mr. speaker , i just heard the gentleman from wisconsin talk about job creation . 
he singled out one month . 
22 million jobs created during the clinton years . 
22 million . 
economic growth has been paltry and everybody knows it . 
in addition to which he talked about the deficit -- with a straight face . 
they have rolled up the national deficit , $ 2.2 trillion we are in the hole . 
on their time this has happened . 
let me say this and i think it is very important to point out , mr. speaker , the republican majority now says , as they did yesterday with a straight face , incidentally , well , the democrats did not do anything about the alternative minimum tax when they were in the majority . 
in 1994 , and i hope that anybody who is listening to this will write this number down , when the republicans took control of the house of representatives there were approximately 200 , 000 people paying amt , 200 , 000 people . 
next year 19.3 million people are kicked into amt . 
i would like to think , as the gentleman from new york has indicated , that i have had some consistency on the issue of alternative minimum tax , not only in the committee , but here on the house floor . 
we did a big nothing yesterday about amt and everybody knows it . 
19.3 million people next year are kicked into amt . 
but the house of representatives had time to repeal the estate tax and now to address the dividend and capital gains tax , but they really never have time to do anything about amt . 
and the reason they do not have time to do anything about amt is pretty simple , it goes to middle income americans to bear that burden . 
so if we do not have time here to do something for the wealthy , we really do not have time to do anything . 
we are rich and we are not going to take it anymore . 
we watch these numbers as they are presented to us . 
the republican party , at one time , stood for anti-communism and balanced budgets . 
well , communism is gone and the deficits have really soared , all from a party that preaches fiscal discipline . 
they have rolled those deficits up for one reason , after , by the way , robbing the social security trust fund to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest . 
in this institution we hear , well , the social security trust fund is going broke . 
it is going broke because they took $ 2 trillion out of it in tax cuts during the next 10 years . 
there is no pressure to do what we have to do today . 
they are contributing to the national deficit , contributing to the debt , all under the guise of paying for tax cuts for the wealthiest among us . 
lastly , i defy anybody here to not acknowledge this static . 
the dividend relief bill that we are entertaining here overwhelmingly 53 percent of that benefit goes to people who made more than $ 1 million last year . 
that is where we find ourselves now . 
