Congressman James Lankford
appeared on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal this morning to discuss the
Senate-passed bill to extend the payroll tax holiday for only two months.
Congressman Lankford said there should be a year-long extension to bring
stability to the economy and certainty for family budgets.
On the Impracticality of Two Month Tax
Policy: “You cannot
really do tax policy in a two-month term. That is not fair for the Senate to
say, ‘This is going to be difficult, negotiations are going to be hard, but we
will get it off our desk and just put it out to the American people and say ‘go
figure out how to apply this.’’ Can anyone stand up and with a straight face say
we should do tax policy 60 days at a time on the American people? There is
nothing more destabilizing when no one knows what the tax rate is going to be.
No one knows how to do their jobs. If you want to just throw money out of the
door, take money from the Treasury and send it out the door, you can do that in
two months. If you want to create stability in tax programs in America, you are
not going to do that two months at a time.”
On Going to Conference Committee:
“What we are doing today
is sending over a conference report. The typical, normal way everyone who grew
up in civics class to be able to track through a bill – the House passes a bill,
the Senate passes a bill, the language is not the same; they go to conference
and work it out, and it goes back to both bodies and is passed. That is the
normal process for a bill. We passed a bill and sent it to the Senate, and they
did not approve it. The Senate passed a bill and when it comes over to the
House, we are not going to approve it today. We are going to ask for to go to
conference.”