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 .  