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Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I rise to support the tax cut package before us today to help middle-class families and workers hit hardest by this economy, and that is exactly what this bill will do. It will ensure that middle-class taxes don't go up January 1, that laid-off workers can provide for their families while they continue to look for work, that an average household in my home State will receive $1,400 in payroll tax relief, and it will protect 1.6 million middle class New Jerseyans from a surprise alternative minimum tax hike of up to $5,600.
This is an important moment for the middle class in America.
This is a time to come together, like the Senate did last night, to ensure this bill passes and our economic recovery continues. Many families are sitting around the kitchen table at night wondering how they can afford to feed and clothe their children, much less buy gifts for them during this holiday.
Middle class families are wondering how they are going to pay the mortgage. How they are going to pay the tuition for their college-bound children next semester.
I will vote for this package, not because I agree with every provision, particularly those that give bonus tax breaks to the wealthiest and most able to sacrifice during this economic recession, but because it will help families in my State and across this country who really do need our help.
I will vote for this package because, at its core, it is a middle-class tax relief package.
I will vote for it because it extends tax relief of more than 3,000 for a typical working family and doubles the child tax credit from $500 to $1,000.
I will vote for it because the $120 billion payroll tax cut is an effective way to create jobs and increase the consumer demand sorely needed by our Nation's businesses.
I will vote for it because it includes a 2-year extension of the alternative minimum tax relief legislation, which I sponsored, so 1.6 million New Jerseyans will not face an additional tax bill of up to $5,600.
I will vote for this package because it preserves transit benefits to New Jersey commuters. This provision, which was not included in the original deal, but I worked hard to restore, will allow commuters to receive up to $230 in transit benefits tax free.
It extends the low-income child tax credit and earned-income tax credit to ensure that a working family with three children could continue to receive a tax cut of more than $2,000.
It helps students and their parents by extending the partially refundable American opportunity tax credit, worth up to $2,500, that helps 8 million students and their families cover the cost of tuition.
It helps save and create green jobs by extending what's known as the 1603 Treasury grant program, widely credited with maintaining strong growth in the renewable energy sector in 2009 and 2010, despite the severe economic downturn, and has saved tens of thousands of jobs in the wind and solar industries.
I worked hard to restore this particular provision because it has provided more than $66 million in grants to fund 155 solar projects in New Jersey alone.
And most importantly, for those who are unemployed, it includes a long-overdue 13-month extension of Federal support for 99 weeks of unemployment insurance for workers who have lost their jobs during this economic downturn, something our Republican colleagues fought against all year, a helping hand they refused to extend unless the rich got even more in tax cuts, even though extending unemployment benefits is a policy that most economists agree is one of the most effective measures to create jobs.
It helps small business owners by creating the largest temporary investment incentive in American history by allowing businesses to expense all of their qualified investments in 2011.
Estimates from the Treasury Department indicate this could generate more than $50 billion in additional investment in the U.S. next year.
The bill includes a provision I cosponsored to incentivize restaurant owners to upgrade their facilities by extending for 2 years a provision that allows them to write off their costs much faster than they could otherwise, 15 years as opposed to 39 years.
And it helps small business owners by extending for 2 years the research and development tax credit which incentivizes companies to create jobs in America by giving them a tax credit for qualified research spending.
The R&D tax credit is truly a jobs credit with 70 percent or more of the credit attributable to salaries and wages of U.S. workers performing research in the United States. I have cosponsored legislation to make this credit permanent, and I hope we will.
Unfortunately, our friends on the other side of the aisle decided that if we were going to pass a bill to help the middle class, it could not move without additional benefits for the wealthiest.
In order for us to help the middle class, we are being asked by our Republican colleagues to give millionaires an additional windfall.
In order to pass an extension of desperately needed unemployment benefits as emergency spending, we must also pass a windfall for estates worth more than $5 million.
Yes that is correct, apparently now Republicans believe you must offset help for laid-off workers with estate tax cuts for the heirs of millionaires and billionaires.
Now, people who have worked hard and built personal wealth should be applauded for their success. Their hard work, their creativity, their ingenuity should be applauded and admired.
People who work hard and prosper, they love their country too, and they are in the best position to be helpful to our nation in this tough economic time.
Many of them are willing to contribute if we ask, and we know from experience that reverting to the tax rates the wealthiest and most successful paid during the Clinton era of prosperity did not hurt our economy.
This package certainly is not ideal. Let me be perfectly clear, I do not think we should be giving the wealthiest Americans, those who are the most able to share in the sacrifice needed in today's economy, even more in tax cuts just to keep taxes from increasing on the middle class. But that is the hand we have been dealt. We had votes on extending middle class tax cuts, and we could not garner enough Republican support to pass them.
Now the decision is not whether or not to support tax cuts for the wealthy. The decision before us today is whether we are going to stand up for the middle class and protect them from the tax increase that is looming 2 weeks from now.
The bottom line is that this package meets our priority on this side of the aisle, of making a real difference in the lives of middle class families affected by layoffs, families struggling to make ends meet, and, in the process, help further stimulate our fragile economy, rather than allow it to slide back into recession.
If we can achieve that, then this compromise is well worth it.
I hope that those on the other side who have shamelessly stood for putting more money in the pockets of millionaires and billionaires regardless of the cost, regardless of the fact that doing so has failed to create jobs, will not come back a year or 2 years from now and have the audacity to blame this administration or members on this side of the aisle for fiscal irresponsibility, that we will never again be lectured about deficits by those who demand billions of dollars in deficit spending for the heir of estates worth more than $5 million.
That is what a Republican world looks like. It is a world of blue smoke and mirrors in which they tell us we can see castles, kingdoms, an economy that is not real and jobs that are not there.
The negotiations to get to this point revealed much about the priorities of each party, and frankly the tactics employed by my Republican colleagues do not sit well with me and many of my fellow Democrats.
But the bottom line is that most of my colleagues recognize, as I do, that this package will make a real difference in the lives of middle class families struggling in difficult economic circumstances.
And I believe it will have strong support, that it will benefit millions of average Americans who simply want us to do what is right for them.
It is my hope that this package is the last time we will be forced to cut a deal for the wealthy just to protect middle-class families.
I listened with great interest to the words of the President when he spoke about tax reform recently. We have an opportunity to reform the Tax Code, to simplify what has become a nightmare for millions of Americans, to get rid of so much preferential treatment for special interests currently in the code, and to lower income tax rates for everybody.
We should have a Tax Code that reflects the general interests of the American people, not one that forces the less politically connected to pay more in taxes than those with powerful allies.
And I expect that the next time this issue comes up, we will not be discussing whether or not to extend the failed tax policies of the Bush administration, but how to best simplify the Tax Codes so tax rates for everybody can be reduced permanently and responsibly.
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