[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 194 (Friday, December 16, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8715-S8716]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      OMNIBUS APPROPRIATIONS BILL

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, before I get to the Keystone issue, I 
want to suggest that at this particular moment, at the very end of the 
congressional session, before the end of the year's work, it is a 
strange moment in Congress because you have, behind closed doors, 
negotiators from the House and the Senate--Republicans and Democrats--
trying to put together large and complicated bills, and the concern I 
have--and I speak only for myself, but I think other Members in the 
Senate feel the same way--is we are suddenly going to be given a fait 
accompli, a complicated and long bill with many implications, many very 
important provisions, and then we are going to be asked to vote on it 
with not having had much input into the bill or even the ability to 
digest it fully and know what it means to our constituents.
  Let me touch on some of the issues that concern me, and let me also 
say that what I am going to be referring to are reports in the media. I 
do not know what will be in the final product. I am not sure anybody 
does. But here is some of what the media is reporting that might be in 
the payroll holiday tax bill--or what might not be in it, for that 
matter.
  One of the issues I believe very strongly about is that at a time 
when the middle class is disappearing, when poverty is increasing, and 
when more and more Americans understand that the wealthiest people are 
doing phenomenally well, and yet their effective tax rate is the lowest 
in decades--an issue Warren Buffett keeps reminding us about--that it 
is almost definitely going to be the case that while we continue to cut 
programs or raise revenue from the middle class and working families, 
the wealthiest people in this country will continue to avoid paying 
anymore in taxes. So we have a situation where the effective tax rates 
on the wealthiest people in this country are the lowest in decades, and 
yet, once again, as we talk about deficit reduction we are going to cut 
this program, we are going to cut that program, and yet the wealthy--
millionaires and billionaires--are not going to be asked to pay one 
nickel more in taxes. I think that is wrong, and people should 
understand that in all likelihood that is exactly what will happen 
again.
  Furthermore, we have major corporations, companies on Wall Street, 
oil companies that in recent years have made billions of dollars in 
profit and yet have, in some cases, believe it or not, not paid one 
nickel in Federal corporate income tax because of a wide variety of 
loopholes.
  We have a situation where we are losing tens and tens of billions of 
dollars--a hundred billion dollars--a year because of all kinds of tax 
havens which exist in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, other countries. 
Large corporations, wealthy individuals can shelter their money, not 
pay taxes, and then the result is revenue declines in the United 
States, and my friends in the Republican Party suggest: Cut this, cut 
that, go after Social Security, go after Medicare, go after 
Medicaid, go after education, go after environmental protection. Yet 
once again--once again--the wealthiest people in this country will not 
pay a nickel more in taxes, large corporations will continue to enjoy 
huge tax loopholes.

  Second of all, as somebody who believes it is absolutely imperative 
this country transform its energy system away from fossil fuel, away 
from greenhouse gas emissions, and moves to energy efficiency and 
sustainable energy, I am very concerned that in the legislation we will 
be dealing with today or tomorrow--or Sunday or whenever--there will 
not be an extension of important programs for renewable energy.
  One of the most important is the 1603 renewable energy extender. This 
is a Treasury grant program which helps provide financing for renewable 
energy projects by converting an existing tax credit into a grant.
  This one program, which costs barely more than $1 billion, has 
leveraged $23 billion in private investments. It supports 22,000 
renewable energy projects in all 50 States of our country. It has 
created up to 290,000 jobs. If we do not include the 1603 program in 
legislation, it will expire at the end of this year. What we have seen, 
time and time again--whether it is wind, whether it is solar--is, if we 
do not extend these programs, investments in these technologies 
significantly decline, we lose jobs, we lose our ability to compete 
internationally in terms of becoming a leader in sustainable energy.
  I hope very much what I am hearing in the media and other sources is 
not correct. I hope, in fact, the 1603 Treasury grant program is 
included in any legislation that we vote on. That is an issue of major 
concern to me.
  We have today a declining middle class. We have 50 million people who 
have no health insurance. We have a lot of elderly folks who, despite 
Medicare, pay a great deal of money out of their own pockets for health 
care. What I am hearing--again, I do not know what will be in the final 
package, but what some media reports suggest is, there are proposals 
out there to increase Medicare income-related premiums by 15 percent, 
starting in 2017, and also that there are some ideas out there which 
would decrease the income at which beneficiaries pay these income-
related premiums to $80,000 for an individual and $160,000 for a 
couple. What this would mean is that older people will have to pay more 
for health care. In some cases they cannot afford to do that. I hope 
very much that does not happen.
  When we talk about Medicare in this country, we have to talk about 
the overall health care crisis, which is not only that 50 million 
people are uninsured, it is not only that health care costs for all 
health insurance companies are soaring--or virtually all of them--but 
we have to ask why it is in the United States of America we end up 
spending almost twice as much per capita on health care as do the 
people of any other country.
  Yesterday in my office I had a member of the Australian Parliament. 
In Australia, all people have health care as a right. Prescription drug 
coverage is largely covered by the government. Their costs for 
prescription drugs are much lower because their national health care 
program negotiates prices with the drug companies. Yet in our country 
the situation is very different.
  What we want to do is not ask middle-income people to be paying more 
for their health care at a time when many of them are paying already 
more than they can afford. So the changes in Medicare which I have been 
reading about are something that concern me very much.
  There is another area out there which I think will have profound 
implications for our economy. The House Republican leadership passed a 
bill recently as part of this conference negotiation going on now to 
slash unemployment insurance in half and cut up to 40 weeks of 
unemployment benefits. If this legislation were to become law--and I 
certainly hope it will not--it could lead to the loss of 140,000 jobs 
and hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers, who lost their jobs 
through no fault of their own, losing their benefits.
  Here we have a situation where, in real terms, 25 million Americans 
are unemployed or underemployed, long-term unemployment is the longest 
on record, we have more people who are experiencing long-term 
unemployment than at any other time we can remember, and the solution 
our Republican

[[Page S8716]]

friends want to bring about--after fighting to make sure millionaires 
and billionaires are not asked to pay more in taxes--is to slash 
unemployment insurance in a very significant way.
  Now, there is another issue dealing with employment above and beyond 
unemployment insurance; that is, that the House Republican bill, the 
ideas that they are bringing into the conference, would freeze Federal 
employee pay through 2015, and over a period of years reduce the 
civilian workforce by 10 percent, cutting some 200,000 decent-paying 
jobs.
  Now, let's be clear. For Federal employees there has already been a 
pay freeze for the last 2 years. Those are the nurses in our Veterans' 
Administration hospitals. Those are people who are making $30,000, 
$40,000 a year. There is now a proposal to once again extend the freeze 
to them.
  This is a real cut in real wages because inflation is going up for 
our Federal employees. But what concerns me equally is not only the 
impact this freeze would have on Federal employees, it sends a signal 
to every employer in America who says: Well, yes, I know you guys have 
not gotten a wage increase in a number of years. I know that I have 
asked you to pay more for health insurance. Yes, we have cut back on 
your pensions. But guess what. In Washington, the Congress says they 
are going to once again, for the third year, freeze Federal pay. In 
fact, they are going to ask Federal employees to pay more, too, for 
their pensions, which means a cut for many Federal employees. Well, if 
the Federal Government can do it, it says to private employers all over 
America so can they.
  One of the points President Obama has been making and why he last 
fought for a middle-class tax cut is that he wants to put more money 
into the hands of working families. I understand that. I agree with 
that concept. But what is the sense of providing tax breaks for the 
middle class on one hand--a concept which I support----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SANDERS. What is the sense on one hand in saying, we need to put 
money in the hands of the middle class through a tax cut, and, on the 
other hand, send a green light to employers all over this country who 
will now look at the Federal Government and then say to their 
employees: Hey, the Federal Government has frozen wages for a third 
year, cut back on pension programs, and we are going to do that as 
well.
  Lastly, but not least, for whatever reason, my Republican colleagues 
in the House have put into this mix of a payroll tax holiday a demand 
that the Keystone XL tar sands project be completed; that the President 
be forced, as I understand it, to make a decision on this within the 
next several months.
  The reality is that among many other factors, the inspector general 
of the State Department is currently investigating whether the State 
Department acted inappropriately in appointing a particular company to 
do the environmental study which, amazingly enough, given the fact that 
I think they had a conflict of interest, ended up in a very positive 
light.
  So the inspector general is now looking at a conflict of interest 
issue in terms of the environmental study which will take a bit of 
time. Furthermore, I think many of us understand that at a time when 
greenhouse gas emissions are rising rapidly in this country and all 
over the world, at a time when virtually the entire scientific 
community tells us that global warming is an enormously significant 
problem for the future of our planet, at a time when we are seeing 
increased floods and droughts and extreme weather disturbances, anyone 
who has studied the issue understands that in terms of global warming, 
the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is a very dangerous project.
  Producing energy-intensive tar sands oil emits 82 percent more carbon 
pollution and contributes more to global warming than conventional oil, 
according to the EPA.
  With that, let me conclude but just suggest that I think we need to 
be discussing publicly some of the issues that we may be voting on in a 
very short period of time.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.

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