On the recordDecember 16, 2010
With all the back and forth, what we really have before us are two problems facing America. One is too few jobs: 9.8 percent of Americans who want work are out of work--15 million people. Millions more are so discouraged that they are the underemployed. We have got to find a way to put them back to work. The second problem we have is too much debt. Without going into the history of how we went from a record surplus to a record deficit, we went from the Clinton tax rates to the Bush tax rates. We went from a surplus of 20 million jobs created to 8 million jobs lost. We have a debt now that is approaching $14 trillion, and with the passage of this bill, we will be approaching $15 trillion. The question for us to the American people is: If we are going to borrow a dollar for any reason, will there be a job bang for that dollar borrowed? That dollar borrowed is coming from China. What this legislation will do is literally ask the American middle class to borrow $200 billion to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest families. This is not an objection to people being wealthy, as has been said. They can be generous, and they can create jobs. It is about whether that dollar borrowed will produce a job for an out-of-work American--and it won't. There are other alternatives to what is before us. We should not be borrowing money that won't be productive.





