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The shadow chancellor has condemned the government's comprehensive spending review and claimed it "endangers the recovery".
Alan Johnson told MPs the government's plans will reduce the prospects for employment in the short term and prosperity in the longer term.
In his response to the CSR, Johnson said the Conservatives were not calling for cuts at the time of the last comprehensive spending review, in 2007.
In fact George Osborne, then shadow chancellor, wanted less bank regulation and increased public spending.
Johnson told the Commons that for many Tories the cuts are an "ideological objective".
He accused government MPs of cheering "the deepest cuts to public spending in a generation".
"Mr Speaker, without growth the job of getting the deficit down becomes impossible," he said.
"A rising dole queue means a bigger welfare bill, and less tax coming in.
"A cost of at least half a billion pounds for every 100,000 people thrown out of work by the government's approach.
"So to get the deficit down the starting point must be jobs, jobs, jobs, and that is the core of the difference between us and the government."
Johnson also attacked the Lib Dems' role in the CSR.
"Today's reckless gamble with people's livelihoods runs the risk of stifling the fragile recovery," he told the House.
"The ridiculous analogy of credit card debt insults the intelligence of the British public.
"If countries around the world hadn't run up debts to sustain their economies people would not have lost their credit cards, they'd have lost their houses, their savings and their jobs.
"The Liberal Democrats know this, because it's what they argued when seeking the support of the electorate.
"Before the deputy prime minister discovered Greece, in the period between the ballot boxes closing and the door of his ministerial car opening.
"They, like us, argued that in the context of reducing the deficit, speed kills."
Johnson attacked government plans to reduce the spend on child benefit and housing benefit.
"I don't believe that the chancellor or the prime minster sufficiently understand the worries and concerns of families up and down the country, and I think those worries will have multiplied as a result of the spending review statement today," he said.
In his response Osborne said of Johnson: "He is a nice guy but he is in the wrong job."
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