[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 162 (Thursday, December 9, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8701-S8708]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           AIRPORT AND AIRWAY EXTENSION ACT OF 2010--Resumed

  Pending:

       Reid motion to concur in the amendment of the House to the 
     amendment of the Senate to the bill, with Reid amendment No. 
     4727 (to the House amendment to the Senate amendment), to 
     change the enactment date.
       Reid amendment No. 4728 (to amendment No. 4727), of a 
     perfecting nature.
       Reid motion to refer the message of the House on the bill 
     to the Committee on Finance, with instructions, Reid 
     amendment No. 4729, to provide for a study.
       Reid amendment No. 4730 (the instructions) (to amendment 
     No. 4729), of a perfecting nature.
       Reid amendment No. 4731 (to amendment No. 4730), of a 
     perfecting nature.

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, what is the pending business before the 
Senate?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The pending business is the motion to concur--
--
  Mr. REID. The message to accompany H.R. 4853.
  Mr. President, I move to table my motion and ask for the yeas and 
nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to 
be a sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Bayh), the 
Senator from Alaska (Mr. Begich), the Senator from California (Mrs. 
Boxer), the Senator from Delaware (Mr.

[[Page S8702]]

Coons), the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Dodd), the Senator from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Feingold), the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Johnson), 
the Senator from Florida (Mr. Nelson), the Senator from Montana (Mr. 
Tester), the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Warner), and the Senator from 
Virginia (Mr. Webb) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. 
Alexander), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn), the Senator from 
Arizona (Mr. Kyl), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Brownback), the Senator 
from Texas (Mrs. Hutchison), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe), 
the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. 
Crapo), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from 
New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), the Senator from Florida (Mr. LeMieux), and 
the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).
  Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Kentucky (Mr. 
Bunning) would have voted ``yea,'' the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. 
Alexander) would have voted ``yea,'' and the Senator from Texas (Mr. 
Cornyn) would have voted ``yea.''
  The result was announced--yeas 65, nays 11, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 271 Leg.]

                                YEAS--65

     Akaka
     Barrasso
     Baucus
     Bennet
     Bennett
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Brown (MA)
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Corker
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Grassley
     Hagan
     Hatch
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Kerry
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lugar
     Manchin
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (NE)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Thune
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden

                                NAYS--11

     Brown (OH)
     DeMint
     Ensign
     Harkin
     Landrieu
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Sanders
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Voinovich

                             NOT VOTING--24

     Alexander
     Bayh
     Begich
     Boxer
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burr
     Coons
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     Dodd
     Feingold
     Graham
     Gregg
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Johnson
     Kyl
     LeMieux
     Nelson (FL)
     Tester
     Vitter
     Warner
     Webb
  The motion was agreed to.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my 
motion to concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 
4853 with the Reid for Baucus amendment No. 4727.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. REID. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                Motion to Concur with Amendment No. 4753

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to concur in the House amendment to 
the Senate amendment to H.R. 4853 with the Reid-McConnell amendment No. 
4753 and that the amendment be considered read.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid] moves to concur in the 
     House amendment to the Senate amendment No. 4753 to H.R. 
     4853.

  (The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of 
Amendments.'')
  Mr. REID. I ask for the yeas and nays on that, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.


                Amendment No. 4754 to amendment No. 4753

  Mr. REID. I have a second-degree amendment at the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid] proposes an amendment 
     numbered 4754 to amendment No. 4753.

  Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment 
be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       At the end insert the following: ``The provisions of this 
     Act shall become effective in 5 days upon enactment.''


                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have a cloture motion at the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair directs the 
clerk to read the motion.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to 
     concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 
     4853, the Middle Class Tax Relief Act, with an amendment No. 
     4753.
         Max Baucus, Joseph I. Lieberman, John D. Rockefeller IV, 
           Byron L. Dorgan, John F. Kerry, Sheldon Whitehouse, 
           Mark L. Pryor, Robert P. Casey, Jr., Richard J. Durbin, 
           Mark R. Warner, Jeanne Shaheen, Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, 
           Christopher J. Dodd, Kent Conrad, Jim Webb, Bill 
           Nelson, Amy Klobuchar.


                Motion to Refer with Amendment No. 4755

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to refer the House message to the 
Finance Committee with instructions to report back forthwith, with the 
following amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid] moves to refer the House 
     message to the Senate Committee on Finance with instructions 
     to report back forthwith, with an amendment numbered 4755.

  The amendment (No. 4755) is as follows:

       At the end, add the following: ``The Senate Finance 
     Committee is requested to study the impact of any delay in 
     extending tax cuts to middle income Americans with incomes up 
     to $250,000.''

  Mr. REID. On that I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there sufficient second? There is a 
sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.


                           Amendment No. 4756

  Mr. REID. I have an amendment to my instructions at the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid] proposes an amendment 
     numbered 4756 to the instructions to the motion to refer H.R. 
     4853.

  The amendment is as follows:

       At the end, insert the following: ``including specific 
     information on the impact of the delay in extending the tax 
     cuts.''

  Mr. REID. On that I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a 
sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.


                Amendment No. 4757 to Amendment No. 4756

  Mr. REID. I have a second-degree amendment to my instructions.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Reid] proposes an amendment 
     numbered 4757 to amendment No. 4756.

  The amendment is as follows:

       At the end, insert the following: ``and include statistics 
     which reflect regional differences.''

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the cloture 
vote occur on Monday, December 13, at 3 p.m., with the mandatory quorum 
being waived.
  Before the Chair rules on this, there are some people who need the 
ability--anyway, there is no need to go into detail, but for those 
people who can't get here on time, if people can't get back until 5:30, 
it would be our normal vote. We are not going to cut anyone off at an 
unreasonable time. There will be plenty of time for people to vote, 
within reason.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.

[[Page S8703]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, as I think almost everyone knows, 
President Obama and the Republican leaders have reached an agreement on 
taxes. It is, in my view, a bad deal, and I think we can do a lot 
better. Tonight, I wish to speak briefly, and I think I will have some 
other Senators join me. Tomorrow, I intend to be back to speak a lot 
longer about this issue because I think this is an issue the American 
people want serious discussion about.
  I can tell my colleagues that representing the small State of 
Vermont, we have received in the last 3 days thousands--thousands--of 
phone calls from my State and from other States, and what I will tell 
my colleagues is that 99 percent of those calls were against this 
agreement. What I wish to do tonight, briefly, and at greater length 
tomorrow, is to tell my colleagues why I vigorously oppose the deal 
that has been cut and how we have to move in a very different way if we 
are going to save the disappearing middle class of our country.
  In my view, the American people are against this agreement. They want 
to hear Members of the Senate speak out against this agreement, and 
that is what I will do this evening.
  Let me explain, very briefly, why I am opposing the agreement reached 
by the Republican leadership and President Obama. First, at a time when 
our country has a recordbreaking $13.8 trillion national debt and a 
collapsing middle class, it is unconscionable to me that we could 
support an agreement that drives up our national debt because we have 
given huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires who don't need 
it. Here is an interesting irony: In many cases, they are telling us 
they don't even want it. Two of the richest people in the world, Bill 
Gates and Warren Buffett, have said: Thank you. We don't need this tax 
break.
  This country has serious problems. Use the money on those problems, 
not giving billionaires a tax break.
  In my own State, the founder of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Ben Cohen, 
said: Yes, I would like a tax break, but I don't need it. You know 
what.
  There are millionaires all over this country who are saying the same 
thing.
  We have been told that the extension of the tax breaks for the rich 
will go on for only 2 years. The Bush tax breaks for the rich will go 
on for 2 years. Maybe that is the case, but I personally don't believe 
that. I believe that given the political reality that exists in 
Washington, my guess is that 2 years from now, when this same debate 
happens again, these tax breaks for the rich will once again be 
extended. Our Republican colleagues have been very clear they wanted a 
10-year extension. It is hard for me to believe that 2 years from now 
they are going to say: Oh, 2 years, that is fine. That is enough. We 
give up. I don't think so.
  The difficulty is, we have a President who campaigned vigorously 
against extending these tax breaks for the rich, but those tax breaks 
for the rich are in this agreement. So my fear is that if the President 
is the Democratic nominee 2 years from now and he says: Trust me, we 
are going to stop these tax breaks for the rich, I think his 
credibility might not be too high.
  So my fear is, in fact, if these Bush tax cuts for the top 2 percent, 
many of whom are millionaires and billionaires, are extended over a 10-
year period, we are looking at a $700 billion increase in the national 
debt.
  Secondly, extending income tax breaks for the top 2 percent is not 
the only unfair tax proposal in this agreement. This agreement struck 
by the President and the Republican leadership continues the Bush-era 
15-percent tax rate on capital gains and dividends, meaning that those 
people who make their living off their investments will continue to pay 
a substantially lower tax rate than the vast majority of the people in 
the middle class--people such as firemen, teachers, and nurses.
  On top of all that, this agreement includes a horrendous proposal 
regarding the estate tax, a Teddy Roosevelt initiative which was 
enacted in 1916. It will be celebrating its 100th birthday in a few 
years. Under the agreement we will be debating here, the estate tax 
rate, which was 55 percent under President Clinton, will decline to 35 
percent under this agreement, with an exemption on the first $5 million 
of an individual's estate, $10 million for couples.
  I suspect there are people who are watching this evening and they are 
saying: Oh, my goodness. I don't want to pay a 55-percent estate tax. 
So let me be very clear in saying this, in telling you something the 
Republicans do not tell you: that the estate tax applies only to the 
top three-tenths of 1 percent, so 99.7 percent of American families do 
not pay 5 cents in the estate tax. So this is not just a tax for the 
rich; this is a tax for the very rich.
  I know many of my Republican colleagues would like to abolish, repeal 
the estate tax altogether, and that would cost us $1 trillion over 10 
years to our national debt, but they are making significant progress by 
lowering the rate to 35 percent.
  Does my colleague from Ohio wish to respond?
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for yielding. I 
hear what the Senator says about the tax burden in this country; that 
it falls predominantly on the middle class. When I hear him talk about 
the estate tax, couples pay no estate tax on the first $10 million of 
their assets after they both die. Considering they shelter a good bit 
beyond that, then the tax rate only on the dollars above $10 million 
were lowered significantly in this proposal--and then what has happened 
with extending the tax cuts.
  I was intrigued, I guess it was yesterday, when the Senator offered a 
motion on the floor. In light of the fact that a relatively small group 
of people are getting huge tax cuts--millionaires and billionaires--
whether it is the estate tax upon their death that their heirs enjoy 
this huge tax break or whether it is when earning $1 million or $2 
million or $5 million a year and getting a huge tax cut, the motion 
yesterday simply said, if I recall, that every Social Security 
beneficiary--and that is tens of millions--
  Mr. SANDERS. Over 50 million.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Fifty million people would get a check for $250 
from the government, because, I believe, about $13 billion for 1 year, 
it wouldn't have been a long-term deficit issue; it would have been a 
one-time cost for people who didn't get a cost-of-living adjustment 
this year. So we know the average Social Security beneficiary gets 
about $14,000 a year. We know an awful lot of Social Security 
beneficiaries live mostly on their Social Security. Most people have a 
little bit more than that, but an awful lot have only a little bit more 
or nothing more so that is what they live on. They have no cost-of-
living adjustment this year because of this sort of complicated 
formula.
  But what was pretty amazing to me is how at the same time, every 
Republican signed a letter, 42 Republican Senators signed a letter 
saying they will do nothing else until they get their tax cuts for the 
rich. It is almost like a work stoppage. It is almost like the 
Republican Senators are on strike, saying: We are not going to vote or 
we are not going to do anything around here. We are not going to work 
or vote yes on anything around here until you give my people a tax cut, 
my wealthy friends and contributors in my States.
  So the contrast of their saying we will not do anything for anybody 
else except millionaires and billionaires, we will not--even a $250 
check, since there was no cost-of-living adjustment to seniors who are 
making about $14,000 a year from Social Security.
  What that check would mean to them is--I think that contrast made was 
so important to understand. Give us some more about what that contrast 
means with those Social Security beneficiaries.
  Mr. SANDERS. I thank the Senator for his very strong ethics in trying 
to get that $250 emergency check out to senior citizens on Social 
Security and disabled vets--over 15 million people.
  Mr. BROWN from Ohio. One more point. A majority of Senators voted for 
it.
  Mr. SANDERS. Yes, 53.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. It was filibustered again, blocked by a minority 
of Senators, right?
  Mr. SANDERS. Absolutely. We won 53 to 45, but around here the 
majority does not rule. The Republicans filibustered, as they almost 
always do on anything of substance, and we could not get the 60 votes 
because we did not get one Republican vote.

[[Page S8704]]

  The point the Senator was making gets to the heart of this entire 
issue, which is that our friends over there are fighting vigorously for 
$700 billion in tax breaks for the top 2 percent--$70 billion a year 
for the richest people in this country. And when we say to them that 
senior citizens and disabled vets who are living on $14,000 or $15,000 
a year need a check of $250, oh, we can't afford that. But we can 
afford to give a billionaire a $1 million tax break.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. That $750 billion is $75 billion a year for 10 
years for millionaires and billionaires versus $13 billion once for 
senior citizens. In essence, that $750 billion--without getting too 
much into the weeds on numbers--in essence, we are borrowing that money 
from China, charging it to our children and grandchildren, putting it 
on their credit cards. They will pay it off who knows when. Then we are 
giving that $750 billion to people who are fabulously wealthy already, 
right? But they are unwilling to move forward on unemployment benefits 
or on your proposal to help a senior with $250 because they really are 
on strike.
  They say: We are not doing anything until you give tax cuts to the 
rich, to my people.
  Mr. SANDERS. That is right. Most of us--I am sure Senator Brown has 
received a lot of calls from people in Ohio--I know seniors who are 
hanging on by their fingernails, trying to pay their bills, heat their 
homes, pay prescription drug costs, and take care of their health care 
needs. And $250 will not profoundly impact people's lives, but it will 
help a little bit. These guys say: Sorry, we can't afford a $250 check 
for a senior or a disabled vet because that would cost $13 billion or 
$14 billion a year. But we can afford $70 billion a year to go to the 
top 2 percent.
  Frankly, I think that is what this whole debate is about. That is 
what it is about.
  What I want to do is continue for a moment on some of the other 
objections. Senator Brown made an excellent point in contrasting the 
priorities we are seeing in the Senate, especially from our Republican 
friends. We didn't get one vote--not one--for a $250 check for seniors 
or disabled vets. I want to continue with some of the problems that I 
see in this agreement struck by the President and the Republican 
leadership.
  Some folks may have heard a bit about the so-called payroll tax 
holiday. What that would do is cut about $120 billion in Social 
Security payroll taxes for workers.
  On the surface, this sounds like a great idea. Instead of paying 6.2 
percent, they will be paying 4.2 percent. They might think: Hey, that 
is great. I am paying less in taxes. My paycheck is a bit bigger. It is 
a great idea.
  Well, let's stop for a minute and ask: Where did this idea originally 
come from? Well, the truth is this payroll tax holiday originated from 
conservative Republicans whose ultimate goal is the destruction of 
Social Security.
  What does that mean? Well, it is not very hard to figure out. If you 
are substantially cutting the amount of money that goes into Social 
Security by cutting back on the payroll tax, that makes Social Security 
less financially viable. Today, Social Security can pay out every 
benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 29 years. Those of 
us who believe strongly in Social Security--that it has worked 
extraordinarily well for the last 75 years--and want to see it work 
well for the next 75 years, we want to strengthen it.
  I know the occupant of the Chair, the Senator from Oregon, has ideas 
about putting increased revenue into the Social Security trust funds. 
Those are the ideas we should be looking at, not cutting funding that 
goes into that trust fund. Furthermore, while this payroll tax holiday 
is a 1-year provision, and this agreement says the money will be 
covered, for the very first time, by Federal dollars from the Treasury 
going into the Social Security trust fund, which historically has 
gotten all of its money from the payroll tax--while the proponents of 
this agreement say don't worry about it, it is a 1-year agreement, I 
make the same argument on this point that I made on the other. A year 
from now, people will be discussing whether we extend that payroll tax 
holiday. While those of us will say Social Security needs that money 
and you can't expend it, our Republican friends will say you are 
raising taxes on workers, and you can't do that. Then what we would be 
talking about over a period of years is less money going into Social 
Security, making it less financially solvent, which is exactly what 
many Republicans want to do. I think that is a bad idea.
  I will tell you, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security 
and Medicare, which is led by a woman named Barbara Kennelly, who used 
to be in the House--I know Barbara very well--says this about that 
provision:

       Even though Social Security contributed nothing to the 
     current economic crisis, it has been bartered in a deal that 
     provides deficit busting tax cuts for the wealthy. Diverting 
     $120 billion in Social Security contributions for a so-called 
     ``tax holiday'' may sound like a good idea for workers now, 
     but it is bad business for the program that a majority of 
     middle-class seniors will rely upon in the future.
       Conservatives have long dreamed of a payroll tax holiday 
     because it fulfills two ideological goals, lower taxes and 
     weakening Social Security finances. The White House claims 
     the 2 percent payroll tax cut won't impact Social Security; 
     however, we disagree.
       There's no such thing as a ``temporary'' tax cut.

  And the fear right here is that cut will, in fact, go on 
indefinitely.
  Mr. President, I talked about the payroll tax for a moment. Let me 
talk about another aspect of the agreement the President signed with 
Republicans; that is, while some of the business tax cuts in this 
agreement may work well to create jobs and some may not, economists on 
both ends of the political spectrum believe the better way to spur the 
economy and create jobs is to spend money rebuilding our crumbling 
infrastructure.
  With corporate America already sitting on close to $2 trillion in 
cash on hand, the problem we are seeing in our economy today is not 
that large corporations are taxed too highly, it is that the middle 
class doesn't have enough money to purchase their goods. Creating 
decent-paying jobs and rebuilding our infrastructure could seriously 
address that problem.
  What we have right now, as I think you know, Mr. President, is an 
infrastructure that is crumbling. There are very credible estimates out 
there that we need to invest, in the next 5 years, several trillion 
dollars in rebuilding our roads, bridges, water systems, wastewater 
plants, our mass transportation, our railroads. China is exploding with 
high-speed rail. We do not have any significant high-speed rail in this 
country. If we are serious about creating jobs, in my view, the most 
effective way to do that is to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, 
which makes our entire country stronger, more competitive and, at the 
same time, short term it gives us the best bang we can get for the buck 
in terms of job creation. That is another issue.
  Tax breaks for businesses may work; maybe they won't. But I don't 
think that type of investment is anywhere near as effective in terms of 
job creation as investing in the infrastructure.
  The fifth point I want to make on why I think this agreement is not a 
good one: One of the positive aspects of the agreement--one that I 
certainly support, and I know you do, Mr. President--is the need to 
extend unemployment benefits for millions of workers today who face the 
possibility that within a few weeks those extended unemployment 
benefits may end. These are workers who are experiencing 
extraordinarily difficult times through no fault of their own, often 
caught up in the Wall Street crisis, but they have lost their jobs.
  In various parts of this country it is awfully hard to get a job. 
More and more people are applying for jobs, and the jobs are not there. 
We have the moral responsibility to extend unemployment benefits and 
allow those working families the opportunity to pay their bills and 
give them at least a modicum of security.
  Here is the point I want to make. I strongly, absolutely believe any 
agreement has to have an extension of unemployment benefits for at 
least 13 months, maybe longer. But when folks who support this 
agreement say we want a great compromise, we managed to get an 
extension of unemployment benefits there, what I would say is that for 
the past 40 years, under both Democratic and Republican 
administrations, whenever the unemployment rate has been above 7.2 
percent--now we are

[[Page S8705]]

looking at 9.8 percent--unemployment insurance has always been 
extended.
  So this great compromise is simply doing what we have already been 
doing as a matter of costs for the last 40 years, when Republicans ran 
the Senate and when Democrats ran the Senate, with Republican 
Presidents and Democratic Presidents. There was a consensus that we 
cannot leave fellow Americans high and dry when unemployment is high. 
Well, unemployment today is very high. In my view, this is not a great 
compromise. This is simply doing what this country has done under both 
Democrats and Republicans for 40 years.
  Mr. President, I have been mentioning my concerns about this 
agreement, but let me also say, absolutely, there are positive elements 
to this agreement. I don't want to suggest for a moment there are not. 
Extending middle-class tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans is 
something that must be done, absolutely.
  As you know, during the Bush years, median family income declined by 
over $2,000. What we are seeing in many parts of this country is that 
wages are actually going down, not up. People are working longer hours 
for lower wages.
  Does the middle class of this country need to continue to have that 
tax break? Of course they do. I will fight as hard as I can to make 
sure they do. So this proposal is, in fact, an important proposal. 
There are other good proposals in it. The earned-income tax credit for 
working Americans is very important. The child and college tax credits 
are also very important. These proposals will keep millions of 
Americans from slipping out of the middle class and into poverty, and 
they will allow millions more to send their kids to college.

  But when we look at the overall package, we must put it in a broader 
context. What will the message of this legislation mean for the future 
of our country? And I think one point that has to be made is that if we 
pass this agreement as written, it says we are going to continue the 
Bush policy of trickle-down economics for at least 2 more years. To my 
mind, that is absurd. This is a policy--based on all of the evidence--
that grotesquely failed. After 8 years of Bush-style economics, with 
all of these tax breaks for the rich, we ended up losing 500,000 
private sector jobs--not a very impressive record. In fact, it is about 
the worst record in job creation in modern history.
  Here is another concern that I have that I think folks are not 
talking about enough. This is what I believe will happen right after 
this agreement is passed. And I am going to do everything I can to see 
that it is not passed, and I hope very much that it is not passed, but 
if it is passed, no one should have any illusions that our Republican 
friends will not be back in a month or two saying the following: Gee, 
our national debt is getting close to $14 trillion, we have a $1.4 
trillion deficit, and, you know what, we are going to have to cut. We 
are going to have to cut and cut and cut. Nobody should have any 
illusion that in 2 months there will not be ferocious debates on the 
floor of the Senate on the part of people who want to cut Social 
Security, who want to cut Medicare, who want to cut Medicaid, who want 
to cut childcare and education in general and environmental protection. 
Tax breaks for billionaires is good, but cutting back on Social 
Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is also what they want to do.
  I think Senator Sherrod Brown, a moment ago, just crystallized that. 
That is what it is about. We can afford to give $70 billion a year to 
the top 2 percent, the wealthiest people, but we can't afford to spend 
$14 billion a year to make sure senior citizens and disabled vets get a 
$250 check. That is what this whole thing is going to be about--tax 
breaks for the rich and cutbacks on all of the programs the middle-
class and working families of this country desperately need.
  Mr. President, I will be back tomorrow because there is a lot more 
that has to be said on this issue, but let me conclude by saying I will 
give credit to my Republican colleagues in that they have been pretty 
honest and straightforward about what they intend to do. There is 
nothing mysterious about it. What they want to do is to take this 
country back to the 1920s. They want to take us back to the days where, 
when you were old, there was no Social Security and you had to fend for 
yourself in the waning years of your life when you couldn't work. They 
want to ultimately destroy Medicare.
  I would suggest to all of the senior citizens in this country--the 
people who are 70, 75, 80; people who are maybe struggling with one 
illness or another--good luck in going to a private insurance company 
to get help when you are low-income and sick. It ain't gonna happen. 
They are not going to be there because they can't make any money off of 
you.
  Those people are going to be out there on the street all alone 
because they are not going to be able to get the help they need if 
Medicare is destroyed, and the same thing with Medicaid.
  You know, Mr. President, you and I heard in this Chamber the great 
debate over the death panels, the famous death panels that were 
included, supposedly, in the health care reform bill we passed. Well, 
it turns out that death panels are, in fact, now arising in America but 
not because of the health care reform passed here in Washington.
  In Arizona, right now the Governor there apparently is deciding they 
do not have the money in their Medicaid Program to provide transplants 
to people who, without those transplants, will die. That is called a 
death panel. If you are poor and you need a transplant and you are 
living in Arizona, good luck to you.
  Let me conclude by simply saying that I believe very strongly that we 
can forge a much better agreement than the current one before us. I 
believe, in my State of Vermont and all over this country, that the 
vast majority of people do not think it makes any sense at all to give 
hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the wealthiest people 
in this country so that we can drive up the national debt and have our 
kids and grandchildren pay higher taxes in order to pay off that debt. 
That doesn't make sense to progressives like me, and it doesn't make 
sense to conservatives out there.
  So I think the American people are on our side--at least the side 
that opposes this agreement. Our job here--I know it is a shocking 
idea--is to represent the middle-class and working families, not just 
millionaires and billionaires.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor, and 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. MERKLEY. 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.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise tonight to share some of my 
concerns about the package that has been negotiated between the 
President and the Republicans and has now been presented here on the 
floor of the Senate.
  First, I wish to emphasize the size of the decision that is going to 
be made in the next couple of days. This deficit spending stimulus 
package is a $1 trillion package. Let's turn the clock back to the 
debate over the stimulus package we had in 2009. That stimulus was 
about $800 billion--only 80 percent of the size of this package. That 
stimulus had in it direct construction jobs across America. Every 
community, every county benefited from an increase in production. It 
also had the making work pay tax deduction. It had a host of small 
business tax deductions, and it had direct assistance to our States to 
enable them to meet some of the crises they were experiencing in health 
care and in education, so we could keep our schools across America open 
during this great Bush recession.
  I have listened over the last year and a half to tremendous attacks 
on that stimulus package. Yet this is a much larger decision. This is a 
$1 trillion decision, and it is a package that much less thought has 
gone into. We have this package here on the floor, but we haven't 
actually gotten the paper in our hands as to what is in it. We have to 
rely on newspaper accounts as to what is going to be in it.
  Tonight, in offices across this Nation, folks are trying to get it 
off the Internet, and they are going to be trying to analyze it and 
understand it. We

[[Page S8706]]

know the basic outlines, and the basic outlines raise a significant 
number of concerns. I encourage our citizens to look at this package 
over the weekend and to share their concerns with their Congressmen and 
Congresswomen and certainly with their Senators.
  This is a $1 trillion deficit. There has been a lot of talk on the 
floor not only about the stimulus last year but about the size of our 
national debt. This is a $1 trillion increase in our national debt. I 
would think that is something we would be tearing apart and looking at 
every part of it and asking if each dollar is being spent to the 
maximum effect. We should have amendments that say: Hey, we can create 
a lot more jobs if we spend these few million dollars over here rather 
than here, so that every dollar makes a maximum impact in putting 
America back to work. But not a single amendment is going to be allowed 
on this bill, as far as we are aware tonight. I believe that in a 
decision of this magnitude, there should be amendments that compare the 
effect of spending money here versus there and about what is going to 
have the greatest impact in a favorable way for America.
  My good colleague from Vermont pointed out that this reduces the flow 
of resources into Social Security. I think we should have an extensive 
debate about coming to rely on the general fund, which is what the 
administration wants to do. They are going to substitute payroll 
revenue for general fund revenue. I think we should have a substantial 
debate about depending upon general revenue to supply funds to the 
Social Security fund.
  Let me explain this. The approximately $120 billion that will flow 
into Social Security from the general fund under this program comes 
from borrowed funds. Those borrowed funds come primarily from China. So 
Social Security--a program for Americans in which we save our own money 
and invest that money so there can be a very modest steady income in 
the retirement years--now is going to rely upon borrowed funds from 
China. That is the American retirement plan? We should be debating that 
on the floor of the Senate, and it should be an extensive debate, not a 
debate in which cloture is going to be rushed on Monday and then have 
30 hours split among 100 Members, because we are spending $1 trillion 
of deficit money under this plan.
  My first main concern is that we are taking a step to greatly 
increase the national debt with this plan. My second concern is this 
plan 100 percent endorses the Bush tax structure that has so deeply 
damaged our Nation. Many of you will recall that when the economy grew 
under President Bush II, the living wages of working Americans actually 
failed to increase. The economy grew but the wages didn't grow for 
working Americans. In addition, we doubled our national debt.
  That is what happens when we say we are going to create a plan that 
gives away our national treasure to the most affluent. We are going to 
do so in a manner that doesn't create living wage jobs, doesn't reward 
the productivity of American workers.
  I am going to tell you that we made a major decision in about 1974, 
about the year I graduated from high school, and that was to adopt 
strategies, which failed, to link the productivity of American workers 
to their compensation. Up until that point in the postwar era, as our 
productivity as a nation grew, the financial success of our working 
families grew along with that increase in productivity. But since 1974, 
the tremendous, spectacular increase in the productivity and national 
wealth of our Nation has not been shared with the workers of our 
Nation. Is that the type of America we want, where many work to make 
this Nation a success and do not share in the reward? The Bush tax cut 
structure is the ultimate embodiment of that philosophy of carving off 
the national treasure for the very few.
  I do not think our success as a nation should be measured by the 
success of our wealthiest families. I applaud them for their 
entrepreneurship. I applaud them when the strategies to create 
companies succeed. But it is up to us to create a structure that says, 
as the work product increases we are going to enable all families to 
thrive--not for a few to thrive spectacularly while everyone else stays 
on a level plain.
  Back in my home community, the community in which I grew up, a 
working class community of three-bedroom ranch houses, so many children 
now consider it a success if they can simply afford to purchase their 
parents' home because it is only their parents' home, with the 
assistance from their parents, that they can afford on a working 
American family's salary because while the worker's share of the 
national income has not increased with productivity, housing prices 
have gone up enormously, making it harder and harder for a working 
family to afford a home.
  Embodied in these Bush breaks that have so deeply damaged our Nation 
we have a very interesting feature, and that is that under this plan 
President Obama has proposed with the Republicans--it says we are going 
to extend breaks not just so the wealthiest can enjoy the same breaks 
on their first $1 million that others receive for the money they are 
earning up to $1 million, but bonus breaks on top of that.
  Let me give you a sense of that. The amount of the tax break that is 
given to everyone who earns their first $1 million is about $43,000. 
Let's round it off: $40,000. Under this plan, those families earning 
over $1 million receive an average of an additional bonus of $100,000 
per taxpayer, a $100,000 bonus to the most successful families in the 
country. That is pretty generous. That is enormously generous. Are we 
going to be generous with our working families? Unfortunately, no. 
Under this plan a family earning in the vicinity of $40,000 to $50,000 
gets about $1,700. A family that earns $40,000 or less gets somewhere 
in the nature of $1,000. So $1,000 for a working family versus $43,000 
plus a $100,000 bonus for our wealthiest families in America.
  Let's see, $1,000; $143,000. There is very little to those who are 
building the success and wealth of our Nation through the productivity 
of our workmanship, and a whole lot to those who are spectacularly 
wealthy already.
  The structure of the capital gains tax under this proposal and the 
structure of the estate tax add to the impact of the income tax 
brackets I was just describing. If you add it all up, and if you have 
been spectacularly successful through this recession, then you can 
count on a whole lot of help, generous gifts from Uncle Sam. If you 
have been struggling and you are earning near minimum wage, or maybe 
you are working 60 hours a week, three jobs, each 20 hours earning a 
minimum wage, you get about $1,000 under this plan. That sort of 
reinforcement of the fundamental disparity between working families and 
those who are best off is not healthy for America. That does not build 
the financial foundation so families can afford to give their children 
substantial opportunities.
  The America in which I grew up, the vision of my father and mother's 
generation was that we would have an America with opportunity for every 
family. We are leaving that vision behind with this bill.
  Let me turn to my next main concern. The $1 trillion package is 
designed to be a stimulus. But has it been designed well, to spend 
every tax dollar in a smart way? There are many folks in this Chamber 
who say they are fiscal conservatives. I am a fiscal conservative 
because I believe every dollar needs to be spent in a smart way. Let's 
test this.
  Parts of this package get an A, and parts of this package get an F. 
The part that gets an A is unemployment insurance. This is important 
and fundamental to our families. We have always had the philosophy that 
when there are no jobs to be had, when people cannot get a job through 
no fault of their own, we are going to extend unemployment benefits to 
help families through that rough time. We have always done it, 
Democrats and Republicans, until this year when our Republicans have 
turned their backs on working families and said: Not now. We will not 
support extending support unless we take it away from some other 
important part of the budget. But, they said, we will support $100,000 
bonuses without taking anything away from anyone else.
  That unity of support for our working families during hard times 
disappeared this year. That is too bad. That is a tragedy.
  The fundamental premise has been, by my colleagues across the aisle: 
We are going to hold those families hostage to get a $100,000 bonus on 
top of a

[[Page S8707]]

very generous basic tax break for the wealthiest, hold working families 
hostage for a lot of help for the very few at the very top. Those bonus 
tax breaks are rated dead last by the Congressional Budget Office in 
creating jobs in this Nation. Unemployment assistance is rated at the 
top, the most effective way of creating jobs in this Nation--and it 
should be in any package. It should be extended and has been extended 
in a bipartisan manner in the past until this year when, unfortunately, 
it seems that my colleagues across the aisle became all about the few 
and not about helping families when there are no jobs.
  There is great irony in this because we don't have jobs in this 
Nation because of the great Bush recession created by my friends across 
the aisle. First of all, they deregulated the retail mortgages, and 
they allowed predatory loans. Those predatory loans meant, according to 
the Wall Street Journal, 60 percent of the families in America who 
qualified for a basic, amortizing, inexpensive, prime mortgage were 
steered into subprime mortgages. Then my good friends said: Let's let 
Wall Street do whatever it wants in packaging these mortgages. Let's 
end the oversight and let's end the caps on leverage. So they created 
securities; that is, packages of mortgages. And they sold the rights to 
those packages. Those securities were doomed to blow up when the 
predatory features of the mortgages kicked in after 2 years and 
interest rates jumped from 4.5 percent to 9 percent.
  We have been dealing, since I came into office in the Senate, with 
the tremendous economic bomb produced by the Bush policies, the great 
Bush recession that created the unemployment so that people cannot get 
jobs. Now the same folks who created that disaster are saying: We are 
not going to help those who are being hurt by the disaster we created. 
It is like setting your house on fire and then cutting off the water to 
the fire hose.
  If my Republican friends are so determined to adopt the very worst 
job-creating strategy, we should take it out of this bill, or at least 
have a debate on this floor of the Senate about whether we put it in 
the worst strategy or move those funds over here to the best strategy 
or to some other good job-creating strategy. Maybe all the features 
don't need to be As or A-pluses. But we have the Republican F plan 
because it is the worst as rated by the CBO. We have the Democratic A 
plan, support for the uninsured--it should be in here.
  What about some of the other things? One of the very best ways to get 
our country going is low-cost loans to create energy-saving renovations 
in homes and buildings. It creates a tremendous number of jobs for 
dollars spent because it is a low-cost jobs program, not a grant 
program. It is ranked very high in the number of jobs it creates. We 
have a construction industry in this country that would love to go to 
work, and we have three bills sitting here before the Senate.
  We have the HOME Star bill for families to do energy saving 
renovations to their home. We have the Building Star bill to allow 
commercial buildings, office suites, industrial site buildings to be 
improved in energy renovation. The loans are paid back through the 
energy savings. So it creates a long-term positive in terms of the 
energy strategy of this Nation. It works very well for the families, 
very well for the businesses, and puts the construction industry back 
to work. That is the type of program we should be weighing against the 
F plan--that is from A to F, F for last, F for failure, F in CBO's 
analysis for the worst job-creating plan, which is what the Republicans 
have forced into this package.
  Without amendments to this package, we cannot have that debate. There 
is a tradition of saying the Senate is the world's greatest 
deliberative body. Don't we have to have amendments to do that? Don't 
we have to have a debate on where to put different pieces of this 
puzzle to do that? I have been advocating for a guaranteed way to make 
sure the minority and the majority get to have amendments on this 
floor.
  I happen to be a member of the majority right now, but I will be a 
member of the minority down the road--if I am here long enough, and I 
guess that is a big if--because the pendulum swings back and forth. But 
to be accountable before the people of this Nation, amendments have to 
be offered and debate has to be held and votes have to be taken and 
that is not being done on this bill as far as we know.
  I know there is a possibility. I praise leaders of both sides in 
advance if they work out a deal that everyone can offer their 
amendments, or even a modest number of amendments on both sides.
  Because that is the way it should be on the floor. That is what I 
have been advocating, that we have regular order that allows 
amendments. But I am afraid that Monday will come, that a deal will not 
get worked out, and we will not have the ability to have that debate, 
will not have the ability to be transparent before the American people 
in where we stand.
  My good colleague from Vermont has shared a concern I also share; 
that is, the payroll tax being cut off, snuffed out as a supply of 
Social Security, that our retirement plan that we pay for ourselves is 
being changed to a retirement plan financed by China.
  So the national debt, $1 trillion--that is a concern. The structure 
of the Bush tax breaks that so deeply damaged our Nation over the last 
decade being extended into the next decade is a major concern, as is 
the poor design of the stimulus where every dollar has not been tested 
against its ability to create jobs at a time we desperately need jobs, 
and the change in our funding of Social Security, and it is dependent 
upon Chinese funds. Those items need to be debated. They are profound 
concerns. Maybe there are answers that make sense. I look forward to 
hearing such answers, if they exist. I would like to see those answers 
tested through amendments offered on this floor.
  I have an amendment I would like to see offered on the floor. I have 
an amendment that says: Take the $100,000 bonus breaks for the 
wealthiest 2 percent and instead dedicate that to Social Security. 
Let's make sure our seniors who need basic support in their retirement 
are well-secured before handing out $100,000 bonus breaks to the very 
few. Well, I do not know if that would pass on this floor. I do not 
know where people would stand. But I know people should have to declare 
where they stand so the voters can decide if they like it or not, so 
the voters can call and say: We would encourage you to vote this way or 
that way.
  The other thing I like about that particular approach is it says: If 
we are going to reduce the payroll tax in the short term to create 
jobs, we are going to do something else to make sure our Social 
Security does not depend on funds from China. I would like to see that 
debate.
  I would like to see the energy tax credits debated. They are not in 
this package as of now, as far as we know. Energy tax credits pay us 
back in a number of ways. The first is that currently we import a 
tremendous amount of oil from the Middle East and from Venezuela, from 
Nigeria, from places that do not necessarily share our national 
outlook. A lot of that money ends up in the hands of terrorist 
organizations.
  Military security analysts now say this is the first set of wars we 
are in right now--the first wars in which we are funding both sides. 
And how are we doing that? Through our energy policies which send funds 
to countries that then pass on funds to terrorists. That is not smart. 
It makes more sense to free our energy here at home.
  I will tell you something else. In addition to increasing our 
national security and spending those dollars here at home on energy we 
create ourselves, red, white, and blue American energy, that keeps 
those dollars here in our communities, and when those dollars stay in 
our communities, they create jobs in our communities. It means families 
get jobs, and they spend the money from those jobs in these 
communities. So it cycles through into the retail stores, into the 
grocery markets, keeping those dollars here creating jobs rather than 
shipping them overseas for oil.
  It does another thing as well; that is, it reduces our energy 
consumption from abroad, which largely means shifting from oil to clean 
sources. And those clean sources will put less carbon dioxide in the 
air. That means we do a much better job being good stewards of our 
planet.
  So energy tax credits encourage clean energy, keep jobs here, 
improving our national security and being

[[Page S8708]]

good stewards of the planet. Why don't we have that debate on the floor 
of this Senate before we send this bill back to the House?
  Another colleague has amendments that say: OK, we are going to vote 
on a trillion-dollar stimulus package that creates a trillion-dollar 
debt. Shouldn't we tie it to some kind of trigger for fiscal 
responsibility that will kick in maybe 24 months out so we do not head 
recklessly down a path into extraordinary debt that deeply damages our 
Nation even further?
  So fiscal responsibility--tie some fiscal responsibility measures to 
this package. That is a good idea. I applaud my colleague from Oregon 
who has raised that idea, Senator Wyden, who has done a lot of work on 
how we can create fiscal responsibility tied to a package going through 
now. It will say something to the international financiers that this 
short-term deficit spending is going to be marked by substantial fiscal 
discipline, and that in itself may serve other things, such as keeping 
the interest rate low that we pay, so fewer of our dollars go out in 
interest.
  These ideas, these amendments deserve a debate on this major decision 
facing this body over the next few days.
  I will close by saying that I am deeply concerned--deeply concerned--
about the deficit and the debt. I am deeply concerned about the Bush 
tax breaks that have done so much damage and are being extended into 
the next decade. I am deeply concerned about the poor design of the 
stimulus, deeply concerned about Social Security being made dependent 
upon borrowing from China, deeply concerned that this package is being 
put together and may not have the opportunity to have the debate over 
elements that should be debated because if they do not stand up on the 
floor of the Senate in debate, they do not belong in this package.
  So with that, I say to our friends across the Nation, you have a few 
days only to weigh in. Please do weigh in. Let us hear your voice. Let 
us consider your views. And let us fully deliberate on this package 
before we pass it.

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