[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 12 (Thursday, January 26, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S133-S134]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. SANDERS:
  S. 2037. A bill to reauthorize and improve the Older Americans Act of 
1965, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Health, Education, 
Labor, and Pensions.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, it is no great secret that our country 
today faces many enormously difficult problems. We remain in the midst 
of a very serious recession. Real unemployment is at about 15 percent. 
Our middle class continues to decline. The gap between the very rich 
and everybody else is growing wider. Fifty million Americans have no 
health insurance. Millions of young people are struggling, trying to 
figure out how they are going to make it into college and pay for their 
college education. But in the midst of all of those problems, I hope 
very much that we do not forget about the problems facing one of the 
most vulnerable sectors of our society; that is, senior citizens.
  We are an aging population. That is no secret. Today, and every day, 
some 10,000 Americans reach the age of 65. If we as a nation do not 
begin to address the very serious reality of an aging population, we 
are going to be in a lot of trouble that we are not anticipating.
  One of the issues we have to understand is that not only are we an 
aging population, but many of those people who are becoming 65 and 
older are dealing with issues of poverty. Incredibly enough, 20 percent 
of the seniors in this country are living on average incomes of $7,500 
per year--$7,500 per year average income for the bottom 20 percent of 
seniors in this country. Frighteningly, and embarrassingly, more and 
more seniors in this country are literally going hungry. Today, there 
are almost 1 million seniors who go hungry and many more who face the 
threat of hunger. That should not be happening in the United States of 
America.
  What America is supposed to be about is that when we age, we can live 
out our remaining years with security and dignity, not trying to find 
food in order to stay alive.
  Now, that is the bad news. The good news is that we have Federal 
legislation called the Older American Act which, to some degree, begins 
to address these very serious problems.
  I am happy to announce, as the chairman of the Subcommittee on 
Primary Health and Aging, we are introducing legislation to reauthorize 
and improve the Older Americans Act.
  The legislation we are offering is going to do its very best to say 
senior citizens in this country will not go hungry. This legislation is 
going to significantly increase funding for senior centers all over 
this country, to provide congregate meal programs in senior centers. In 
my view, these congregate meal programs are enormously important, not 
only because they provide good nutrition to seniors all over our Nation 
but also they allow seniors to come together to socialize, to talk to 
each other, to get some of the professional help they need in their 
waning years. So we have to strengthen the congregate meal program, and 
that is what this bill does.
  In addition to that, there is another program which is almost life 
and death to some of the most fragile and vulnerable people in this 
country; that is, the Meals on Wheels Program. What Meals on Wheels is 
about--it takes place all

[[Page S134]]

over this country--is, you have people in senior centers and in other 
institutions who take meals--a good, quality, nutritious hot meal--to 
seniors, sometimes living at the end of a dirt road in Vermont or in 
Utah or in New Hampshire. These are people who cannot leave their 
homes, especially in the wintertime. These are people who, in some 
cases, would not survive if they did not have that Meals on Wheels 
Program.
  I wish to take this opportunity to thank the many volunteers from 
senior centers and other institutions who get in their cars and trucks 
to take these hot meals to seniors all over this country through the 
Meals on Wheels Program.
  What we are finding in my State of Vermont--and what we are finding 
around the country--is, many senior centers simply do not have the 
resources now to accommodate the growing number of seniors who need the 
Meals on Wheels Program.
  Let me further say to any of my friends who say: Senator Sanders, 
this is a good idea. It is going to cost money. Yes, it will. Increased 
funding for Meals on Wheels and congregate meals will cost additional 
revenue. But at the end of the day, the Federal Government will save 
money. We have had hearings on this issue. We have had physicians come 
forward, and they say one of the reasons seniors end up in the 
hospital, seniors end up in the emergency room, is because they are 
malnourished. Sometimes, literally, because of poor nourishment, they 
fall, break their hips, at great expense to Medicaid or Medicare. So 
not only is it the right and moral thing to do to keep seniors in this 
country from going hungry; in the long run, we save money by keeping 
them healthy.
  Furthermore, in this bill, we are going to do something I think is 
long overdue. There has been a lot of discussion in the Senate and in 
the House about Social Security. Some of my friends--often Republicans, 
sometimes Democrats--think we should cut Social Security, we should try 
to move toward a balanced budget by cutting funding for some of the 
most vulnerable people in this country. I strongly oppose that.
  One of the arguments brought forth to cut Social Security is: The 
COLA--the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly; how we determine what 
the COLA is--it is too generous. It is inadequate. When I tell that to 
senior citizens in Vermont, do you know what they do? They laugh. They 
literally laugh when I tell them there are people in Washington, DC, 
who believe the formulation as to how we determine COLAs is too 
generous, and they say: Bernie, we have not gotten a COLA for the last 
2 years, so how is this too generous? They are, of course, right.
  The way we, in my view, formulate the COLA right now is inadequate, 
not because it is too generous but quite the contrary. The truth is, 
seniors' purchasing needs are different than the general population. 
Everybody knows that. Seniors spend a higher percentage of their income 
on prescription drugs. They spend it on health care. In cold-weather 
States such as mine and New Hampshire, they spend it on keeping warm. 
Senior citizens are not out there, by and large, buying flat-screen TVs 
or laptop computers or iPhones or iPads. Their money is going into 
health care.
  What has been happening in recent years is, while the cost of some 
products--electronics in general--has been going down, the cost of 
prescription drugs and health care has been going up. So when you tell 
seniors their COLA is too generous, they tell you that makes no sense 
at all because they are spending more and more on health care, 
prescription drugs, staying warm in the wintertime.
  So what we have done in this bill is requested that the Bureau of 
Labor Statistics improve the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly, or 
CPI-E, by including more of the items seniors spend money on, such as 
prescription drugs and other health care costs. We must have a more 
accurate measure for COLAs for seniors, and I believe this is the path 
to a fair COLA.
  I look forward to working with all the Members of the Senate to make 
sure we do right by our parents and our grandparents, that we make sure 
seniors in this country can live out their remaining years in security 
and dignity by reauthorizing a strong and fair Older Americans Act in 
the coming months.
  I especially want to applaud Senators Kohl, Mikulski, Casey, and 
Franken for introducing other thoughtful, innovative, and important 
Older Americans Act amendments.
  We are at a critical moment in American history. In the midst of all 
the other challenges we face, let us not turn our backs on those who 
sacrificed, who fought the wars, who built the economies that made this 
country great. Let us support a strengthened and improved Older 
Americans Act.

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