mr. speaker , i rise in opposition to h.r. 8 , which continues , in my view , the policies by the majority of three tax cuts , in 4 years , with four straight record-breaking deficits that have added $ 2 trillion in 4 years to the nation 's debt . 
and here again the majority offers $ 850 billion of tax cuts to the wealthiest families in this country . 
when you get in a hole that is $ 2 trillion deep , rule one , stop digging . 
if you can not figure that out , you can not produce any more when it comes to economic growth for this country or jobs or resolving the health care crisis or the educational crisis we have in the country . 
my view is repeating the same mistake and expecting a different result is a sign that you have lost your bearings . 
this bill will do nothing to stimulate the economic growth or savings , which is what we should be focused on , rather than further shifting the tax burden from wealth to work . 
we could be debating and using this time on simplifying the code . 
just 2 weeks ago there was a report out by the irs and others showing that $ 350 billion a year goes unreported in taxes where people are not complying and cheating . 
we have a tax code that rewards and initiates a culture of cheating and penalizes those who abide by the rules . 
that is where we should be focusing , on simplifying the code and taking away the incentive to cheat , which is what we have today in our code . 
with all the economic challenges we are facing today in the area of health care , energy , education , eliminating the estate tax , fully eliminating , should be the last of our priorities . 
but the republicans will soldier on and continue to fight until taxes are eliminated for the very last multimillionaire . 
instead of helping the wealthy avoid taxes , we should be helping middle-class families save for their retirement . 
that is a true deficit we have in this country , a retirement and savings deficit . 
the savings rate is at its lowest level since the 1930s , lower than any other industrialized nation . 
millions of families are financially unprepared for retirement . 
given this reality , why are we debating the elimination of the estate tax instead of real tax reform and a savings agenda for the middle class . 
are holding the interests of the wealthy and special interests above the hopes and dreams of the middle-class families the kind of values we want our tax code to reflect ? 
as late former supreme court justice louis brandeis once said , `` we can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few , but we can not have both. '' mr. speaker , there is no doubt which one this bill will achieve . 
