[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 206 (Thursday, December 21, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H15567-H15573]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       UNAVOIDABLE QUESTIONS REGARDING IMPORTANT NATIONAL ISSUES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Sanders] is recognized for 60 
minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, as the only Independent in the Congress, 
someone who is not a Democrat or a Republican, I want to take this 
opportunity to raise some questions that my Democratic and Republican 
colleagues often choose not to deal with, questions which I think get 
to the root of some of the most important issues facing our Nation. But 
before I do that, let me say a few words about what is going on in 
Congress right now in terms of the partial closing down of the 
Government and the furloughing of some 280,000 American Federal 
employees.
  The Government is shut down, partially shut down tonight for a reason 
that I think most people do not dispute. That is that the Republican 
leadership has not been able to pass and get signed the requisite 
appropriation bills. That is about it, pure and simple. If the 
appropriation bills were passed, the departments and the agencies would 
be funded, Government would be running as it always does, and 280,000 
Federal employees would not be today furloughed, living in great 
anxiety, wondering what is going to be happening to them as Christmas 
approaches.
  Mr. Speaker, the reason that the shutdown is taking place is that 
instead of passing a continuing resolution which would continue the 
Government's functioning, the Republican leadership is holding hostage 
the Federal employees, and saying to the President and saying to those 
of us in the House and in the Senate that ``If you do not pass our 7-
year balanced budget proposal, we are going to shut the Government 
down.'' That is what is going on.
  Some of us very strongly object to the Republican 7-year balanced 
budget proposal. We think that it is right that the country moves 
forward toward a balanced budget, we think that the budget can be 
balanced in 7 years, but we very strongly disagree with the priorities 
that the Republican leadership has established. For example, many of us 
are terribly concerned about a $270 billion cutback in Medicare, and a 
$163 billion cutback in Medicaid.

                              {time}  2045

  Today the United States remains the only major industrialized Nation 
on Earth that does not have a national health care system guaranteeing 
health care to all people. So we already start off in much worse 
condition than many of the other industrialized nations.
  My friend from Connecticut a moment ago mentioned Canada. We border 
on Canada, and in Canada, every man, woman, and child has health care 
and goes to the doctor of their choice without out-of-pocket expense. 
In Europe, different types of programs exist, but in all of the 
industrialized world, health care is guaranteed to their people. So 
many of us, therefore, regard it as abhorrent and very frightening that 
the Republican leadership wants to cut back significantly on Medicare 
and Medicaid.
  Now, I know that many of my Republican friends say well, these are 
not cuts. Let me talk about that for a moment. If a worker goes to his 
employer and the employer says, Harry, the good news is that I am going 
to work out a 7-year contract with you, and today, hypothetically, you 
make $25,000 a year, but Harry, at the end of the 7 years, guess what? 
You are going to be making $26,000 a year. We are going to be spending 
$1,000 more for you at the end of 7 years than we are today. Is that a 
cut, or is that not a cut?

  Well, from the worker's point of view, my guess is that he or she 
would say, well, you know, thank you, but in 7 years there is a lot of 
inflation. My food prices are going up, my rent or mortgage is going 
up; it costs a lot of money to send my kid to college. $1,000 is more 
than I am making today, but $1,000 over 7 years does not keep pace with 
inflation.
  So you can argue that the employer is spending more money, that is 
true. But you can also argue that from the worker's point of view at 
the end of 7 years, in this case, he is going to be significantly worse 
off because his income has not kept pace with inflation.
  Another example: An employer can say to 100 workers that we are going 
to be spending thus-and-such more for our work force at the end of 7 
years, but guess what? We are going to be having more workers. We are 
going up from 100 workers to 150 workers. Is the employer spending more 
money? Yes, that employer is. But what happens to the individual 
worker? It could well be that the wages and benefits that worker 
receives has gone down.
  Within that context, let me say a few words about Medicare. Now, in 
my State of Vermont, and I do not know that the figures and the 
statistics in Vermont are much different than the rest of the country, 
but 12 percent of the people in Vermont who are 65 years of age or 
older have incomes below the poverty level of $7,360. Forty percent of 
senior citizens who are single have incomes below $14,270. Nationally 
what we know is that 75 percent of seniors have incomes less than 
$25,000. Within that context, let us talk about Medicare.
  Under the Republican proposal, Medicare premiums would increase from 
the current rate of $46.10 per month now to $89 per month by 2002. 
Between now and 2002, seniors would be forced to pay, therefore, about 
$1,700 more over that period of time. After 2002, they would pay over 
$500 a year more for their premiums.
  Now, we hear a whole lot of talk from our Republican friends that 
this is not a cut, we are spending thus-and-such more; but let us look 
at it from the other perspective. Let us look at it from the point of 
view of the a senior citizen in the State of Vermont right now who has 
an income mostly from Social Security of about $10,000 a year, $10,000 
a year. Now, for some people with a whole lot of money, a $500 a year 
increase in premiums may not be a lot of money, and I can understand 
that. But if you are living on $10,000 a year, $500 increase in 
premiums is 5 percent of your total income. It makes your Medicare 
premium payment 10 percent of your total income. That does not include 
MediGap that many senior citizens take out to cover areas of health 
care that Medicare does not cover; it does not include prescription 
drugs. So for elderly people in the State of Vermont and throughout 
this country who are low income, these cuts in fact are devastating.
  Now, in terms of the Medicaid cuts, these are really quite incredible 
and heartless. At a time when many of us are trying to move this 
country in the direction of the rest of the industrialized world and 
are trying to make sure that every man, woman and child in this country 
has health insurance as a right of citizenship, what Medicaid does is 
make significant cuts in terms of the number of people who have health 
insurance.
  Under the current Medicaid proposal that our Republican colleagues 
are 

[[Page H15568]]
bringing forth, 8 million Americans run the danger of losing the 
health insurance, the Medicaid that they presently have, and these 
include some of the most vulnerable and weakest people in this country. 
We are talking about the danger because Medicaid ceases to become an 
entitlement program and becomes a block grant left to the discretion of 
the States. What we are looking at is the possibility of 3.8 million 
children, children who could lose their coverage, 1.3 million people 
with disabilities who could lose their Medicaid coverage, and 850,000 
senior citizens who could lose their Medicaid coverage.

  Further, Medicaid now provides coverage for the premiums and the 
copayments and the deductibles for many senior citizens. If Medicaid 
does not cover those premiums and does not cover those copayments and 
deductibles, you are going to have large numbers of low-income senior 
citizens who are going to have a very difficult time getting their 
Medicare coverage.
  When we look at the Republican 7-year budget that they want to see 
passed and by which they are shutting down the Federal Government in 
order to see passed, we should also understand the gross unfairness of 
many aspects of that budget. For the life of me, I do not understand 
how serious people talking about moving toward a balanced budget could 
be talking about providing $245 billion in tax breaks, in tax cuts, 
over the next 7 years.
  The sad truth is that many of these tax cuts go to upper income 
people, and one of the areas that is most outrageous is that the 
Republican leadership wants to move back to the early 1980s by 
eliminating or cutting back significantly on the minimum corporate tax, 
the alternative tax that corporations now have to pay. We will go back 
to the early 1980s and see a situation where some of the largest, most 
profitable corporations in America will pay nothing in taxes. They will 
pay less than the average American worker.
  Now, how do we talk about that when people are talking about moving 
toward a balanced budget? Why do we give huge tax breaks to the 
largest, the most profitable corporations, to the wealthiest people in 
America and say, we are serious about moving toward a balanced budget, 
but we give tax breaks to the rich and we are going to cut back on the 
weakest and most vulnerable people in the country in terms of health 
care, fuel assistance, and so forth and so on.
  Now, when we talk about moving toward a balanced budget, a funny 
thing happened on the floor of the House today. Today the Intelligence 
budget came up, the Conference Report came up for a vote, and that is 
the CIA and the Defense intelligence agency and the other Intelligence 
agencies. Now, I am not allowed to tell you how much is in the 
Intelligence budget, but I can say that the Washington Post reports 
that it is somewhere around $29 billion.
  Now, a funny thing happens in terms of the Intelligence budget. The 
Intelligence budget today is being funded at approximately the same 
level it was funded at the height of the cold war when the Soviet 
Union, a superpower, was our enemy. Now, why do we continue to fund the 
Intelligence budget and the CIA at roughly the same level as we did 
during the height of the cold war when during the cold war half of our 
Intelligence budget was used in opposition to the Soviet Union and the 
Warsaw Pact?
  I found it amazing as I was on the floor of the House this afternoon 
talking about the Intelligence budget that all of the deficit hawks, 
all of those folks who were telling us how we really have to cut back 
on the children, the elderly and the poor in order to balance the 
budget, they were not here talking about the fact that the CIA and the 
Intelligence community is getting far, far more than it needs, given 
the fact that the Cold War has ended.
  Furthermore, it is an amazing thing that when we talk about deficit 
reduction, my, my, my, is it not funny that our Republican friends are 
asking for 20 new B-2 bombers at $1.5 billion each that the Pentagon 
does not want. But that is okay. It is a strange way to look at deficit 
reduction by putting $7 billion more this year into the defense budget 
that the Pentagon wants. More money for B-2 bombers, more money for 
star wars.
  We now have troops in Bosnia, yet every year we continue to spend 
$100 billion defending Europe and Asia against who, against what? The 
last I heard, the Soviet Union does not exist, the Warsaw Pact does not 
exist; yet our taxpayers continue to spend $100 billion a year 
defending Europe and Asia against whom we do not know. So it is very 
funny that when we talk about the need for moving toward a balanced 
budget and deficit reduction, which I support, we also, from the 
Republican point of view, are talking about significant increases in 
military spending, increases in the Intelligence budget, huge tax 
breaks to the wealthiest people in the country.
  Furthermore, there is another area that gets relatively little 
discussion, and that is corporate welfare. A number of months ago I 
attended a very unusual press conference, because there were people, 
really right-wing people from the Cato Institute, you had centrists 
from the Democratic Leadership Conference, the Progressive Policy 
Institute, and then you have progressives, Ralph Nader and other 
members from the progressive caucus were there, and we all agreed that 
every single year this country spends about $125 billion a year in 
corporate welfare. That is tax breaks and subsidies for large 
corporations and wealthy individuals.
  Amazingly enough, while our Republican friends tell us we have to cut 
this and we have to cut that and we have to cut programs for homeless 
people and for the most vulnerable people in this country, they only 
made a tiny step forward in terms of corporate welfare.
  So I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that it is very wrong for the 
Republican leadership to hold 280,000 Federal employees hostage while 
they try to force the President and Members of Congress to accept their 
disastrous and unfair 7-year approach toward a balanced budget. Yes, we 
can move forward toward a balanced budget, but we can do it in a fair 
way and not in a way which hurts tens of thousand of middle-class 
Americans, working people, senior citizens, children, and low-income 
people.

                              {time}  2100

  Mr. Speaker, let me move on to a few other issues which I think are 
of great importance to our country, and let me shock some of the 
Members of Congress and perhaps some of the viewers by asking this 
question which I think is not asked terribly often on the floor of this 
House. That is, to what degree is the United States of America today, 
in December 1995, actually a democracy?
  Are we still a nation in which the ordinary people of this country 
have the power? Do they have the power to make the decisions through 
the Congress which impacts on their life? Are we a democracy, or are we 
more and more moving toward an oligarchy, and that is a Nation that is 
owned and controlled by relatively few very wealthy individuals and 
large corporations.
  Let us examine that issue for a moment. We hear from our Republican 
friends every day about the mandate that they have inherited, as a 
result of last year's election, to slash Medicare, Medicaid, student 
loans, environmental protection, Head Start, and many other important 
programs. they have a mandate.
  Well, what percentage of the American people voted in the last 
election? Was it 70 percent? Eighty percent? Recently in Canada when 
Quebec was debating whether or not to secede from Canada as a whole, 93 
percent of their people voted in that election. Sweden recently had an 
election, last year. Over 80 percent of the people voted in that 
election. More than 70 percent of the people usually vote in European 
elections.

  What percentage of the people voted to give Mr. Gingrich and the 
Republican leadership their mandate? Well, it turns out that 38 percent 
of the American people voted. Some 62 percent of the people did not 
vote.
  And the very, very sad and scary truth is that the United States has 
today by far the lowest voter turnout of any major nation on Earth. 
That is the first point to make. The majority of the people did not 
vote in that election and very often the majority of the people do not 
vote.
  Second of all in terms of elections, who does vote? What we know is 
that generally speaking the percentage of those people who vote 
fluctuates by their income. In America today, by and 

[[Page H15569]]
large low-income people, poor people, almost do not vote at all.
  I suspect that in many States you will have 10, 15 percent of low-
income people voting, and because they do not vote and do not 
participate in the political process, they are red meat for those 
people who want to go after them because they have no power. You can 
cut Medicaid, you can cut AFDC, you can cut any program for low-income 
people. They cannot fight back. They do not vote. Many working people 
do not vote. The higher income level that you are, the more likely it 
is that you might vote.
  Third, what is important to ask and debate when we talk about our 
political process is a very important issue, and that is, what role 
does money play in the political process? Today in America, are we 
living in a country where just any old person can stand up and say, you 
know, I have got some good ideas, I want to be Governor of my State or 
I want to be U.S. Senator, I want to go to the House. Can any American 
do that?
  Well, in one sense they can. But the reality that everybody 
understands is, is that if you want to run for a major office, for 
President, for Congress, for Governor, you need to have a whole lot of 
money. More and more when you pick up the papers and you hear about who 
is running for Congress, who is running for Governor, what do you hear? 
You hear millionaire, so forth and so on, is running for the U.S. 
Senate.

  Interestingly enough, let us look at even what is happening recently 
with Presidential elections. I am not here to criticize Ross Perot. I 
respect his point of view, for example, on the trade issues and on 
NAFTA. But I think it is fair to say that nobody believes that Ross 
Perot would have been a major candidate, a serious candidate for 
President, as he was, getting 19 percent of the vote, if he was not 
worth $3 or $4 billion and could put tens of millions of dollars into 
his own election.
  There are a lot of people out there smarter than Ross Perot and 
smarter than me, smarter than many Members in the House. They cannot 
run for office because they are not millionaires, they are not 
billionaires.
  Right now there is a Republican candidate trying to get the 
Republican nomination for President. His name is Mr. Forbes. I am not 
here to criticize Mr. Forbes, but I think it is widely acknowledged 
that he would not be a serious candidate if he were not worth hundreds 
of millions of dollars and were not buying the airwaves in New 
Hampshire and Iowa wherever there is a primary. He is trying to buy the 
Presidency.
  The same thing is going on all over America in races for the House, 
races for the Senate, races for the Governor's chair. Millionaires are 
taking out their checkbooks, writing themselves a check and are 
spending as much money as they want in order to buy elections. I do not 
think that is what democracy is about.
  And I think it is important to point out that right now in the U.S. 
Senate, to the best of my knowledge, about 29 percent, 29 Members of 
the Senate, are millionaires. It is important to point out that in the 
last election of the Republican freshman class, the revolutionaries, 
about 25 percent of those people are also millionaires.
  That is the trend. If that trend continues, we will have to rename 
the U.S. House of Representatives into the House of Lords because it 
will be dominated by people who come from the very upper-income strata 
of America and not from the ranks of the middle class or the working 
class of this country.
  But it is not only millionaires. It is people running and then going 
out and having to raise enormous sums of money from big-money special 
interests. In, I believe, February of this year, the Republican Party 
held a fund raiser in Washington, DC, and at the end of one night they 
raise $12 million from some of the wealthiest people in this country 
and some of the largest corporations. Mr. Gingrich's history is well 
known to be an extraordinarily good fund raiser from corporate America 
and from wealthy people.

  So what you end up having is an institution which is composed of 
many, many wealthy people, and those people who are not wealthy are 
very often beholden to big money interests.
  And then the third aspect of my concern about whether or not we are 
really a vibrant democracy has to do with the media. How do we get the 
information out so that people can learn about what is going on in the 
Congress and other aspects of our life?
  Mr. Speaker, I am terribly, terribly concerned by the growing 
concentration of ownership of the media in America. It is a very 
serious problem which is not being discussed at anywhere near the 
length and the degree to which it should be discussed here in the 
Congress.
  It is a scary proposition that NBC is owned by General Electric. 
General Electric will benefit from the Republican tax proposal. Their 
taxes will go down. General Electric will benefit from the labor 
legislation and the antiunion legislation that is being proposed by the 
Republicans. General Electric gains by increased military spending. 
General Electric has enormous conflicts of interest in terms of their 
ownership of NBC.
  ABC is owned by Disney right now, the Walt Disney Co. Several years 
ago the owner of Disney, Mr. Eisner, made $200 million in one year. CBS 
will shortly be owned by Westinghouse Corp. The Fox Television Network 
is owned by the right-wing billionaire Rupert Murdoch.
  The end result of that is that the corporate ownership of television 
prevents serious discussions about whole lots of issues that I think 
the American people should be hearing about. That is an issue of real 
concern which also I think impacts our ability as a nation to become a 
vibrant democracy.
  Points of view which are different from corporate America's, points 
of view which are different from the big money establishment are in 
fact very, very rarely heard in the media. Very often you hear these 
talk shows and the range of points of view goes from the extreme right 
to the center.

  There is not a progressive point of view which is heard very often on 
television or for that matter on the radio. It is not an accident that 
Rush Limbaugh is all over the airwaves, that G. Gordon Liddy is all 
over the airwaves.
  Recently, as you may know, Mr. Speaker, Jim Hightower, former 
Commissioner of Agriculture in Texas, had a very good, in my view, 
radio program, from a progressive point of view. It reached out to 
about 150 different radio stations throughout the country. ABC pulled 
the plug. He criticized the Disney Corp. and they basically said, ``We 
don't want that point of view. You're not allowed to criticize the 
Disney Corp.'' who happens to own ABC.
  Mr. Speaker, in one sense when we talk about politics, it can be very 
confusing to people. Because as you know, politics deals with literally 
hundreds and hundreds of issues. Every single day there are committee 
meetings here going on in the Congress which deal with every 
conceivable problem that anybody could think of.
  But in another sense, government and politics really is not all that 
complicated. That is to a large degree what politics is about, is who 
gets what. Follow the money.
  When the New York Giants play the Dallas Cowboys, at the end of the 
game, you know who has won the game. Somebody has won, somebody has 
lost. And to a large degree, Mr. Speaker, politics is very much like 
that. Somebody or some class or some group is winning. Other groups are 
losing.
  Mr. Speaker, let me talk for a moment about who is winning in our 
society and who is losing. What is going on in America today in many 
ways reminds me of Dickens' book the ``Tale of Two Cities'' where he 
begins it, roughly speaking, ``It was the best of times, it was the 
worst of times.'' He was talking about the period of the French 
Revolution.
  That is what is going on in America today. It is the best of times 
for some people. It is the worst of times for many, many other people.
  Right now in America the richest people in our country have never had 
it so good. It is the best of times. The stock market is at an all-time 
high. Corporate profits are soaring. Our chief executive officers of 
major corporations now earn about $3 million a year, and it is 
Christmastime and their corporations are giving them very generous 
bonuses. In fact, life for the rich in America has never been better.

[[Page H15570]]


  In the last 20 years, the wealthiest 1 percent of American families 
saw their after-tax incomes more than double. When we have debates and 
discussions here, the assumption is that all Americans are in this 
together, we are all in the happy middle class. Nothing could be 
further from the truth.
  While the wealthiest people have seen their after-tax incomes more 
than doubled, these very same people, the wealthiest 1 percent, now own 
a greater percentage of our Nation's wealth than at any time since the 
1920's. So for the rich, things are going great. The number of 
millionaires and billionaires is skyrocketing. They have as many houses 
as they want, they go on vacations all over the world, they drive 
around in their big fancy limousines.
  Things are really great for those people who attend the fund-raising 
dinners that contribute to pay $1,000 a plate to the political parties. 
In Vermont, I often ask people when I have town meetings, ``Anyone go 
to dinner lately for $1,000 a plate?'' and people laugh because they 
cannot believe that there are individuals who can pay so much money to 
a political party.
  So for the rich, the people on top, things have never been better. 
But what about the rest of the population? Mr. Speaker, since 1973, 80 
percent of all American families have seen their income either decline 
or remain stagnant. The average American today is working for longer 
hours, for less income, and is terribly, terribly frightened about the 
future for his or her child.
   Mr. Speaker, 20 years ago, American workers were the best 
compensated workers in the entire world. We were No. 1. Today 
tragically American workers rank 13th among industrialized nations in 
terms of compensation and benefits.
   Mr. Speaker, I am sure that you have read in the newspapers about 
how many European companies are coming to the United States to invest.

                              {time}  2115

  Do you know why they are coming to the United States to invest? This 
is hard to understand or appreciate for older Americans, even people my 
age. They are coming to America now because we provide cheap labor. In 
other words, they can come to America, get hard-working, intelligent 
workers in this country who will work for $7 an hour, who will work for 
$9 an hour with limited benefits. On the other hand, in Europe, they 
would have to pay those same workers $20 an hour or $25 an hour.
  Mr. Speaker, adjusted for inflation, the average pay for four-fifths 
of American workers plummeted by 16 percent in the 20 years between 
1973 and 1993. In other words, Mr. Speaker, there is a depression going 
on now for the vast majority of the working people. That may not be 
reflected in this institution because many of the people here were 
elected to represent the people on top. But those of us who see it as 
our job to represent the workers and the middle class and the low 
income people, when we go home every weekend, we know that there is a 
depression out there. In my State of Vermont people are not working two 
jobs to make ends meet, they are sometimes working three jobs.
  Mr. Speaker, as bad as the current situation is for our workers, it 
is worse for young workers. In the last 15 years, the wages for entry-
level jobs for young men who have graduated high school has declined by 
30 percent. Twenty years ago there were factory jobs out there that 
people could get with a high school degree. They did not get rich, but 
they worked hard and they made it into the middle class. For young 
women entry-level wages have dropped by 18 percent. Families headed by 
persons younger than 30 saw their inflation-adjusted median income 
collapse by 32 percent from 1973 to 1990. In other words, as bad as the 
situation is for the average American worker, it is worse for our young 
workers.
  Mr. Speaker, Americans, if you can believe this, at the lower end of 
the wage scale are now the lowest-paid workers in the entire 
industrialized world. Eighteen percent of American workers with full-
time jobs are paid so little that their wages do not enable them to 
live above the poverty level. And this decline is not just for high 
school graduates. It is for college graduates as well.
  Between 1987 and 1991, the real wages of college educated workers 
declined by over 3 percent. Over one-third of recent college graduates 
have been forced to take jobs not requiring a college degree, twice as 
many as 5 years ago.
  Mr. Speaker, one of the great crises in our country today is that the 
majority of new jobs being created today pay only $6 or $7 an hour, 
jobs that offer no health care benefits, no retirement benefits and no 
time off for vacations or sick leave. In fact, more and more of the new 
jobs that are being created are part-time or temporary jobs. In 1993, 
one-third of the United States work force was comprised of contingent 
labor. That number, that is temporary workers. That number is rapidly 
escalating.
  Mr. Speaker, I see my friend from Hawaii is here. I will get to him 
and share the mike, if I can, in a few moments, if we can do that.
  Mr. Speaker, in the past 10 years the United States has lost 3 
million white collar jobs; 1.8 million jobs in manufacturing were lost 
in the past 5 years alone. Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting that our 
Republican friends are so anxious to provide huge tax breaks for large 
corporations. Boy, are they ever deserving.
  Why should we not give Ford and AT&T and General Electric and ITT and 
Union Carbide major tax breaks? After all, these five companies alone 
have themselves laid off over 800,000 American workers in the last 15 
years. In other words, sure, let us give them huge tax breaks where the 
CEOs are making huge salaries, where they are taking our jobs to Mexico 
and to China, where they are downsizing all over the place, why not 
reward them? Sure. Let us lower their taxes so we can raise taxes on 
the working poor by cutting back on the earned income tax credit or by 
cutting back on a whole host of other benefits.

  Mr. Speaker, today the richest 1 percent of our population owns close 
to 40 percent of the nation's wealth. I do not hear my Republican or 
many of my Democratic friends talking about this too much. The richest 
1 percent now own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent; 1 percent 
here, 90 percent there.
  In fact, the wealthiest 1 percent are worth, were worth $3.6 trillion 
in 1992 or the bottom 90 percent, the vast majority of the people, were 
worth $3.4 trillion. Today we have in this country the most unfair 
distribution of wealth in the industrialized world, and that gap is 
growing wider.
  I know some people think, well, in England they have the kings and 
the queens and the dukes, all that royalty, boy, that is real class 
society. Well, guess again. We have a more rigid and more unfair class 
situation in America today than England does by far. Prof. Edward Wolf 
of New York University recently said we are the most unequal 
industrialized country in terms of income and wealth, and we are 
growing more unequal faster than any other industrialized country.
  What is going on basically is that the rich are getting richer. The 
middle class is shrinking, and poverty is increasing. Mr. Speaker, in 
1980, the average CEO earned 42 times what the average factory worker 
earned. Today that CEO now earns 149 times what that factory worker is 
earning. Rich get richer; everybody else gets poorer.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to say a word about the deficit, a very important 
issue. I find it interesting that many of our friends who want to cut 
Medicare and Medicaid, environmental protection, workers rights, 
student loans, because they are very concerned about the deficit, they 
do not talk about the causation of the deficit. How did we get to where 
we are right now? One of the things that is not talked about here very 
much is the tax structure of America.
  In 1977, President Carter, a Democrat, and in 1981 and 1986, 
President Reagan, a Republican, instituted so-called tax reform with 
the support and approval of the mostly Democratic Congress. The result 
of this so-called tax reform 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 the, quote unquote, reforms was a major increase in the 
regressive Social Security tax. According to a 

[[Page H15571]]
study conducted by the House Committee on Ways and Means, the top 1 
percent of taxpayers saved an average, saved an average $41,886 in 1992 
over what their taxes would have been at 1977 rates. In fact, and, gee 
whiz, I do not know why we do not talk about this too much, but if, in 
fact in 1977, individual Federal tax rates had been in effect in 1992, 
the nation's wealthiest 1 percent, the very richest people in America, 
would have paid $83.7 billion more in taxes, which is about half of 
what the deficit is right now.
  So in other words, from 1977 to 1981 and 1986, we gave huge tax 
breaks to the rich and the large corporations, helped create the 
deficit. And now to solve the deficit crisis we cut back on Medicare, 
Medicaid, fuel assistance, affordable housing, student loans and many, 
many other programs. You give to the rich and you take from the poor 
and the working people.

  Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that the gentleman from Hawaii [Mr. 
Abercrombie] has joined us.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Vermont. My 
remarks at this stage have to do precisely with this question of the 
deficit and very frankly, Mr. Sanders, why we are here this evening. It 
may be that some of our colleagues and perhaps others who will be 
paying attention to our remarks here are wondering why four days before 
Christmas are we here doing this?
  For those who are not aware, perhaps even among our colleagues, we 
passed a, not we, I think the gentleman and myself voted against it 
today, a resolution to go on recess. Perhaps you could comment, has 
this deficit gone on a recess? Has this lust to so-called balance the 
budget gone on a recess?
  Mr. SANDERS. As I said earlier, it seems to me to be extremely cruel 
for Congress to go into recess, and I know that you and I voted against 
that, for Congress to go into recess while 280,000 Federal employees 
are living in a great deal of anxiety, not knowing what is happening to 
their financial situation, while millions of Americans who are 
dependent upon government services are unable to get those services, 
that has not gone into recess.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. If I am not mistaken, is not the gentleman from 
Vermont a member of the veterans' committee?
  Mr. SANDERS. No, I am not.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I beg your pardon. I had heard you speaking 
previously at one point, if I am not mistaken, about veterans' 
programs.
  Mr. SANDERS. Absolutely right. One of the outrages of what is going 
on in terms of the overall budget that the Republicans are bringing 
forth is, you know, I always get a kick out of, on Veterans Day, all 
the politicians going out, thank you, veterans, for all of your 
sacrifices. God only knows the terrible sacrifices in World War II and 
Korea and Vietnam and elsewhere that your veterans made, many of them 
wounded in body and in spirit. Yet the Republican budget over a 7-year 
period would make slashing cuts in the VA and in veterans' programs.

  Right now, thank God, last night we were able to late at night, as 
you know, we were able to make sure that our veterans' pensions and 
their compensation checks were able to go out, but in fact the VA still 
remains largely closed down. And those people who want to apply for new 
VA veterans' benefits are unable to do so while this Congress goes into 
recess.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Is it not a fact, though, that those veterans, whom 
we are all very happy about in terms of at least being able to receive 
some benefits, they in fact are voters? Is there not a large group of 
people, is it not a fact that there is a large group of people, the 
children of this country, who are going to be aversely affected or left 
out of the equation?
  Mr. SANDERS. Obviously, one of the frightening aspects of what is 
going on right now, and we hope that it will be rectified, but we do 
not know that it will, is you have millions and millions of children on 
AFDC, whose families have basically no money, who will suffer 
incalculable pain if those checks do not go out.
  Seventy percent of the people on welfare in this country are 
children. We are concerned that Medicaid appropriations go out to the 
States so the people who utilize the Medicaid program receive the 
funding that they need. But the point that you are making is well 
taken. The children will be hurt very, very seriously unless this 
government reopens and unless the programs that we have pledged to 
provide for them are in fact provided.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. In that context, if the budget as proposed by the 
Republican majority, all of whom have disappeared tonight, comes into 
effect, is there not another class of vulnerable people who will be 
adversely affected, the elderly in need of Medicare assistance, 
particularly those in nursing homes?
  The gentleman may be aware of a Consumers Union and National Citizens 
Coalition for Nursing Home Reform report which just came out, and I am 
quoting from it, saying that the budget reconciliation bill that we 
have yet to consider from the Republican majority, and I am quoting 
now, ``would endanger the lives of America's most vulnerable elderly 
citizens'' by providing no standards of care.

                              {time}  2130

  I know the gentleman has spoken in the past in this area, that, minus 
the rules that are in effect now enforced by the Federal Government, 
the much maligned Federal Government, it is easy to talk about it when 
it is taxation, but when it comes to assisting the helpless, assisting 
the elderly, assisting those most in need, which is, after all, the 
fundamental basis of governmental assistance in the first place, are we 
taking care of those in the community that need the assistance? Is it 
not the case, would the gentleman agree, that it is precisely those 
people on Medicaid, in the nursing homes, who need the protection of 
Government, who would be most adversely affected should this budget 
move forward?
  Mr. SANDERS. I would simply say, as I said earlier, and it is painful 
to have to say this at the holiday season especially, that it is a very 
sad state of affairs when this Government is cutting back on the 
weakest and most vulnerable people, elderly people in nursing homes, 
senior citizens who try to exist on $7,000 a year or $10,000 a year, 
low-income children, and we already have--one of the things that is 
really upsetting is that in addition today, before any of the 
Republican cuts would go into effect, this Nation today has by far the 
highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, and, as 
I think my friend from Hawaii knows, the estimate is, if the so-called 
welfare reform bill goes through, another million-and-a-half children 
will be added to the poverty rolls.
  What sense--what is this Congress about when we increase childhood 
poverty, when we cut back on disabled people, on vulnerable senior 
citizens in order to give tax breaks to the richest people in this 
country, whose incomes are already soaring, to the largest corporations 
who are already enjoying record-breaking profits as they take our jobs 
to Mexico and China?
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Is it not the case then in the very areas where we 
are cutting children and elderly, in those very cases where there are 
clear changes adversely affecting those groups, that the gentleman had 
made a detailed presentation this evening on, the exact opposite 
situation coming into effect when it comes to what I call tax 
giveaways? These are not cuts, although it is portrayed in the press 
over and over again, I guess in shorthand version, $245 billion in tax 
cuts as if something was being taken away. Is it not the case, is it 
not the fact, that it is the exact opposite, that these are giveaways, 
that the speculative stock market that is operating right now is 
waiting with the proverbial bated breath for these tax giveaways to 
come into effect so they can take advantage of the speculative market 
that has been created?
  Mr. SANDERS. My friend has been in politics for long enough to know 
that when people invest hundreds of thousands of dollars into a 
political party, when they give candidates large sums of money, what 
they are doing is making an investment for the future that is not bad. 
So, if a large company contributes a large amount of money to a party, 
and occasionally to the Democratic Party, and what they end up getting 
is major tax decreases, if the rich pay less in taxes, it is a pretty 
good investment.
  Why not contribute a thousand dollars and pay $5,000 less in taxes? 

[[Page H15572]]
  Sounds like a pretty good deal to me, and that is, of course, what is 
going on.
  What I would like to do with the gentleman's indulgence for a moment 
is to provide an alternative point of view as to where we should be 
going as a country, and let me just touch on a number of issues that I 
think this Congress should be dealing with tomorrow. Instead of cutting 
Medicare, and Medicaid, and student loans, let us look, in fact, what a 
Congress that was responsive to the needs of middle-class Americans and 
working people might be doing:

  No. 1, raise the minimum wage. We cannot continue to have a minimum 
wage of 4-and-a-quarter an hour and have people working 40 hours a week 
and still living in poverty. The new jobs that are being created are 
low-wage jobs. Raise the minimum wage to at least $5.50 an hour.
  Second, when we talk about welfare reform, and welfare does need to 
be reformed, we need jobs, we need jobs rebuilding America. There are 
so many needs, I am sure in Hawaii, and in Vermont, and all over this 
country. Our infrastructure is falling apart. We need help in improving 
our environment. Instead of laying off teachers, we need more teachers, 
we need more people going out to prevent disease. We can put large 
numbers of people to work at meaningful, important jobs at decent-
paying wages instead of spending a hundred billion dollars a year 
defending Europe and Asia against a nonexistent enemy.
  Let us rebuild America and put our people to work doing so.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Would the gentleman agree then perhaps his $240 to 
$245 billion that is now scheduled to go in tax giveaways might better 
be invested then in the people's structure and infrastructure of our 
country?
  Mr. SANDERS. Of course we could cut back on the cost of welfare and 
unemployment insurance by rebuilding this country and putting our 
people to work.
  Another issue that we do not talk about virtually at all here is you 
know we hear every day about the serious problem, and it is a serious 
problem, of the national deficit, which this year is about $160 
billion, and I should remind my colleagues that the deficit has almost 
gone down by half in the last 4 years, but it is a serious problem. But 
there is another deficit out there that we hardly ever talk about. That 
is the trade deficit.
  Mr. Speaker, this year our trade deficit will be at a record-breaking 
level, about $160 billion. The economists tell us that, for every 
billion dollars in trade, an export creates about 20,000 American jobs. 
That means--and often good-paying jobs. That means that $160 billion 
trade deficit equates to about 3 million jobs that we are losing as 
opposed to having a budget-neutral trade deficit.
  In my view the NAFTA proposal was a disaster when it was proposed, 
and now, after it has been in place, it has turned out to be an 
absolute disaster. We have to repeal NAFTA, we have to repeal GATT, we 
have to repeal most-favored-nation status with China.
  One of the untold secrets about what is going on in this country is 
that corporate America is, in fact, creating millions of decent-
paying--millions of jobs, millions of jobs every year. The only problem 
is those jobs are not being created in America. They are being created 
in Mexico where you could get a good, hard workers for 50 cents an 
hour, they are being created in China, where you can get workers there 
for 20 cents an hour, they are being created in Malaysia, all over the 
Far East.
  We need to radically change our trade policy, reward those American 
companies that are investing in this country and providing jobs for our 
workers, and figure out a way to demand that corporate America reinvest 
in this country and not run to China and to Mexico.
  Further, it seems to me that, if we talk about justice, which is a 
word not often used on the floor of the House, we must reform the tax 
system to make it fair. We cannot continue to have the most unfair 
distribution of wealth and income in the industrialized world. Between 
1977 and 1989 Carter and Reagan and the Congress gave the highest 
earning 10 percent of Americans a tax cut of $93 billion a year. 
Clearly what we need to do is move forward toward a simple, but 
progressive, tax system which says to the wealthiest people in this 
country they have got to start paying their fair share of taxes so that 
we can deal with the deficit, so that we can lower taxes on the middle 
class and the working people.
  Also I think when we talk about, and I know my colleague from Hawaii 
shares my concern on this issue; it is very sad, it seems to me, that 
we have now got to spend all or our energy fighting against the 
disastrous cuts in Medicare and Medicaid rather than moving forward 
toward a national health care system guaranteeing health care to all 
people. What absurdity that right now, as a result of Republican 
proposals, more people are going to lack insurance. Clearly we should 
be moving forward, in my view, toward a single-payer State-administered 
system which guarantees health care to all Americans, and that is an 
issue we cannot forget.
  Yes, we have got to fight against the Medicare and Medicaid cuts, 
but, on the other hand, we have got to retain that vision for fighting 
for a national health care system which guarantees health care to all.
  Mr. ABERCROMBIE. I believe the gentleman would agree that the 
proposal before us now, far from creating a national health care 
system, would do the exact opposite.
  An article from the New York Times from the 31st of October 
indicates, and I am quoting:

       The House version of the legislation would allow doctors to 
     start physician-run health groups without the financial and 
     regulatory requirements that States impose on similar 
     organizations. Instead the House bill would authorize 
     development of a new Federal regulation to police the 
     doctors. The bill could make it easier for doctors to set 
     prices in a way that now violates antitrust laws.

  This would be the ultimate result.
  I know the gentleman's time is coming fairly close to an end. I just 
want to indicate at this juncture that I stand with him on this, and I 
think it is very important during these special orders for us to come 
down here and try and cut through the ritualized rhetoric that is on 
the floor about a balanced budget and start talking about balancing our 
communities in terms of opportunity and justice.
  Mr. SANDERS. I thank the gentleman from Hawaii [Mr. Abercrombie] for 
joining me, and let me just concluded by saying two other things.
  No. 1, it goes without saying that we need campaign finance reform so 
that big money cannot continue to buy the U.S. Congress, and we also 
need to reform labor law. There are millions of American workers who 
would like to join unions so that they could better fight for their 
rights on the job, so they can get a fair shake, and yet labor law 
today makes it almost impossible to do that. Almost all of the power 
rests with the employer. It is very hard for workers to organize. We 
need labor law reform.
  Let me simply conclude by thanking my friend from Hawaii for joining 
me, but for also saying to the American people do not give up on the 
political process. Some want you to do that. If you are a low-income 
person or working person, what they want to say to you is hey, it is 
all very complicated, do not get involved, everybody in Congress is a 
crook, the whole thing is corrupt, you do not want to get involved.
  Do not believe a minute of it. The wealth and the big money 
interests, they know how the political system works. They are the ones 
who contribute huge amounts of money to the candidates of their choice 
and the political parties of their choice. They are the ones who have 
lobbyists knocking on our doors every day so we can give more tax 
breaks to the rich, so we can make it easier for them to take our jobs 
to Mexico or China.
  Mr. Speaker, if this country is going to be turned around, tens of 
millions of working American middle-class people, low-income people, 
are going to have to stand up and say this country belongs to all of us 
and not just the very rich. It is not utopian to say that we can create 
a decent standard of living for every man, woman, and child. We can do 
it. We do not have to have the most unequal distribution of wealth in 
the industrialized world.
  So, let us get involved, let us vote, let us participate, let us 
follow what is going on here in Congress. We can turn this country 
around.

[[Page H15573]]


                            LEAVE OF ABSENCE

  By unanimous consent, leave of absence was granted to.
  Mr. Edwards (at the request of Mr. Gephardt), for today, on account 
of the birth of his son.
  Ms. Harman (at the request of Mr. Gephardt), for today, on account of 
official business.
  Mr. Bryant of Texas (at the request of Mr. Gephardt), for today, on 
account of attendance at the funeral of a close friend (Max Goldblatt 
of Dallas).

                          ____________________