had insisted on taking the other marine's place on the next nightly parole. mr. rigell: because the patrol

was receiving enemy fire -- >> mr. speaker, the house is not in order. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. please clear the aisle and take conversations off the floor. mr. rigell: mr. speaker, i attended sam's memorial service. a very moving letter that was read by a marine in sam's unit. it described how sam had insisted on take the other ma reap's place on the next nightly patrol because each night the patrols received fire when they went out. sam knew full well the inherit risk and danger. it was sam's nature to run to danger in defense of freedom and in defense of his fellow marines. sam leaves behind a wonderful family including his wife, casey, and two fine young boys, chad and noah. mr. speaker, the burden of defending freedom has fallen heavy on the griffith family,

so we pause today in this house and rightfully so to honor sam and to extend our heart-felt sympathy and condolences to the griffith family, asking god grant them a measure of grace and peace in the days ahead. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from maryland rise? >> mr. speaker, i ask to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. hoyer: mr. speaker, we walked away today, we walked away from 160 million americans and put their tax cut at risk. we walked away from 48 million americans and put their access to doctors at risk. and we walked away from 2.3 million unemployed. frankly, when president bush asked us to stabilize the financial markets, 2/3 of his own party walked away.

on december 3, they walked away from bowles-simpson. on march 15, 54 republicans walked away from continuing government funding. on april 14, 59 republicans walked away from their bill to continue funding of the government. on june 23, their majority leader walked out on the biden talks. on july 22, speaker boehner walked out on the talks he had with president obama. on august 1, 66 republicans walked away from making sure america pays its bills. on november 17, 101 republicans walked away. on november -- when the appropriation bill for three of our departments, that was a republican bill they walked away from. on november 21, republicans walked away from the joint select committee on deficit reduction. the walkaway caucus should not walk away from americans in this country today and i yield

back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from indiana rise? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, please proceed. mr. burton: mr. speaker, while we talk about the issues of the day, one of the things that has been missing over the past several months in the discussions on the floor is the amount of treasure from the american taxpayer that's going to europe. we have through the fed been sending hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars in loans to europe. in addition to that, we're sending money to the international monetary fund of which we put 18% in. we're sending hundreds of billions of dollars to europe. we got a lot of problems here at home, and we shouldn't be risking american taxpayers' money by sending it to bailout countries in europe that very well might go belly up. and if they do go belly up that will come back to haunt us in america and the value of our currency will be depreciated

and we'll have very high inflation. we need to take care of the united states and not worry about europe right now. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. for what purpose does the gentleman from oregon rise? >> to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: permission granted. mr. defazio: congress excels at doing nothing, but sometimes doing nothing or empty political posturing as we've just seen from the republican majority ignores our nation's critical needs. by leaving town without extending unemployment insurance to 2.3 million long-term unemployed americans who want to work and can't find work in this economy is especially cruel on the eve of the christmas season. and for 48 million seniors and disabled, the new year will dawn with a 28% decrease in physicians' reimbursement. many will find they can't get in to see a doctor. it will be slammed in their

face. so with these actions or rather these inactions by the republican majority, they truly embody the spirit of the season, the grinch. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from north carolina. for what purpose do you rise? >> to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: permission granted. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to congratulate my good friend, chris carney, on taking the oath of office to the state senate in north carolina. chris has served as a town commissioner in the town of morrisville for the last number of years. i was able to work with him on that board. he developed a reputation as a thoughtful leader, someone who listened to his constituents and actually tried to craft solutions. mr. mchenry: he'll take that same mentality to the state senate in north carolina. so today i rise to congratulate chris carney. his community is proud of him and i'm proud to call him a friend. i know his wife and his three

children will are very excited about the role he's about to undertake. congratulations, chris. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlelady from ohio rise? ms. kaptur: i rise to address the house for one minute, please. the speaker pro tempore: so granted. ms. kaptur: i want the 2.3 million unemployed americans to know that not all members of this house are heartless. in fact, 193 members of this house stand with the unemployed of this country. the 2.3 million mothers and fathers who have children and families to feed as we move through this very, very poignant holiday season. i hope when we come back in january we can do what's right for america, but we fell 36 votes short. and that's because the republicans -- and i hardly see

any of them on the floor at this point -- care more about taking care of those who earn over $1 million than they do about the people who are falling off the edge. i feel sorry for our country today, but you know what, the american people have a way of making the tables or riding the tables when they get sadly out of balance and that moment is coming. i feel sorry for the people who are unemployed. be strong during this season. know that when we return in january we have a chance to correct what sadly was voted down today. i yield back my remaining time. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia rise? >> to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia is recognized for one minute. >> mr. speaker, i thank you and i intended not to address the house this afternoon but it has been painful for me to listen

to this debate. i am a freshman in this body. my understanding when i showed up here is that when we would not come up with the same answers and we would always get together and sort it out and to have that process derided today as being a bastardization of politics instead of what exactly the founding fathers want us to do has me confused. mr. woodall: the gentlelady who spoke me, i'm sorry she left the floor, she's now gone, talked about republicans wanting to see folks on employment have those benefits come out. four times in 2010 under democrat control, unemployment benefits ran out. now, you always do the right thing. you always sorted it out. but those kind of things happen. we're going to conference today. we have 10 days to get this right. we got the defense authorization bill right in seven days, and the senate

crafted their so-called compromise in three days. surely we can do better for the american people. and, mr. speaker, that's not a partisan divide. that's america at its best, and i welcome my colleagues to join us in that. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from missouri rise? >> to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from missouri is so recognized. >> thank you, mr. speaker. mr. carnahan: last week leon panetta declared an end to the war in iraq, fulfilling president obama's promise to bring this to a close. it symbolizes our redefined relationship with the country of iraq. thanks to the resiliencey of our soldiers and personnel, all u.s. combat troops in iraq will be home by the end of the year. i want to congratulate them on being able to share their holiday season together again.

we also honor the memory of lost heros and renew our commitment to ensure that our new generation of veterans receive the services and care we promised and they earned. at a time when families are struggling to make ends meet, our commitments to help veterans is more important than ever. to ensure they successfully transition their talents here at home, for the good of our economy and our country. on behalf of the missouri citizens i represent, i wish our brave troops and all their loved ones a merry christmas, happy holidays and happy new year home on american soil. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlelady from texas rise? >> to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from texas is recognized. ms. jackson lee: i want to follow my friend from missouri and add my appreciation to the troops who have come home and their families and thank my colleagues for joining in wearing a yellow ribbon in honor of them.

i hope they'll go home and to the same and encourage their community to do so. but i am standing here to confront the hypocrisy and the joke of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and for anyone to suggest that then -- conferees are meeting when they full well know no conferees are meeting because no one has been appointed except the one-sided conferees. frankly, they want us to be americans first, not tea partyiers, not lovers of special interests and the other body put forward a thoughtful initiative to keep us going so the lights won't be turned off in some poor mother's home and some senior citizen couldn't go to their doctor. they wanted to make sure 2.3 million, and 133,000 in texas would have their unemployment. i'm saddened by this crisis. the lady who went off the floor should not have been confronted that way. she spoke, she's ready to work,

what about the empty chair on the other side. it's all about a joke. this is an insult to the american people. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlelady from maryland rise? ms. edwards: to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. ms. edwards: i didn't think i'd have to take to the floor again but now that the republicans have walked away, it bears notice, 160 million people aross the country will see their taxes go up come january 1. 2.3 million americans, including 46,000 of them in my home state of maryland will not get an unemployment check. 48 million americans, our seniors, mostly our seniors, are going to see their benefits essentially ripped out from under them in medicare because the doctors won't be able to treat them because their

doctors are getting a cut. i'm not sure which christmas house republicans are celebrate bug in my house, it's a christmas that we're celebrating that's one of charity and that's one of goodness and i am so saddened that here in this house, we have ripped out from under the christmas tree, christmas, for millions of american families who will not get to go into the new year with a tax cut and will go into the new year without an unemployment che. the house republicans have done a great disservice to this country and with that, i yield. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields. the -- for what purpose buzz the gentleman from texas rise? >> to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection thembing gentleman from texas is recognized. >> we've had an awful lot of conversations this afternoon that twists on the idea that the 100 members of the senate are so much smarter and so much more intelligent than the 435 members of the house of representatives. our colleagues on the other side would ask us to accede to

whatever the senate does. as ludicrous as it is a two-month extension is nonsense. everyone in this chamber knows that. mr. mr. conaway: yet speaker after speaker says, we need to accede to the wisdom of the senate. the wisdom of the senate is represented by a two-month extension that's not paid for. no, ma'am, i won't. it's not paid for by anything that mabeses the remotement after seps. appoint your conferees, have them apoint their conferees, mr. speaker, and we can take this to the american people and all this doom an gloom being spouted here goes away. with a one-year extension in unpliment and one-year extension in payroll tax and a two-year extension for our doctors. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from tennessee recognized? mr. cohen tok to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection the gentleman is recognized. mr. cohen: republicans talk about having voted for

unemployment compensation but what they gave with the right hand they took with the left. they said, we give you this but cut the benefits to 59 weeks for unemployment compensation and they put in the bill if you had a pre-existing condition because they voted against the affordable care act, they want you if you have a pre-existing condition to not get health care as you can today. that if you're 26 years of age or younger, that you can't get on your parent's insurance policy which you can today because of the a.c.a. and that the doughnut hole would be closed because of the ample c.a. but they're gerns that because they wanted to cut fund to put the american cares act into operation. the fact is the senate and house, the senate republicans an democrats didn't vote for a 60-day ex-tension they voted for time to get together and do a one-year extension. that's what we need. they had wiser heads. you saw a good reason not to have term limits. first-year members are acting as if they know everything and in a pet lant way they have jepar -- petulant way they have

jeopardized millions of americans. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia rise? >> to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from georgia is recognized. mr. rush: well done, my good and faithful -- mr. johnson: well done, my good and faithful servants, must be what the tea party backers are saying. their republican party in the house has for the whole year been able to stave off any fairness by protecting their millionaires and billionaires from a tax break and here we are at the end of the session and they leave out having not allowed this body to vote on the bipartisan agreement that the senate reached with the house leadership's consent that

passed 89-10 and they went home. and so we won't get a chance to vote on that package. they refuse to let us do so. that's the story that we end with. that's the bottom line. and that's the way it is. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlelady from illinois rise? >> request permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlelady from illinois is recognized. ms. schakowsky: at just about this hour, the sun is setting and jewish families around the country, including mine, are going to their hanukkah menorah, the festival of lights, the festival of a miracle that the lights lasted for eight days. usually this is a joyful time, a beautiful, holy celebration. for many families around this country, this is a very sad and

worrisome time. made worse by this day. with millions of americans unemployed and relying on a meager average $286 a week check while they look for work, republicans voted today to not extend unemployment insurance, to not extend the tax cut for middle income people who need it so badly this year when the economics was so hard and it just break misheart that at this holiday season, when people are feeling in such a fragile economic state that today's vote took place. it didn't need to. we could have helped the american people today. happy hanukkah. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new jersey rise? >> to address the house for one minute, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized.

>> thank you, mr. speaker. i want to follow up on what my colleague from illinois said because it really is true, we are talking about hurt for american families here. mr. pallone: i know that in the next week as this time expires on the unemployment compensation, on the medicare reimbursement, on the payroll tax cut, i'm going to get calls from seniors telling me the doctors are not accepting them for medicare anymore, i'm going to find out for people who have lost their uninsurance -- lost their insurance and the payroll tax cut, we're just starting to see the economy improve a little bit and i know that if there's a real risk if we don't extend the payroll tax cut that we send the economy back into a recession again. it is amazing to me to see my colleagues on the other side suggest that somehow they're going to stay here an the conferees -- none of that is true. they're home. they're not here. they're going home and they're not going to come back until after january. i think it is outrageous to think that they're running the risk of the economy being hurt

by this, that people don't have money in their pockets and that those who receive medicare may be refused a doctor. we're simply asking democrats, have a heart. why is it the republicans don't understand the negative consequences of this? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania rise? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized. >> thank you, mr. speaker. mr. altmire: the two key takeaways from the debate today is that there is nobody in this chamber, republican, democrat, nobody in the senate on the other side, republican, democrat, independent, nobody believes a two-year fix is the end result of this process. or two-month fix is the end result. the two-month fix is to allow the benefits to continue so the 160 million americans that are now benefiting from the reduction in the payroll tax continue to have those benefits while we come together and

while we compromise, while we come to a long-term agreement. that's what this is all about. the other takeaway is the majority party did not allow a vote on the senate plan. for all the talk about how flawed they believe the senate plan to be, they didn't allow a vote on the senate plan because they would have lost their position, that bill would have passed, we would be done with it today system of when you hear members of the majority talking about how flawed the senate bill is and how the american people don't support it, their own members would have voted for it and we would have passed the bill if they would have allowed it. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman rise? >> to address the house for one minute and revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from minnesota is so recognized. >> thank you, mr. speaker. this august body displayed the worst of what we can do, the opportunity to try to compromise was there. i have to say, last week i supported a bill put forward by

my republican friends, sent it to the senate and it came back and as the previous speaker said, i didn't get a chance to vote on it. mr. wals: there's another piece of legislation being held up that the more than public knows needs to happen. this debate, we can have differences of opinion across the aisle but what needs to get done is to believe that people are playing by the rules, to stop trading on congressional knowledge, the insider trading bill now has 240 bipartisan co-sponsors, it's now suddenly buried and gone. the american people demand us to do one thing, be honest and work for them, not -- that bill can ensure that happens. with that, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new york rise? >> to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized. >> thank you, mr. speaker. at the expense of the taxpayermark members of the house of representatives were called back to washington

conclude business on a payroll tax extension. mr. tonko: the truth of the matter is we didn't vote on the bill. why? perish the thought, the bill would have probably passed. who loses, 160 million americans who won't realize a payroll tax extender, seenors who won't have access to their medicare health provider 2.2 unemployed millions who through no fault of their own lost a job and won't have unemployment insurance extended. when it came to providing tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, there were no bells and whistles no pay-fors but when it comes to a payroll tax cut for the middle class americans, all kinds of bells and whistles are attached, all kinds of demand. this is a facade seen through clearly. when they had a chance to address this issue they called it a gimmick, it wasn't worth our attention. don't let them fool you. this is just a way to keep

moving the goal post and not do the real thing. we regret not taking a vote in this house. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from washington rise? >> to address he house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized. >> mr. speaker, there are some funny things that go on here. we watched the super committee operate for about 10 weeks and produce absolutely nothing. mr. mcdermott: so today, the speaker comes out here and says, we want a conference committee. now, the super committee was 1 members, three from each caucus, a conference committee, three members from each caucus, we're going to create another one and we think that somehow it will solve this problem. the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a difference result. and clearly, weir not going to get a different result.

the senate sent us a compromise between two people that can't agree on the time of day, harry reid and mitch mcconnel and they got 90 votes for it. that is america. that's 90% of america was agreed on that and the speaker wouldn't even allow it to come to a vote he said, let's create a committee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. mcdermott: don't forget it in 2012. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina rise? >> i rise to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from south carolina is recognized. mr. clyburn: thank you, mr. speaker. we often talk about poison pills and i don't know if all of the american people understand what we are talking about. i want the american people to know that this one-year bill

that the house republicans seem to be in love with had some poison pills in it. one of them cut 40 weeks off of unemployment insurance. that's what they want us to agree to. but another one and the one i think is most egregious, said to those who applied for unemployment insurance that you must pass a g.e.d. in order to get unemployment insurance. we would say to a vietnam veteran who is a master electrician, who went off to fight a war, never finished high school, but now that you are unemployed with all your skills, because you don't have a high school diploma or a g.e.d., you must take a g.e.d. in order to get your unemployment insurance. that is not only a poison pill,

that is insulting and egregious. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from louisiana rise? >> mr. speaker, unanimous consent to address the house and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from louisiana is so recognized. mr. richmond: the unfortunate lessons i learned from "sesame street" is what we learned from the kids. if you look at the republican senators, they reached a compromise with the democrats in the senate. the house democrats came along tonight. the president came along. there was only one outline and that was our house republicans. over the holidays, mr. speaker, i would ask that you remind and encourage my house republican colleagues to go see the wizard, go get a brain so we can talk about the intelligence needed to spur this economy, go get the courage to stand up to the private interests, the coke brothers and the lobbyists so

that you can do the right thing for the country. and after all, go get a heart so you can help the .2 million people that are unemployed -- 2.2 million people that are unemployed have a merry christmas so you can help the 160 million people that will face a tax hike on january 1. and more than anything, the 48 million seniors who have less access to health care. mr. speaker, i will close with one thing and it's just a tip of advice. be careful because the unemployment benefits you save may be your own. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. are there further one-minute requests? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlelady from california is recognized. ms. pelosi: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, it's with great sadness that i rise to pay

tribute to the passing of a man whose legacy to san francisco is a great one. i rise to pay tribute to the life and legacy of juan helmand, a community leader, a san francisco legend and an american success story. sadly, juan passed away on december 18, surrounded by his loving family. that's the way he lived, surrounded by his loving family. juan was a tremendously successful businessman, and it was his business accuman that allowed him to pursue his true passion, philanthropy. he was a renaissance man. that's how his daughter described him. that's how we all saw him. with his deep generosity, intellectual curiosity, his visionary dynamoism, he changed the city of san francisco. his legacy will live on through his contributions to education,

to music, to civic life and to the memory we all have of him of being such a modest athlete, something he took great pride in. when juan saw an opportunity to enrich our city he acted upon it. his strength butteified golden gate park. he worked to end homelessness. he supported the san francisco free clinic. many of those people availing themselves of service there -- services there being homeless. he helped when he saw -- concerned about doing local news coverage in the internet age, he helped form bay citizen journalism site. he worked on the board of mills college and university of california at berkley school of business. mentioned he was an athlete. he supported -- he supported

programs at u.c. berkley where he had played when he was in college on the polo team as -- again, as a student. whether it was bicycling, swimming, running, skiing, you name it, warren was the best. he was a lover of music, a lover of family and lover of life. the three-day concert he founded was used to be called strictly bluegrass, but as the program expanded and more entertainers wanted to participate and the audience was in the hundreds of thousands, it was changed to hardly strictly bluegrass. so it wasn't strictly bluegrass. it was held each year in golden gate park and allowed hundreds of thousands of fans each year to enjoy the music that he loved, mostly bluegrass, and it was all free. warren was involved in every aspect of the festival, including personally recruiting

musicians he admired and an invitation from warren was one warmly responded to by the biggest names in music. it is so fitting that the site of the festival was renamed helmand hollow just last week, just last week. i know this pleased his family immensely. i mentioned his interest in education and the arts. he and his wife, chris, were really such magnificent pat rons of the san francisco ballet. it's hard to surpass the contributions they made intellectually and by way of encouragement in every way and if i tropically. san francisco lost a beloved champion. we honor his memory and enthusiasm by celebrating his many contributions.

i said he was good at everything he did and that included being a friend, a friend to so many who will miss him so much. i am proud to call warren a friend and i hope it is a comfort to chris, his wife, and his family whom he cherished and couldn't talk enough about him. was so proud of him and rightfully so, that so many people mourn their loss and are praying for them at this sad time. tomorrow, there will be a public service to honor his life and legacy. it will represent an outpouring of people from every aspect of san francisco life. every economic strata from homeless people to the most privileged and successful in terms of their measure of success, but it will also represent people in the public and private and nonprofit sector. this was a very special person.

i want everyone who follows the work of congress and the pride that we have all taken representing our districts and our constituents to know how proud we all were of the life of warren helmand. with that i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back the balance of her time. any further one-minute requests? the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, this is to notify you formally pursuant to rule 8 of the rules of the house of representatives that i was served with a subpoena issued by the superior court of california, county of los angeles, for witness testimony. prior to my required appearance, however, the defendant in the case pled no contest to a lesser charge. thereby, alleviating any need for my testimony. after consultation with the

office of general counsel and as a result of the development in the case, no determination regarding compliance with the subpoena is required. signed sincerely, michael nielson, caseworker, supervisor, office manager. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house the following personal requests. the clerk: leave of be a requested for mr. -- absence requested for mr. diaz-balart of florida for today. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the request is granted. under the speaker's announced policy of january 5, 2011, the gentleman from texas, mr. gohmert, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. mr. gohmert: thank you, mr. speaker. it's sometimes hard to

reconcile the speeches we hear here on the floor with the legislation that we passed. people have been speaking from the other side of the aisle the last 30 minutes about how the republicans in the house apparently don't want taxpayers , working americans, to have the 2% of the social security tax back that don't get paid into social security. when actually this house is taking the responsible position, not wanting to raise taxes in a down economy so workers will have the money that they currently do in their paychecks. it makes sense. i've being saying ever since this first came up that the

idea of a 2% tax cut is not a holiday. and that actually the president corrupted the payroll -- the true payroll tax holiday idea that was brought forward three years ago. that was my idea. it was a stimulus idea that moody's when they rated the differently proposals said they would stimulate the g.d.p. more than the other proposals. and it would have. the people that earned all of their -- the money would have gotten it for two months in a row. some lazy reporters have tried to say, well, that's just like this. absolutely not. unfortunately it requires reading and not all reporters are willing to do that. because it's clear my payroll tax holiday that i told the president about in january of 2009, he liked the idea and the

only thing he did was take the name of it -- sounds familiar -- and use that for what was not a holiday. it's not a holiday when you're avoiding 2% of the taxes you normally do. a holiday is when you don't pay the faxes. the different -- the number of differences -- a holiday is when you don't pay the taxes. the number of differences, the proposal by the senate just pushes off what has to be done and that's dealing with the rest of the year. we want to deal with the rest of the year. we want to provide serpt. the bill i proposed did not create any uncertainty. it dealt with the issue that people could not shove bonuses to those two months, that it was a tax holiday for all of the income tax, social security, those taxes that would normally be taken out of their check. it would have averaged, we were told, between $2,000 and $3,000 a month for two months instead of $80 a month you would have

had, $4,000 to $5,000 over a two-month period. that would have stimulated the economy. not only that, this proposal is not -- that the president's had, it hasn't stimulated the economy. we just don't want to raise taxes on people in a down economy. but it does hurt the social security trust fund. this president's proposal pits working americans against our seniors. didn't have to be this way. before this president ran up an extra $4 trillion in debt, back when we were at $11 trillion instead of $15 trillion just a few years ago, the proposal was completely paid for and the only people that would have missed the money was the wall street bailout folks that wouldn't have gotten their money because it took money from tarp and left it in the pockets of those who