Mr. BOEHNER. 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 what I didn't do. I just want all of 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 current payment schedule for doctors who treat Medicare patients.

My colleagues and I, on a bipartisan basis, last week passed such a bill, the same kind of bill that was requested by the minority leader, the minority whip, and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. This bill is going to cost about $200 billion. We found a reasonable offset 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: it's too hard to figure it out. We're getting close to Christmas. We're going to leave. We're going to punt. And we're going to send a 2-month bill over.

My colleague from New York was arguing for what's basically a $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 are arguing for a $166 tax cut because it's only for 2 months. I am going to give the average American family a $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 this extended 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 are 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. 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. Let's do this once; and let's do it the right way, for once.

So I would say to 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. Then on February 28, we'll be sitting here looking at each other in the same way. Why don't we just do it now and give the American people a real Christmas present?