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Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, my constituents are willing to support this Congress borrowing money, but only if all of that effort is targeted at creating jobs. This bill fails that test. We're going to borrow almost $900 billion under this bill in order to give $140,000 in tax cuts to somebody that makes $1 million. We're going to reduce the estate tax so that only 3,500 families in the entire country pay it next year.

Tax cuts for billionaires don't create jobs. Sure, there are important provisions in this bill that do help the most needy, like extending tax cuts to the middle class and unemployment benefits to those that are out of work. But these benefits are going to be greatly outweighed by the crushing debt that those same families will have to carry and the cuts to education and to health care and to Social Security that will inevitably be passed in order to finance those same tax cuts.

My constituents want a bill that is 100 percent focused on jobs. Unfortunately in this bill, 20 percent of the money goes to almost only 1 percent of Americans. It's not a deal to create jobs. It's not a deal that we can afford.

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