Jobs for Americans

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, thank you again for leading us in what has been a very important discussion about job creation and job retention in our country. And I couldn't agree more than with your sentiments that include this concern about providing a benefit to the middle class in terms of a payroll tax holiday extender, but then also asking them to pay for that benefit. So it is like one hand is offering and the other hand is taking from our working families, middle class Americans. This is not the prescription for success.

What has been offered by the President is a payroll holiday extender, a tax holiday extender for both employers and employees. And there are many small businesses that stand to gain. The overwhelming majority of small businesses gain by that extension, and certainly the employees do. But it works best when you bring leverage into the equation that comes from the surcharge that is placed upon the most high income strata in our country.

And when you look at the charts from 1979 to the present day, there is no denying what statistics indicate. Facts can't be argued with. There has been this exponential rise in the growth of income for the top 1 percent to about 250 percent of an increase, all while, from 1979, middle-income Americans have seen a flat-lining of their household income, and now it's even dipping. So why mess with this progress that has been realized, this steady climb upward--slow but steady--from an 8.2 million jobs loss hole? We have climbed steadily. Why would you mess with that obvious success that is coming back into the economy? Allow for America's middle class families to move forward, and allow for that benefit to be paid for by someone other than the middle class. Otherwise, it's giving and taking from the same audience. It makes no sense.

We stand by progress, we stand by progressive policy, and we stand by our
middle class, our working families. Let's get it done for middle class America. Without a strong middle class, there is not a strong America.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source