[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 13 (Thursday, February 10, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 10, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
               WHAT THEY'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT IN CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Sanders] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, as the only Independent in the U.S. 
Congress, I have the responsibility to raise issues that my Democratic 
and Republican colleagues choose not to deal with. Let me briefly touch 
upon three issues of enormous consequence which, while ignored in 
Congress, must be addressed by the American people.
  The United States is, increasingly, an oligarchy. The richest 1 
percent of our population now owns 37 percent of the wealth, more than 
the bottom 90 percent of the people. The CEO's of the Forbes 500 
corporations earn 157 times more than their average worker, and the gap 
between the rich and the poor is wider than at any time since the 
1920's. From 1983 to 1989, 55 percent of the increase in family wealth 
accrued to the richest half of 1 percent of families, while the lower-
middle and bottom wealth classes lost over $250 billion dollars' worth 
of wealth.
  But oligarchy refers not just to the unfair distribution of wealth, 
but to the fact that the decisions which shape our consciousness and 
affect our lives are made by a very small and powerful group of people.
  The mass media, television, radio, newspapers, magazines, book 
publishers, movie and video companies, for example, is largely 
controlled by a few multinational corporations who determine the news 
and programming which we see, hear, and read--and, ultimately, what we 
believe. While violence, scandal, horror, sports, and Rush Limbaugh are 
given much attention, we are provided with virtually no deep analysis 
of the problems facing working people, or possible solutions to those 
problems.
  Economic decisions which wreck the lives of millions of American 
families are made by a handful of CEO's. While these corporate leaders 
bemoan the breakdown of morality and law and order, they close down 
profitable companies, cut wages and benefits, deny retired workers 
their pensions and transport our jobs to third world countries. 
American workers, who have often given decades of their lives to these 
companies, have absolutely no say as to what happens to them on the 
job. They are powerless and expendable--which is what oligarchy is all 
about.

  The United States is becoming a Third World economy. The standard of 
living of the average American worker continues to decline. The real 
wages of American production workers have dropped by 20 percent during 
the last 20 years, as millions of decent paying jobs disappear. The new 
jobs that are being created are largely temporary, part time, low wage, 
and with few benefits.
  Twenty years ago, the United States led the world in terms of the 
wages and benefits our workers received. Today, we are in 12th place. 
Our wages, health care, vacation time, parental leave, and educational 
opportunity lag behind much of the industrialized world. On the other 
hand, much of our economic and social life is more and more resembling 
that of the desperate Third World.
  Twenty-two percent of our children live in poverty. Five million kids 
go hungry. Some 2 million Americans now lack permanent shelter or sleep 
out on the streets--many of them mentally ill and 1 in every 10 
American families now puts food on the table only with the aid of food 
stamps. Tens of millions more survive, on bare subsistence, from 
paycheck to paycheck.
  In more and more abandoned neighborhoods in America, a lack of jobs, 
income, education and hope have created an extraordinary climate of 
savagery and violence which more than equals that of many communities 
in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
  The suffering and desperation in the Third World which we have 
distantly observed is now coming home as we become a Third World 
economy.
  The United States is fast becoming a nondemocratic country. The 
United States has the lowest voter turnout of any major industrialized 
country on Earth. The 1992 Presidential election produced a 55 percent 
voter turnout. It is expected that the 1994 off-Presidential turnout 
will be about 36 percent. In local elections the turnout is often far 
lower.
  The simple fact is that the majority of Americans, and the vast 
majority of poor and working people, no longer believe that their 
Government is relevant to their lives. They understand very clearly 
that real power rests with a wealthy elite, and that voting for 
tweedle-dee or tweedle-dum is not going to change that reality or 
improve their lives.
  If democracy is going to survive in this country, tens of millions of 
poor and working people are going to have to see the connection between 
their economic condition and the political process. They must vote not 
for the lesser of two evils, but for jobs, income, health care, and the 
dignity to which they, as human beings, are entitled. Only when that 
occurs will American democracy become revitalized.

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