[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 144 (Thursday, September 11, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8364-S8367]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            ECONOMIC POLICY

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, a little while ago Senator Grassley of 
Iowa was down on the floor critiquing Senator Obama's tax plan in some 
detail. Right now, I am not prepared to refute what Senator Grassley 
said, although I strongly disagree with his conclusions. But I did wish 
to talk a little bit about some of the differences I perceive between 
Senator McCain and the proposals he is bringing forth in terms of what 
Senator Obama has been talking about.
  I, also, most importantly, wish to make the point--and I think 
Senator McCain would be upfront in admitting--that if he is elected 
President, what we are going to be seeing is 4 more years of the 
policies we have seen in this country for the last 8 years, which have 
been a disaster for the middle class and working families of this 
country. I wish to spend a few moments on that.
  Since President Bush has been in office, nearly 6 million middle-
class Americans have slipped out of the middle class and are now in 
poverty. I can tell you that all over this country--in my State of 
Vermont but all over this country--people who used to believe they were 
securely in the middle class, people who looked to the future with 
optimism, are now lining up in front of emergency food shelves because 
the wages they are earning are simply not enough to sustain their 
families. We are seeing a run on emergency food shelves all over 
America from working families.
  I can tell you that in Vermont and throughout the northern tier of 
this country, people are frightened to death about the coming winter 
because in many instances they simply do not have the money to pay the 
fuel bills which will keep their homes warm this winter.
  Since George W. Bush has been in office, median household income has 
declined by over $2,100 for working-age Americans. That is a huge drop.
  Since President Bush has been in office, over 4 million Americans 
have lost their pensions. People who have worked their entire lives at 
a company with the expectation that when they retired there would be a 
defined pension plan available to them--that has not happened in 4 
million instances.
  Since George W. Bush has been President, 7 million Americans have 
lost their health insurance and the cost of health care has soared and 
more and more people are underinsured.
  Since President Bush has been in office, more than 3 million 
manufacturing jobs have been lost, as corporate America has thrown 
people out on the street, moved to China, moved to Vietnam, moved to 
any country where they can pay people a few pennies an hour.
  Since George W. Bush has been in office, nearly half a million jobs 
have been lost over the last 6 months alone, and the unemployment rate 
today is over 6 percent.
  I ask you: Do we need to continue these economic policies which have 
been such a disaster for the middle class and working families in our 
country? Do we need 4 more years of these disastrous economic policies?
  Since George W. Bush has been President, total consumer debt has more 
than doubled. Everybody knows that. Everybody we know almost is in 
debt. We have a personal savings rate in this country today which is 
zero.
  Since President Bush has been in office, home foreclosures are the 
highest on record. There are huge numbers of foreclosures all over this 
country. In 2007, the typical American family paid over $1,700 more on 
their mortgage payments.
  Is that a record, is that a series of policies that this country 
wants to continue for another 4 years? I think not--not for ordinary 
people. If you are a millionaire or a billionaire, I could understand 
that but certainly not for the average American family.
  Since George W. Bush has been President, Americans are now paying 
$2,100 more for gasoline, $200 more for food, $1,500 more on childcare 
expenses, $1,000 more for a college education, $350 more for health 
insurance, $600 more for afterschool costs, and so forth.
  The bottom line is, the Bush economic policies have been a disaster 
for the middle class and for working families and the only people who 
have benefited from these policies are the people on the top. I do not 
believe we need a President in Mr. McCain who is going to emulate these 
economic policies to the detriment of tens of millions of working 
families.
  When Bill Clinton was in office--and I have to tell you, as an 
Independent, I had strong disagreements with President Clinton on a 
number of issues, including his trade policies, but when President 
Clinton was in office, 22.7 million new jobs were created over that 8-
year period. That is a strong record of job creation. Since President 
Bush has been in office, we have created fewer than 6 million new jobs. 
Mr. President, 22.7 million, fewer than 6 million, that is a real 
difference.
  Under President Clinton, 6 million Americans were lifted out of 
poverty. That is pretty good. Under President George W. Bush, over the 
same period of time, 6 million Americans have slipped out of the middle 
class and into poverty. Under President Clinton, 6 million people rise 
above poverty; under President Bush, 6 million more Americans slip into 
poverty.
  Are those the economic policies we want to continue for another 4 
years? We have a national debt right now which is an incredible 
disgrace. It is a debt we are leaving to our kids and our 
grandchildren. I always find it ironic that our Republican friends pose 
as the party of fiscal responsibility. Yes, they are staying up nights 
worrying about earmarks, worrying about everything.
  Under President George W. Bush, the national debt has increased by $3 
trillion. We are closing in on $10 trillion. Under President Clinton, 
we had recordbreaking surpluses as far as the eye could see.

[[Page S8365]]

  I think there is a real difference between the economic policies we 
have seen under President Bush over the last 8 years and the economic 
policies we saw under President Clinton the previous 8 years. The 
difference is that under President Clinton, the middle class grew and 
expanded, poverty went down. Under President Bush, the middle class 
shrunk, poverty went up.
  But I have to be honest. Under President Bush, there have been people 
who have done very well. While 90 percent of the American people have 
seen their incomes go down in the last 8 years, we do have to 
acknowledge that the people on top are not only doing well, they are 
doing fantastically well. As an economic stratum among the top 1 
percent, those folks are doing better than at any time since the 1920s. 
In fact, the wealthiest 15,000 American families received a 57-percent 
increase in income under President Bush.
  We now have--and we do not talk about it too much--the absurd 
situation that the top one-tenth of 1 percent earn more income than the 
bottom 50 percent. Now, I know a lot of folks get up here and they talk 
about family values and they talk about morality. Let me go on record 
as saying I believe it is immoral that the top one-tenth of 1 percent 
earn more income than the bottom 50 percent.
  While the middle class shrinks and poverty increases, the average 
income of the top 400--top 400--American tax filers--and that 
represents 3 out of every 1 million taxpayers of this country--has more 
than doubled under President George W. Bush, going from a mere $104 
million in 2002--how do you get by on a mere $104 million? They were 
scraping by. But the good news is, by 2005, that $104 million went up 
to $214 million a year.
  Adding insult to injury, the effective tax rate of the richest 400 
people, whose incomes are exploding, has nearly dropped in half, from 
30 percent in 1995 to only 18 percent in 2005, because of the Bush tax 
cuts for the rich.
  It is not just income; it is wealth, also. The wealth--that is the 
accumulated income of the richest 400 Americans--has also soared under 
President Bush, going from a mere--now, we are talking about 400 
families. Mr. President, 400 families had an aggregate wealth of $290 
billion. When President Bush came in, their wealth was $290 billion, 
and it went to $1.5 trillion by the year 2006--$1.5 trillion for 400 
Americans, and in our country today, we have the highest rate of 
childhood poverty of any country on Earth. We have 46 million Americans 
without any health insurance.
  I raise these issues to talk about what is going on in our society 
today economically, to point out that the policies of President George 
W. Bush have very clearly worked if you are a millionaire or a 
billionaire. They have been a disaster for you if you are in the middle 
class or a working person. I commend Senator McCain for being pretty 
honest and straightforward in saying he wants to continue those 
policies: more tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, more tax 
breaks for the largest corporations in our country, more efforts to 
privatize Social Security, more efforts to cut back on programs 
desperately needed by working families and low-income people.

  So the thrust of what I wished to say this evening--and I was 
compelled to come down here because I heard Senator Grassley speaking 
before; and Senator Grassley, as I indicated earlier, was very critical 
of Senator Obama's tax policies, and I disagree with Senator Grassley's 
conclusion. But I think if one is going to talk about Senator Obama's 
tax policies, it is important to talk about Senator McCain's overall 
economic policies which are going to be 4 more years of Bush's 
policies. This country--at least the middle class of this country, in 
my view--cannot survive 4 more years of those policies. So that is 
about all I wanted to say this evening.
  I thank you, and I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, earlier this evening, my colleague and 
friend from Iowa, Senator Grassley, came to the floor and spoke about 
the tax proposals of both Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for 
President, and John McCain, the Republican candidate for President. I 
am happy he brought that debate to the floor. It is an important one. I 
think it will be an important part of the decision process for most 
Americans on November 4. But I, to no one's surprise, see it quite 
differently from my friend from Iowa.
  As I see it, we have a clear choice in this election. We know what 
has happened over the last 8 years. Under President George W. Bush, we 
have followed the classic neoconservative Republican approach to the 
economy and taxes. That approach started long ago and continued by 
President George W. Bush, who believes that we can, in fact, generate 
more economic growth and prosperity in America by lowering the taxes on 
the wealthiest people in our country. That is chapter and verse, that 
is the Bible, the economic Bible according to President Bush and his 
loyal followers. They have implemented that plan, creating tax breaks 
which have been historic and unusual; historic in that they have now 
driven tax rates to the point where the wealthiest people have seen tax 
breaks that are creating the largest deficits in the history of the 
United States of America. Last week, there were reports in Washington 
of a national deficit this year of $407 billion--the largest ever.
  Remember: When George W. Bush took office from the Clinton 
administration, he inherited a budget surplus. It was the first surplus 
in 30 years. It was a responsible budget process that actually paid off 
debt. It gave longer life to Social Security. It meant less of a burden 
on our children. But when President Bush took office, he changed all 
that. He took that surplus and squandered it. He will now leave office 
with the lowest approval rating in the history of the Presidency and 
with the biggest deficit in the history of the Presidency. He managed 
that because he did something no President has ever done in history. He 
called for cutting taxes in the midst of a war. No President has ever 
done it because it makes no sense. A war is an added expense to a 
nation such as ours. We have our ordinary expenses for highways, 
prisons, medical research, education, and health care, and along comes 
a war costing $10 billion a month, and President George W. Bush said: 
Don't worry. We won't pay for the war. We will add it to the deficit 
and, in fact, we will cut taxes. It made no sense. Because of this 
desperate and poor economic and tax planning, we find ourselves with 
the biggest deficit in the history of the United States of America.
  I say that because John McCain, the Senator from Arizona and 
Republican candidate for President, has endorsed President Bush's 
economic and tax policies. He has said that if he is elected President, 
he will continue the Bush economic policies which have driven our 
economy into the ditch.
  We know what is going on. Last weekend, the Secretary of the 
Treasury, Henry Paulson, called me in Illinois and said: Well, I want 
to let you know it has reached the point where the taxpayers have to 
take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Those are two government-
sponsored agencies responsible for half of the mortgages in America and 
they were about to go bust. So Secretary Paulson moved in and said we 
have to take them over. I don't quarrel with his conclusion. The 
alternatives were bleak. If those two agencies failed, we could see our 
economy fall deep into a recession and a global recession following it. 
I really believe that. He did what he had to do. But we had to do it 
because the Bush economic policies have failed so miserably.
  Sadly, they have taken the view that Government should not be 
responsible for oversight of the major elements of our economy. They 
have failed to keep their eye on the middle class of America, which is 
the strength of our economy. They have given tax breaks to the 
wealthiest people, and John McCain promises more of the same. Let me 
correct that. John McCain promises to do even more than Bush did. In 
fact, his proposals for tax cuts for corporations would literally mean 
multibillion

[[Page S8366]]

dollar tax cuts--additional tax cuts--for the oil companies in America. 
Can you think of a more deserving taxpayer than ExxonMobil? Is there 
any case you can think of more compelling when it comes to compassion 
than to give a tax break to ExxonMobil? Those poor people reporting 
record-breaking historic profits need a tax break.
  Have you heard any suggestion from my colleagues on the Republican 
side or John McCain to give tax breaks to those who are struggling in 
America? We know who they are: middle-income taxpayers. They are the 
ones paying for gas and groceries. They are the ones who are worried 
about college education expenses. They are the ones worried about 
health care expenses. They are the ones who are being shunned and 
ignored by the McCain-Bush approach to taxes.
  Senator Grassley comes to the floor and says: Oh, this Barack Obama, 
his tax plans are going to hurt small business. Well, I can stand here 
and tell my colleagues he is wrong--and I believe he is--but I may not 
be as credible as a nonpartisan group such as the Annenberg Public 
Policy Center. They took an analysis of the McCain tax policy, which is 
Bush tax policies all over again, and they took a look at Senator 
Obama's proposal, and this is what they say:

       Senator McCain has repeatedly claimed that Obama would 
     raise taxes for 23 million small business owners.

  That is from the Annenberg Policy Center. Their response:

       It's a false and preposterously inflated figure.

  They say:

       We find that the overwhelming majority of those small 
     business owners would see no increase because they earn too 
     little to be affected. Obama's tax proposal would raise the 
     rates only on couples making more than $250,000 or singles 
     earning more than $200,000.

  They go on to say:

       McCain argues that Obama's proposed increase is a job 
     killer. He has a point. It's true that increasing taxes on 
     those at the top would leave them less money for other 
     purposes, including investment and hiring in the case of 
     business owners. But the number of business owners who would 
     see their rates go up would only be a small fraction of what 
     McCain says. Many would see their taxes go down.

  That false claim about a new burden on small businesses was repeated 
on the floor today by my friend and colleague from Iowa. It won't work.
  At the same time they are calling for tax cuts for the wealthiest 
people and the most profitable corporations in America, John McCain, 
inspired by George W. Bush, is not providing the kind of tax relief 
which Senator Obama is talking about for those in middle-income 
categories across America.
  That is the real difference. At a time when Americans are struggling 
with soaring costs, John McCain will provide more tax breaks to 
corporations that ship American jobs overseas, and John McCain would 
provide no direct tax relief at all for more than 100 million middle-
class families. Those are the focus of the Obama tax relief plan--those 
families.
  John McCain doesn't have a plan to insure every American, and under 
his plan you would pay taxes on health care for the first time ever. 
John McCain wants to change the way we get health insurance in America. 
It gets back to the President Bush ownership society, and do we 
remember the motto of the Bush ownership society? ``Just remember, we 
are all in this alone.'' Well, Senator McCain, inspired by this 
concept, believes we ought to get away from group insurance through our 
employment and be given a little check and let's all go out in the 
market and do our best. Well, you know what that means. If you happen 
to have a family with a sick child or you happen to have a history of 
illness in your family, watch out. What you are going to have to pay is 
dramatically more. You are no longer in a pool with the risks shared; 
you are on your own. So John McCain would say if your employer then is 
going to provide you with health insurance, we are going to tax it. We 
are going to tax that as income. That is a first, and that isn't going 
to help. It certainly isn't going to extend health care coverage to 
more families--something we desperately need.
  Now, what Barack Obama would do as President is simplify and reform 
our Tax Code, and it is long overdue. In George Bush's billion-dollar 
giveaways to big corporations and the wealthiest in our society, the 
Obama plan will reform our Tax Code so that it is simple, fair, and 
advances opportunity, not the agenda of some lobbyist or oil company. 
He will shut down the loopholes in tax havens and he will use the money 
to help pay for middle-class tax cuts that will provide $1,000 in tax 
relief to 95 percent of workers and their families across America. The 
Obama plan will make oil companies such as Exxon pay a tax on their 
windfall profits and he will use the money to help families pay for 
skyrocketing energy costs and other bills.
  He would eliminate income taxes for retirees making less than $50,000 
a year because he believes that every senior deserves to live out their 
life in dignity and respect.
  It just amazes me that John McCain could promise to bring us 4 more 
years of these awful Bush economic and tax policies, when we know what 
they have resulted in. Yet he is a loyal soldier. No maverick, no, sir; 
he is a loyalist. When it comes to the Bush economic and tax policies, 
John McCain is no maverick. He is an acolyte of the high priest of 
Republican tax policy, President George W. Bush. He promises more of 
the same--4 more years. Can America stand it? Can we take it? I don't 
think so.
  Middle-income families and working families deserve a Tax Code that 
cares for them and gives them a fighting chance, not a Tax Code 
designed to help the wealthiest. The Halls of Congress out here are 
filled with lobbyists, pretty well dressed, pretty well heeled, and 
living a nice life. Their job is to protect that Tax Code George W. 
Bush wrote. John McCain is their best friend. He promises that when he 
becomes President, the George W. Bush Tax Code is going to be even more 
generous to the wealthiest businesses and individuals. That is 
completely wrong.
  The strength of this country is when middle-income families have a 
fighting chance to succeed. Do you know what they feel. They feel, as I 
do, that this country has been moving in the wrong direction for too 
long. We need a real change and in a lot of different areas but 
certainly when it comes to America's Tax Code.
  For my friend from Iowa to come here and give us tales of doom and 
gloom about what might happen if we had real change in Washington, I 
say to him, what do you think of the current mess? Do you agree with 
John McCain that the fundamentals of this economy are so strong today? 
If you believe that, then you have not spent much time talking to real 
Americans.
  During this last break in August, I went back and toured my State 
from top to bottom. It is a big, wonderful State. I spent some time in 
small towns and sat down for a get-together after work in El Paso, IL. 
El Paso is a little town just north of Bloomington; it is the 
birthplace of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. There is a tavern we went to 
after work and had a beer, and we talked to some families about what 
they are up against. I wish John McCain could hear those stories. I 
wish my colleagues could. I wish they could understand what this 
economy has done to these good, hard-working people. These are folks 
who are scared to death that the Mitsubishi plant in Bloomington is 
going to ship out more jobs. They don't want any more trade agreements 
that ship jobs overseas. They are scared to death that we are going to 
have a Tax Code like the one we have today, which rewards companies for 
sending jobs overseas, a provision in that code that John McCain agrees 
with and Senator Obama disagrees with. These people are concerned about 
their kids' college education. One fellow said: My son just finished 2 
years at a private college in Peoria, and he decided to come back home. 
He is going to try his luck at the community college to get on track. 
He said that he has $60,000 in student loans. He is a sophomore, he 
hasn't even reached the point where he has a degree, but he has what 
amounts to a mortgage debt in student loans.
  Those are the realities of life out there in real America. When I 
hear John McCain say he wants to continue these economic policies and 
tax policies of George W. Bush, I wonder, when is the last time he sat 
down with some of these families? He owes it to himself, if he wants to 
be a good candidate for President, to sit down with some of these 
struggling families.

[[Page S8367]]

  I think we need a new approach. We need change in this town. What 
Senator Obama is proposing is a change in the Tax Code to give that 
family and others a fighting chance. That is all we can offer them. 
There is no guaranteed success, but we can offer them just an 
opportunity, a fighting chance at success. It is a chance most of our 
families have capitalized on and did a pretty good job for their kids. 
We owe that to the next generation as well.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sanders). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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