senate. [inaudible] the senate voted to give the american people a $166 tax cut. we voted to giver the american people a $1,000 tax cut. we are going to insist on doing this the right way. they have been working on this for weeks and haven t been able to come to an agreement. what makes you think you can do that between now and new year. we have not been working on this for weeks. i told the senate leaders that there would be no negotiations with the house until such time as the senate passed the bill. i meant what i said. and when they were getting ready to pass this and somebody passed on to me what they thought it would look like, i made it clear
they want to extend the tax cut and unemployment insurance through 2012. but a faction of republicans in the house are refusing to even vote on the senate bill. a bill that cuts taxes for 160 million americans. because of their refusal to cooperate eight all those americans could face a tax hike in just 11 days, and millions of americans out there looking for work could find their unemployment insurance expired. let s be clear. these bipartisan compromise reached saturday is the only viable way to prevent a tax hike on january 1. it s the only one. all of the leaders in congress, democrats and republicans say they are committed to making sure we extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance
americans may not even get the tax credit. so today we have voted to go to a formal conference to resolve the differences between the two bills. this is a system that our founders gave us, it s as old as our nation and as clear as the constitution. our house gop negotiators are here and ready to work with our counterparts in the senate to resolve the differences as quickly as possible. our negotiators are kevin brady, david kemp. tom price, tom reid, fred upton and gregg wolf. now it s up to the president to show real leadership. he said that he won t leave town for the holidays until this bill is done. the next up is clear. i think president obama needs to call on senate democrats to go back into session, move to go to
conference and sit down and resolve this bill as quickly as possible. i sent a letter to the president today asking him to do just this. we have done our work for the american people. now it s up to the president, the democrats in the senate to do their job as well. i ll take a couple questions. we have done our job, all we need now is to resolve our differences. a two-month extension is nothing more than kicking the can down the road. the president has asked to us do this for a full year, we did it for a full year. we offset costs with reasonable offsets. there is no reason we can t do this. you will remember just several weeks ago the house passed a dod authorization bill, the senate passed theirs. in the period of less than a
taken to the podium to give us the house response. we ll be back with you in just a second. the president and leaders of both houses of congress have called for a year-long extension of the payroll tax credit. the house has passed a bill that would do just that. it would extend and reform unemployment insurance, protect social security, and create jobs. we are proud of the bill that we passed. the house passed it with bipartisan support. we also understand the senate passed a different bill. we oppose that bill because the two-month extension will create more uncertainty for job creators in our country when millions of americans are out of work. the payroll processing companies say the senate bill is unworkable and so complex that s