Carolyn C. Kilpatrick

Madam Speaker, I was unable to attend to several votes. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on rollcall Nos. 657, 658, 659, 660, 661, 662 and 663.

Dear Madam Speaker, as I leave Congress as the people's representative for the 13th Congressional District of Michigan, I thank God, who is the head

of my life, for allowing me the blessing of serving in perhaps the most august, deliberate, elected body in the world. I am humbled and honored that the great citizens of Michigan and the people of Detroit chose me for so many years to fight and serve them for more than three decades as a public servant. The many friendships, relationships, and associations I have formed will remain with me forever.

I finally want to thank perhaps the most underappreciated team in any elected body--the staff who have worked for me for those years in the State of Michigan and on Capitol Hill. The tireless dedication, devotion and work will never be forgotten by me or the people to whom you have been so effective and efficient for so long.

I hope and pray for all of my colleagues that we may bring a better world to all Americans, and never flinch from fighting for justice and democratic ideals. We made history. We made difficult decisions. We fought the good fight. We have difficult days ahead, and I remain faithful to protecting the Constitution of the United States and the goals of our great nation.

God bless.

Mr. Chair, I have been involved in politics for more than three decades. I am proud of my record of public service to the people of the great State of Michigan and to our Nation. Some of the proudest votes I have ever cast in my career have been in support of the economic stimulus package, health care reform, saving our manufacturing base by saving the auto industry, and preventing our banking system from dragging our economy into a full-blown depression. It is my point that we have not done enough to advertise the good things we have done for Americans.

The economic stimulus package provided 95 percent of all Americans with a tax cut, saved or created close to three million jobs, and allowed States and cities to use bonds to fill their budget deficits. Thanks to the revolution in health care by our health care law, the largest deficit reduction law in the history of the United States, all Americans will have access to health care for the first time in history. While this law becomes fully phased in by 2014, some of its mandates are working for Americans now, such as the fact that citizens cannot be denied health care coverage due to pre-existing conditions, filling in the Medicare Part D ``doughnut hole,'' and that insurance companies cannot deny your health insurance once you are ill. The bold Democratic program to save the auto industry, like the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) not only cost taxpayers less than anticipated, taxpayers can potentially reap a profit from these programs. We have been efficient and effective with the peoples' purse.

We are now voting on a tax ``deal'' that President Barack Obama agreed to with Republicans to extend the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts started by former President George W. Bush. These tax cuts, which were not offset by responsible spending cuts and gave the majority of the tax cuts to the richest one percent of all Americans, were fiscally irresponsible when they were first proposed. They were so controversial and so fiscally unstable, the Republicans refused to make them permanent. It took then Vice President Dick Cheney to come to the Senate to break the 50-50 tie that stopped the bill from final passage.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind all Americans that we have had not one, not two, but if this bill passes, four major tax cuts at a time in which we are involved in not one, but two, wars. This is the first time in American history that we have had a war and we did not have a tax increase to help pay for that war.

I cannot, and will not, support this fiscally irresponsible bill. This bill is a horrible deal for Americans. Not only does it extend the Bush tax cuts, and the Republicans are willing to hold the extension of unemployment benefits to three million American families to get it done, as the late night infomercials like to say, ``wait, there's more.''

This bill hammers Social Security. Through this legislation's cut in the payroll tax, the tax that funds Social Security, the long-term stability and safety net for our senior citizens is in jeopardy. For every person who puts money into the Social Security program, two people take money out of it. If you think that this one-third cut to the payroll tax is going to come back in two years, don't count on it. The more that this fund is delayed, the more the Social Security program--a governmental program that has worked for more than seven decades, and which is the sole difference between life in a home or life on the street for over half of our senior citizens--is gutted.

This bill insufficiently helps the unemployed. Michigan has one of the Nation's highest rates of unemployment, and Michiganders desperately need unemployment insurance. But guess what? While this bill extends unemployment for those three million people who currently get it, it does nothing, not one thing at all, for the millions of unemployed workers who have exhausted their benefits under tier four. If you have been out of work more than 99 weeks--and plenty of Americans have been out of work that long through no fault of their own--this bill does not provide what I have been pushing for the last year. That is a new tier five level of unemployment benefits so that workers who have exhausted their federal and state benefits are able to feed their families and keep a roof over their head. If we are going to extend unemployment, let's extend it for all Americans.

This bill is a tax increase for most Americans. While this bill is a sure-shot tax cut for those people making or inheriting millions of dollars, for nearly 50 million hard working Americans, this bill is actually a tax increase. Workers who make less than $20,000 per year will see a tax increase. And by the way, if you are a federal worker, a worker who will see a pay freeze over the next two years, if your job has not been totally eliminated, you will see a tax increase. Finally, if you work for your state or city government, you will see your taxes increase because of this bill.

This bill is a woefully inefficient way to create jobs. The Congressional Budget Office and other non-partisan, objective organizations have widely stated that tax cuts is, by far, the most inefficient way to create jobs. At a total cost of over $900 billion, this bill is expected to lower unemployment by less than one percent. The most efficient way to create jobs in an economy in which businesses cannot create them? A federal direct-hire program. I offered such a program as an amendment to the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill, a program modeled after the successful Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) that would have immediately put more than one million people back to work. It was rejected earlier this year.

I proudly voted for the extension of tax breaks for Americans who make $250,000 or less. I also proudly voted to extend unemployment benefits for three million American families, and continued to fight for the addition of a tier five level of unemployment benefits. These two fiscally sound policies would help reduce our deficit and stabilize American families during the holiday season and beyond. Unfortunately, this was apparently not good enough for the Republicans, who overwhelmingly did not support the preservation of almost three million jobs in the economic stimulus package, the saving of American manufacturing through the auto loan program, or the more than $100 billion reduction in our deficit that will be the health care law once it is fully in effect.

I cannot, and will not, support this fiscally irresponsible bill. It is my hope and desire that the wisdom of the Congress prevails and we reject this legislation and start over with a bill that caps the top level of earnings at $250,000 and adds a tier five level for all of those individuals who are unemployed and have exhausted their state and federal benefits. Our children and grandchildren, who have to pay for these programs, are watching what we do.