[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 179 (Monday, November 13, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H12184-H12188]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             {time}   2245
             THE MOST IMPORTANT PROBLEMS FACING OUR COUNTRY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Sanders] is recognized for 50 
minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, while we await an understanding of the 
meeting taking place in the White House now between the President and 
the Republican leadership, let me review for my fellow Vermonters and 
for people throughout this country what I consider to be some of the 
most important problems facing this country, talk a little bit about 
some solutions that I think make sense to many millions of Americans, 
and then talk about how the Contract With America impacts all of that.

[[Page H 12185]]

  The first point that I want to make, Mr. Speaker, is that some of the 
most important issues facing our country are, unfortunately, not talked 
about terribly often. They are not talked about by our Republican 
friends, they are not talked about by our Democratic friends, they are 
not talked about by the corporate media, and I think one of the reasons 
that we have a great deal of anxiety in this country is that people are 
hurting, they are in pain, they know that something is wrong, but they 
turn on the television, they read the papers, and they do not see that 
the realities of their life are being discussed, and I think that 
further alienates them from the political process, it confuses them, it 
gets them angry.
  Let us talk about a few of the realities that are not widely 
discussed on the floor of this House, or on the television, or the 
radio:
  No. 1, if you were to ask me what the most important reality facing 
America is, the reality is that for the vast majority of our people, 
some 80 percent of the American people, they are becoming poorer. 
People in America today, in large numbers, are working longer hours for 
lower wages. Since 1973, 80 percent of Americans have seen either a 
decline in their real wages or, at best, economic stagnation.
  So that is the first reality that I think we have to talk about. When 
we turn on the television, or we look in the newspapers, and they tell 
us that new jobs are being created, the gross national product is 
growing, the economy is booming; what we have to say is all of those 
statistics are not terribly relevant to what is going on in the lives 
of real working people.
  Mr. Speaker, real people today, working people today, are working 
longer hours, they are earning lower wages, and more and more of the 
jobs that are being created are part-time jobs, are temporary jobs, are 
jobs without good benefits. So that is the most important reality, and 
frankly, instead of discussing a whole lot of other issues that we 
spend huge amounts of time on in this Chamber, that should be the 
paramount issue:
  Why is it that for the vast majority of our people our standard of 
living is in decline? Why is it that for family farmers in the State of 
Vermont they are receiving 50 percent of the income they received 15 
years ago and are being forced to leave the land? And that problem 
exists not only for family farmers all over America, but for working 
people all over this country. That is the first reality that I want to 
touch upon tonight, and that needs a whole lot of discussion on the 
floor of the House.
  The second issue is that while it is true that for 80 percent of our 
people they are experiencing a decline in their standard of living, 
there is another reality that is taking place which we hardly ever talk 
about, and that is we do not congratulate Michael Eisner, who is the 
president of the Walt Disney Corp, for the hundred million dollars he 
earned several years ago. We do not give enough congratulations to Bill 
Gates, the major stockholder of Microsoft who is now worth $9 billion. 
We do not talk too much about the fact that the major CEO's in this 
country now earn over $3 million a year on average. In essence what we 
are not talking about is that while 80 percent of our people are seeing 
a decline in their standard of living or, at best, economic stagnation, 
the people on the top today are doing better than perhaps at any time 
in the modern history of the United States.
  In the last 20 years, Mr. Speaker, the wealthiest 1 percent of 
American families saw their after-tax incomes more than double. The 
wealthiest 1 percent of American now owns a greater percentage of the 
Nation's wealth than at any time since the 1920's. So, yes, there are 
two realities that are taking place. On the one hand, the average 
American is seeing a decline in his or her standards of living. Women, 
who would prefer to stay home taking care of the kids, are now forced 
to go into the work force. The new jobs that are being created by our 
kids are often part-time jobs or minimum-wage jobs.
  That is the reality that impacts on the vast majority of the American 
people, but the other reality that we do not talk about too often, we 
are kind of quiet about it, is that for the rich and the powerful, hey 
what is the problem? Things have never been better. Today the 
wealthiest 1 percent of the population owns more wealth than the bottom 
90 percent. We do not talk about that too much. We do not talk about 
concepts like social justice in America. We do not talk about the fact 
that there has been an enormous growth in millionaires and billionaires 
while at the same time this country, the United States, has the highest 
rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world by far. Twenty-
two percent of the kids live in poverty, yet we are having a huge 
growth in millionaires and billionaires. Where is the justice? Why are 
we not talking about that issue?
  Mr. Speaker, the other thing that we do not talk about too often is 
to put our situation in a broader context in terms of what is happening 
in the whole world. There is no question but that much of the 
industrialized world is suffering economic problems just as we are. But 
it should be pointed out that whereas in the early 1970's the working 
people of the United States had the highest standard of living in the 
world, they earned the highest wages, they had the best benefits; 
today, according to various studies, we rank 13th in the world behind 
many European countries and behind some of the Scandinavian countries.
  Recently, Mr. Speaker, you have read in the paper how BMW and other 
European companies are coming to the United States to start factories, 
often in the South but in other parts of America. Why are European 
companies coming to the United States? And the answer is an answer that 
many people my age would have not believed possible if we had discussed 
this issue 20 or 30 years ago. They are coming to America for cheap 
labor because in Europe, in Germany, in France and Scandinavia you 
cannot find workers who are going to work for $8 an hour or $10 an 
hour. Those workers make significantly more than American workers, and 
European companies are coming to America for the same reason that 
American companies go to Mexico or American companies go to China, in 
search of cheap labor. That is an issue that we should be discussing in 
this House of Representatives: how does it happen that American workers 
are now a source of cheap labor for European companies?
  Mr. Speaker, as bad as the situation is now for most middle-age 
workers, the situation is even more frightening for our young workers, 
and I think one of the reasons there is so much anxiety in this country 
is not only that middle-age people are nervous about what is going to 
happen to their lives, what is going to happen to their parents, they 
are worried about what is going to happen to their kids.
  Mr. Speaker, in the last 15 years the wages for entry-level jobs for 
young men who are high school graduates has declined by 30 percent. 
That means the young men who are getting out of high school now are 
earning 30 percent less than was the case 15 years ago for high school 
graduates. Fifteen years ago when somebody graduated high school, they 
most certainly were not wealthy, they did not get a great job, but 
often there were jobs in a town in a factory that paid a worker a 
living wage. Today many of those jobs are gone, and the jobs that are 
available for our young men and our young women are flipping hamburgers 
at McDonald's and working at other service-industry jobs. Thirty 
percent decline in wages for high school graduates were men, and 18-
percent decline for young women.
  Mr. Speaker, the sad reality is that Americans at the lower end of 
the wage scale, our low-income workers, are now, if you can believe it, 
the lowest-paid workers in the entire industrialized world. Eighteen 
percent of American workers with full-time jobs, full-time jobs, are 
paid so little that their wages do not enable them to live above the 
poverty level. That is what is going on in America. That is what 
happens when you make $4.50 an hour or you make $5.50 an hour. But this 
economic decline does not only impact high school graduates, it is also 
impacting those people who have been able to go through college.
  Between 1987 and 1991, the real wages of college-educated workers 
declined by over 3 percent. That is college-educated workers. Over one-
third of recent college graduates have been forced to 

[[Page H 12186]]
take jobs not requiring a college degree, and that is twice as many as 
was the case 5 years ago. What a sad state of affairs when many people 
such as myself say, ``Well, education is the key. We have got to make 
sure our people go to college.'' That is all very true, but there is 
another truth even for those young people who do get a college degree. 
Many of them are unable to find jobs which are commensurate with their 
education.
  Mr. Speaker, when we read in the papers, and Mr. Bush used to tell us 
this, and President Clinton tells us this as well, that millions and 
millions of new jobs are being created, that is true. That is true. A 
lot of new jobs are being created, but the reality is that the majority 
of new jobs that are being created in America today pay less than $7 an 
hour. Many of these jobs offer no health benefits, no retirement 
benefits, no time off for vacations or sick leave. In fact, more and 
more of the new jobs that are being created are part-time jobs or 
temporary jobs. If you can believe it, in 1993 one-third of the U.S. 
work force was comprised of ``contingent labor.'' That means people who 
work for a few months and then lose their jobs, and that number is 
escalating rapidly.
  In the last 10 years the United States has lost 3 million white 
collar jobs. We have lost 1.8 million jobs in manufacturing in the past 
5 years alone. If we are going to try to understand why our wages are 
going down, why so many people are living in economic anxiety, we must 
address the issue of so-called downsizing.
  Downsizing is a polite corporate term for throwing American workers 
out on the street, and this downsizing phenomenon is taking place at a 
frightening degree among some of the largest and most powerful 
corporations in America. Five companies alone, Ford, AT&T, General 
Electric, ITT, and Union Carbide laid off over 800,000 American workers 
in the last 15 years, just those five companies alone.
  Mr. Speaker, you know when we talk about family values, when we talk 
about the importance of adults being good parents, of adult parents 
having the time to spend quality moments with their kids, one of the 
things that we should realize is that, as a result of the economic 
downturn and decline in real wages, the average American worker today 
is now working 160 hours a year more than he or she worked in 1969. The 
number of Americans working at more than one job has almost doubled 
over the last 15 years. In my rural Sate of Vermont it is now uncommon 
to find workers working not just two jobs, but three jobs, in order to 
bring home the bacon and to pay the bills.

                              {time}  2300

  I remember when I was in college, they used to give courses on what 
they called leisure time. They were worried then as technology 
developed and workers would be working fewer hours, what would the 
American worker do with all of his or her spare time? Unfortunately, 
Mr. Speaker, they do not give those courses anymore. Nobody worries 
what the American worker is going to do with his or her spare time, 
because that worker does not have any spare time. Rather, they give 
courses now on how to deal with the terrible stress that families are 
under when wives do not see their husbands and husbands do not see 
their kids, because everybody is working at crazy hours, trying to keep 
their family above water.
  Mr. Speaker, not only are real wages going down. There is another 
crisis that, certainly, this Congress is not dealing with, and in fact 
is making a very bad situation worse. That is that one-third of all 
Americans do not have adequate medical insurance, and the number is 
growing.
  Two years ago in this House, we dealt with that goal. I disagreed 
with Clinton's plan, it was too complicated, too cumbersome, but at 
least he had a vision that said that every man, woman, and child in 
America should have health insurance. Now that that debate is over, the 
situation which was bad then is worse today. More Americans lack health 
care than was the case a few years ago. More Americans have inadequate 
health insurance, large deductibles, large copayments than was the case 
several years ago.
  Mr. Speaker, the ultimate reality of what is happening in this 
country today is that while the richest people are becoming much 
richer, while the middle class is shrinking and more of the middle 
class is falling into poverty, the other reality is that poverty has 
risen rapidly in recent years.
  Poverty in the United States declined significantly between 1965 and 
1973, and we hear some of our Republican friends say, ``Well, the war 
on poverty was terrible, terrible.'' The war on poverty had an impact 
in reducing poverty in America, in moving us toward fewer poor people, 
when at a time the trend today is, unfortunately, in the wrong 
direction.
  Clearly, one of the statistics that we as a nation should be 
profoundly ashamed of, profoundly embarrassed about, is that 22 percent 
of our children live in poverty, and this great Nation has the dubious 
distinction of having by far the highest rate of childhood poverty in 
the industrialized world. I heard some of our Republican friends a 
moment ago talk to us about so-called welfare reform. I hope that they 
understand that the welfare reform proposal that they are advocating 
will increase the ranks of childhood poverty by another 1 million 
children in America.
  Yes, we do need welfare reform. Yes, we do, but we do not need so-
called reform which will add another 1 million children to the ranks of 
the poor.
  Mr. Speaker, when we talk of social justice, we should also look at 
what goes on in the industrial sector of America today. We should ask 
why in 1980, the average CEO in America earned 42 times what the 
average factory worker earned. Some people may say, ``42 times? Does he 
heat 42 times more? Do his children have 42 times more than the 
workers' children?''
  If you think that situation was bad, what we should appreciate is 
that today, the CEO's of the largest corporations earn 149 times what 
their workers earn. What justice is there in that? Corporate salaries 
zooming up, stock options for corporate executives going up, real wages 
for workers going down, CEO's earning almost 150 times what their 
workers today receive.

  Mr. Speaker, we hear a lot of discussion about taxation, and 
certainly taxation is an important issue. But what we do not hear a 
whole lot of discussion about is who is paying the taxes. Who is paying 
the taxes? In my humble opinion, the middle class and the working 
class. In fact, if you look at local taxes, State taxes, and Federal 
taxes, they are paying far too much in taxes. But on the other hand, 
when you look at upper-income people and when you look at large 
corporations, what we can say is those folks deserve to contribute more 
into our tax coffers, so we could deal with the Federal deficit, so we 
could take the tax burden off middle-income America.
  Mr. Speaker, in 1977 President Carter, and in 1981 and 1986 President 
Reagan, instituted ``tax reform.'' Of course, the Democrats controlled 
the Congress during that period, and supported that so-called tax 
reform. The result of those reforms was to significantly lower taxes on 
the wealthy and the large corporations and raise taxes on almost 
everyone else. Taxes on the very wealthy were cut by over 12 percent, 
while taxes on working- and middle-class Americans increased. One of 
those so-called reforms was a large increase in the regressive Social 
Security tax.
  According to a study conducted by the House Committee on Ways and 
Means, the top 1 percent of taxpayers saved an average of over $41,000 
in 1992 over what their taxes would have been at 1977 rates. Mr. 
Speaker, we speak a whole lot about the Federal deficit, which is a 
very important issue, but what we should appreciate is that if 1977 
individual Federal tax rates had still been in effect in 1992, the 
Nation's wealthiest 1 percent would have paid $83.7 billion more in 
taxes, or about one-third of the national deficit in 1995. That is an 
important fact that we should keep in mind.
  Mr. Speaker, at a time when the richest 1 percent of the population 
own about 50 percent of the stock, massive tax cuts to corporations 
have also helped to enrich the wealthy and to cut back on Federal 
revenues. In the 1960's, corporations contributed 23.4 percent of the 
Nation's taxes. Today, they contribute only 9 percent. During the early 
1980's, some of the largest and 

[[Page H 12187]]
most profitable corporations in America paid nothing in Federal taxes. 
By contrast, individual income tax increased from 22 percent of Federal 
receipts in the 1960's to 45 percent today.
  Mr. Speaker, I have talked a bit, just a bit, about some of the 
problems facing this country. I think it is fair and I also talk about 
some of the areas that I think we need to move forward on if we are 
going to solve some of these problems. Let me just touch on a few of 
them.
  No. 1, it is an absolute disgrace that in this country we continue to 
have a national minimum wage of $4.25 an hour. Mr. Speaker, the 
purchasing power of the minimum wage has declined by 26 percent over 
the last 20 years. That means our minimum wage workers today are far 
poorer, have far less purchasing power, than did the minimum wage 
workers 20 years ago. The minimum wage in America must be raised. It 
must be raised so that if people work 40 hours a week, they do not live 
in poverty. That is why I have introduced legislation which would raise 
the minimum wage to $5.50 an hour.
  Mr. Speaker, when we talk about why it is that American workers are 
seeing a decline in their standard of living, there is no question that 
we must address a very, very failed trade policy. It is not only that 
NAFTA has been a disaster, it is not only that most-favored-nation 
status with China is wrong, it is not only, in my view, that GATT is 
wrong. Our entire trade policy is failing.
  I find it amazing that every day on the floor of this House we hear 
endless discussion about our national Federal deficit, which in fact is 
a serious problem, but we hear virtually no discussion about the trade 
deficit. The trade deficit this year will be, as I understand it, at 
the highest level in American history, about $160 billion. Economists 
tell us that for every billion dollars of trade, we create 20,000 jobs. 
That means that the difference between a $160 billion trade deficit, a 
neutral trade deficit, is over 3 million jobs, many of them good-paying 
manufacturing jobs.

                              {time}  2310

  Now, how long can we continue to go on seeing our industrial base get 
smaller and smaller; seeing more and more American companies moving to 
Mexico, moving to Malaysia, moving to China, where they can hire 
workers for 20 cents an hour?
  Clearly, we must address the crisis in the deindustrialization of 
America. The crisis in our current trade policy, the crisis in which 
corporate America is creating millions of jobs all over the world, it 
is just that they are not creating jobs in America. Clearly, we must 
develop a policy which says to these corporations, ``You have got to 
reinvest in America and not just in China or in Mexico.''
  Mr. Speaker, it also seems to me that we have got to make our tax 
system a heck of a lot fairer than it is today. Today in America, we 
have the most unequal and unfair distribution of wealth in the entire 
industrialized world. We also have the most unfair and unequal 
distribution of income in the industrialized world.
  Mr. Speaker, as I indicated earlier, during the 1970's and 1980's, 
this Congress, and various Presidents, gave huge tax breaks to the 
wealthiest people in American and to the largest corporations, while at 
the same time they raised the Social Security taxes. They raised taxes 
on the middle class, and as a result of Federal policy, local and State 
taxes were also raised all over America.
  Mr. Speaker, there are many people who are concerned about the 
complexity of our tax system, its burdensome nature, all of the 
loopholes that exist. I share that concern. It seems to me that we must 
move forward toward a simpler tax system without loopholes, but a tax 
system which is progressive. That means the more money a person makes, 
the higher percentage of their income they pay in taxes.
  That means if middle income and working people are seeing a decline 
in their real wages, that has to be taken into account when we 
formulate our tax system, and the tax burden that those people are 
currently experiencing must be relaxed.
  Mr. Speaker, I think that one of the surprises that the American 
people are soon going to see, and this Congress will soon see, is a 
revitalized labor movement. I fully support that, and was very 
delighted recently when John Sweeney, the former president of the 
Service Employees Industrial Union, the SEIU, became the president of 
the AFL-CIO. Rich Trumka, the former president of the United Mine 
Workers, became the secretary treasurer of the AFL-CIO.
  Mr. Speaker, I think what we are going to see is a revitalized labor 
movement that is going to be more actively involved on the political 
front and far more actively involved in organizing workers into unions. 
The reality is that workers who are in unions, who are able to 
negotiate collectively with their companies, earn of course 
significantly higher wages than do nonunion workers.
  Today, not every American worker wants to join a union, and those 
workers who do not want to join a union, they should not join a union. 
But there are millions of workers who do want to join a union, and we 
must provide legislation for those workers that gives them a fair 
opportunity to joint a union.
  In my State of Vermont, and all over this country, there are workers 
who are trying to join a union, who are trying to organize for unions, 
who are being fired by their bosses with impunity. Employers can do it. 
No problem. There are elections that are being held and that after the 
union wins, the companies are appealing, and the bottom line of all of 
this is that labor law today favors company and the bosses far more 
than the workers.

  Workers join unions, but they cannot negotiate the first contract. 
The employer refuses to sit down and the workers give up and the union 
dissipates. I think it is terribly important when we talk about ways 
that we can improve life for ordinary Americans that we institute major 
labor law reform which says nothing more than, if the workers in a 
given area want to join a union, they have the right to join that union 
without being fired, without being harassed, without having to go 
through a dozen different appeals, without having their organizers 
fired by their employers.
  Mr. Speaker, there are two other issues that I want to briefly touch 
on. In this Congress tonight for the last many months we have been 
talking a great deal about Medicare, and some of us are outraged that 
at a time when millions and millions of elderly people today, with 
Medicare under its present funding formula, today many, many elderly 
people are finding it very difficult to provide for their health care 
needs.
  Mr. Speaker, Medicare does not cover prescription drugs. And in my 
State of Vermont, and throughout this country, large numbers of seniors 
cannot afford their prescription drugs. Medicare does not provide long-
term care in nursing homes. So, the Medicare Program today is not 
terribly good in terms of providing for our senior citizens.
  Clearly, it will become a lot worse if the Gingrich proposal goes 
into effect and Medicare premiums go up for the elderly and Medicare 
and Medicaid funding for hospitals is radically cut. The point is we 
are now forced in this Congress to fight and spend our energy fighting 
those cuts, but I think very shortly we should return back to the basic 
debate. That is not just stopping cuts in Medicare, but trying to 
determine why it is that this country is not doing what virtually every 
other industrialized nation on Earth has done, and that is to provide a 
national health care system which guarantees health care to all people.
  North of Vermont there is Canada, and every Canadian has a little 
card. With that card they go to any doctor they want; they go to any 
hospital they want; and they do not take out their wallets. Mr. 
Speaker, know what? The poor are treated quite as well as the rich.
  Does that system have problems? Sure it does. But what it has done is 
made sure that every person in Canada gets all of the health care they 
need without out-of-pocket expense. Throughout Europe and throughout 
Scandinavia there are different types of health care systems. Some work 
better than others, but clearly it is a terrible disgrace that in this 
country we have some 40 million Americans with no health insurance, and 
more than 

[[Page H 12188]]
that who have inadequate health insurance.
  Clearly, we must again put on the table the fight for a national 
health care system; in my view a single-payer national health care 
system which guarantees health care to all people.
  Mr. Speaker, when I go back to Vermont, and I am sure it is true for 
other Members who go back to their districts, they hear from their 
constituents, and their constituents say, ``Government just is not 
working well. Why is government not working well?'' And they are wrong. 
Government is working very, very well for those people who have a whole 
lot of money.
  Mr. Speaker, if Americans are in the upper 1 percent, the upper 2 
percent, are making $300,000, $500,000 a year, this Government is doing 
a great job for them. They have never had it better. Their tax rates 
have gone down. They have more power over their employees. Some of our 
Republican friends want to take away the restrictions which prevent 
them from polluting the environment. Government is working great for 
those people who are the upper-income people.

  But, Mr. Speaker, for the vast majority of people it is true, 
Government is not working well. We have to ask why. That takes us to 
the whole issue of campaign finance reform.
  Mr. Speaker, it is a very scary proposition that in the last national 
election that we had, November 1994, when Mr. Gingrich and the 
Republicans took power here and Republicans took power in the Senate, 
that all of 38.5 percent of the people came out to vote. That is pretty 
bad.
  It is even more scary to understand the role that money has in the 
political process. Frankly, I get a little bit tired of hearing about 
all the millionaires and billionaires who continue to run for office. 
If we continue to have millionaires running for office and getting 
elected, not only to Congress but to seats in various State houses and 
Governors' offices, maybe we should change the name of this institution 
from the House of Representatives to the House of Lords, and be clear 
that what this is is a hall for the privileged ladies and gentlemen of 
the upper class who have purchased their seats by taking out their 
wallets and spending millions and millions of dollars to get elected.

                              {time}  2320

  That is not what democracy is about. We should not be buying seats in 
Congress or buying seats in the Senate or buying seats in Governors' 
offices all over America. Clearly, we need campaign finance reform. The 
elements of that reform to my mind most importantly must be a 
limitation on how much an individual can spend when he or she runs for 
office, let us have a level playing field.
  No. 2, we should be matching public funding with small contributions. 
If somebody is able to go out and get a significant number of checks 
for $25 or $50, we should match the public funding. If we do that, we 
will have a fairer playing field and the wealthy and the powerful will 
not be able to buy seats in the U.S. Congress and, therefore, have a 
Congress which supports their agenda.
  Far too often politics in this institution is about is payback time, 
payback time. You contribute a whole lot of money to the party of your 
choice and lo and behold, you get huge tax breaks for corporations, tax 
breaks for the wealthy, and other Government policy which favors those 
people who have money.
  The last point that I want to make, Mr. Speaker, is that I think 
perhaps the most frightening development which is taking place in our 
country today is that tens and tens of millions of Americans, mostly 
low income and working people, are giving up on the political process. 
They do not vote. They do not get involved locally. They do not pay 
attention to what is going on. And in many ways, this country is 
becoming less and less democratic as a result of that.

  If people out there, people throughout this country, think that 
politics is not important, that what happens in this institution is not 
important, pay attention to what is happening now. If you are a young 
person who works for a living and you are receiving an earned tax 
credit, understand that that earned income tax credit is going to be 
cut so that we can provide tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this 
country. Do you think that is important? It will be harder for you to 
raise your family.
  If you think that politics is not important, we should ask the 
elderly people who will be forced to pay $300 a year more in premiums 
for Medicare. We should ask those families throughout the country today 
who have disabled members in their family, who have children, who are 
going to see major cutbacks in Medicaid. That is what politics is 
about.
  If you think that politics is not important and you are a young 
person trying to go to college and you do not have a whole lot of 
money, understand that as a result of politics, understand that as a 
result of decisions being made right here in this House of 
Representatives, it may be impossible for large numbers of working 
class young people to afford to go to college because of major cutbacks 
in student loans and in student grants.
  If you are a veteran who has put your life on the line defending this 
country, understand that what politics is about is that veterans 
programs are going to be cut so that we can build more B-2 bombers that 
the Pentagon does not even want.
  Yes, you may not think so, but politics is relevant to every person's 
life in America. The politics of what is going on here today is that 
the wealthy people to a very large degree own this institution. If you 
want to know what goes on, all you have to do is follow the money. The 
money is coming in and decisions are being made which reward those 
people who have the money. The only way to stop it is if the vast 
majority of the American people, the people who are working long hours 
and are not getting a fair shake in terms of the wages they are 
receiving, people who do not have health insurance, people who cannot 
afford to send their kids to college, the decent people of this 
country, the backbone of this country, if those people begin to stand 
up and fight for their rights, we can turn this institution around. We 
can turn this country around. But if you do not, then what will happen 
is the wealthy, small numbers of people but people with tremendous 
resources will continue to dominate this institution. That is what the 
struggle is about.
  So I would hope that people who pay homage, Veterans Day just came, 
and we paid our respect and homage to the men and women who put their 
lives on the line, but what they did is fought to keep this country 
free and to keep this country a democracy. We are not honoring them, if 
we do not get involved in the political process, if we do not stand up 
and fight for policies which impact all the people of this country and 
not just the very wealthy. That is what politics is about.

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