Mr. Speaker, this bill makes it as clear as day just what the priorities of the majority are. Instead of working with us to shift the tax burden away from the middle class--who haven't gotten a raise in a long time--and small businesses, this bill does the exact opposite.

And for you to continue to say that this is going to be a burden across the board on small businesses is delusional. Ninety-seven percent of small businesses won't be affected by our bill.

To the antitax crusaders, this bill will raise taxes on the middle class--your bill--and working poor--your bill--by an average of $1,000. In New Jersey, this bill will make 3.2 million middle class and working poor families pay more taxes so that 231,400 millionaires can get a bigger tax cut.

It's as simple as that. You can shake your head all you want; those are the facts. This bill would add almost $1 trillion more to the deficit than the Democratic bill. My Lord, I don't hear you talk about that. I don't hear you say that. I wonder why? Just so that 0.3 percent of the taxpayers can get an average tax cut of over $74,000?

At least the last time the Republicans took this shortsighted, trickle-down approach, we had a $5.6 trillion surplus, thanks to Bill Clinton. In 2008, we were $11 trillion, over $11 trillion in debt. We quite simply can't afford to gives millionaires another tax break and make our children and our grandchildren foot the bill.

The proof is in the pudding. In 2000, when we first tried this supply side voodoo, unemployment was 4.2 percent. By 2008, it had doubled.

To those Members concerned with tax fairness: today, wealth concentrated with the top 1 percent is at the same level as the period immediately preceding the Great Depression. So you shrunk the middle class with your great economic ideas between 2001 and 2008, and what you did was made the rich richer. I salute you if that's what you think America is about. We are all job creators, not just the rich.

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