[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 124 (Thursday, September 19, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6629-S6631]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         CONFRONTING REALITIES

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, there is a lot of concern all over this 
country about what is going on in Washington in terms of the 
possibility that the United States, for the first time in its history, 
may not pay its debts and what that means to the American economy, what 
it means to the world economy, and what it means to the international 
financial system. There is a great deal of concern about the 
possibility that on October 1, the U.S. Government may shut down 
because we have some rightwing extremists in the House who want to, 
among other things, abolish legislation passed 4 years ago--the 
Affordable Care Act--and throw something else in there.
  Before I get to those issues, I wish to speak about the reality of 
what is going on in the economy today. What I want to do is something 
that is not done often enough, and that is to ask where some of our 
rightwing colleagues are really coming from. What are their goals?
  Fine, they want to shut down the government on October 1. OK, so they 
don't want to, for the first time in the history of America, pay our 
bills. But what else do they want? What is this rightwing ideology 
which has taken over the House? That is an issue that we do not talk 
about as much as we should.
  I wish to begin my discussion by looking at the reality of what is 
going on in the American economy and why people are so angry and 
frustrated that the government is not responding to their needs--and 
they have every reason to be angry.
  The Census Bureau reported the other day a rather extraordinary fact, 
a very depressing fact; that is, in terms of median family income--what 
the typical American family right in the middle of our economy is 
experiencing--that family made less money last year than it did 24 
years ago. Twenty-four years have come and gone, people have worked so 
hard, and after 24 years they are now earning less money as a family 
than they did back in 1989.
  Further, what the Census Bureau told us is the typical middle-class 
family has seen its income go down by more than $5,000 since 1999, 
after adjusting for inflation. So if people are angry in New Mexico and 
if they are angry in California, that is why. They are working hard and 
their income is going down.
  The average male worker made $283 less last year than he did 44 years 
ago. How is that for progress? Less money last year, male worker, than 
44 years ago. The average female worker earned $1,700 less last year 
than she did in 2007--going down. A record-breaking 46.5 million 
Americans are now living in poverty. We have the highest rate of 
childhood poverty in the industrialized world, at almost 22 percent. A 
higher percentage of American kids live in poverty now than was the 
case in 1965. In other words, we are moving but we are moving in the 
wrong direction.
  Meanwhile, the people on top, the wealthiest people in this country, 
are doing phenomenally well. That is the major point that has to be 
made over and over. This is not an earthquake or a tsunami that has hit 
everybody, we are all in this together and everybody is struggling. Not 
the case. The wealthiest people are doing phenomenally well.
  Last week we learned that 95 percent of the new income generated in 
this country from 2009 to 2012 went to the top 1 percent. That is a 
phenomenal statistic. All of the new income generated--95 percent of 
it--went to the wealthiest 1 percent. Earlier this week

[[Page S6630]]

Forbes Magazine reported that the wealthiest 400 Americans in this 
country are now worth a record-breaking $2 trillion. My colleagues can 
do the arithmetic. That is an extraordinary concentration of wealth in 
this country that we have not seen since before the Great Depression.
  The richest 400 Americans now own more wealth than the bottom half of 
America--over 150 million Americans. One family--and this is not what I 
learned in the history books when I was growing up about what America 
was supposed to be like--but one family, the Walton family, owner of 
Walmart, owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of the American 
people. Corporate profits are at an all-time high while wages as a 
share of the economy are at a record low.
  Wall Street, whose greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior caused 
this massive economic downturn--their CEOs, their executives, are doing 
phenomenally well. In fact, CEOs on Wall Street are on track to make 
more money this year than they did in 2009. Believe me, they have 
recovered, they are doing great, while the middle class of this country 
is disappearing.
  That is an overview of the reality facing our country: The middle 
class is disappearing, poverty is at an all-time high, and the people 
on top are doing phenomenally well.
  Now I wish to go from that reality to speak about what rightwing 
extremism is really about, and it is much more than shutting down the 
government; it is much more than not paying the debts we owe and 
causing a major financial crisis.
  Let me suggest to my colleagues--and I think they already know--that 
if we delve into what some of our colleagues here in the Senate but 
mostly in the House believe, we will find what they believe is--forget 
the Affordable Care Act which they want to repeal; that is nickels and 
dimes--what they are really all about is repealing every significant 
piece of legislation passed in the last 80 years which protects the 
needs of the middle class, working families, the elderly, the kids, and 
lower income people. You name the piece of legislation, they either 
want to repeal it entirely or they want to make massive cuts in those 
programs.
  Let me name what those programs are. Social Security. Some of them 
believe Social Security is unconstitutional. It is not just that they 
want to cut Social Security; they don't believe in the concept of 
Social Security.

  The same thing with health care on the part of the Federal 
Government; Medicare, Medicaid. Why should the Federal Government be 
involved in those programs? That is not the role of the Federal 
Government. Let's abolish Medicare, abolish Medicaid. If a person is 70 
years of age and they don't have a lot of money and no health 
insurance, which Medicare provides, what happens to them? My colleagues 
can tell me. What happens if you are 70 and you are diagnosed with 
cancer and you don't have health insurance? Everybody knows the end of 
the story. You die. Well, that is the way life goes because we are all 
in it for ourselves. We don't believe the government should provide 
health insurance to all people.
  If I am a multimillionaire and I get sick, my kids get sick, I have 
the best health care in the world. But if I am a struggling, middle-
class person, working-class person, lower income person, hey, the 
government should not be involved in those areas.
  Minimum wage. Many of us believe, and the overwhelming majority of 
the American people believe, that the minimum wage today, at about 
$7.25 an hour, the Federal minimum wage, is too low. I wish to applaud 
the Governor and the legislature in California for raising their 
minimum wage to $10. But right now we are at about $7.25 for the 
Federal Government. Do people know what most of our colleagues here 
believe? It is not just that they are opposed to raising the minimum 
wage; they want to abolish the concept of the minimum wage. That is the 
fact. The American people don't know that.
  What does that mean? It means if a person is living in a high 
unemployment area where a lot of people are struggling for a few jobs 
and an employer says, The best I can pay is $3.50 an hour--that is what 
I can pay--I have to take that. People think I am kidding. I am not 
kidding. A majority of the Republicans, to the best of my knowledge, 
now believe in abolishing the concept of the minimum wage.
  Environmental protection. We have made some real progress in recent 
years--not enough, but we have made some progress. When we go to New 
York City, California, Los Angeles, the air is cleaner. We have cleaned 
up a lot of rivers. We have told companies they can't put their crap 
and their toxins into rivers and waterways; they can't put it up in the 
air so the kids breathe it. We have made some progress on that. Some of 
our Republican friends say, It is not that we are just opposed to this 
or that piece of legislation, let's abolish the EPA. Let's abolish the 
ability of the American people to protect their health.
  Let me quote something, and I can quote a lot of sources. I can quote 
many of the statements made by some of our colleagues, but I want to go 
to the platform of the 2012 Texas Republican Party. Why do I want to go 
there? Because, in fact, Texas is a large State. The Republican Party 
in Texas is very powerful. But, also, the ideas that come from Texas, 
to be fair to the State of Texas, end up spreading all over this 
country, especially in Republican circles.
  I wish to read some of the proposals in the 2012 Texas Republican 
Party platform. Texas, one of our largest States, controlled by 
Republicans right now: ``We support an immediate and orderly transition 
to a system of private pensions based on the concept of individual 
retirement accounts and gradually phasing out the Social Security 
tax.''
  In English, what that means is they believe in the privatization of 
Social Security, and people, if they have the money, can invest on Wall 
Street and do what they want. That is the Texas Republican Party 
platform.
  What else do they say? I want veterans--and I speak as chairman of 
the Veterans' Affairs Committee--to listen to this one: ``We support 
the privatization of veterans health care.'' In other words, they would 
abolish the Veterans' Administration. We have some 6 million veterans 
today getting pretty good health care at the VA. Yet at the mainstream 
of rightwing extremism in this country is the Texas Republican Party 
that believes we should abolish the VA health care system.
  Furthermore, what they are saying is: ``We support abolishing all 
federal agencies whose activities are not specifically enumerated in 
the Constitution; including the Department of Education and the 
Department of Energy.''
  Goodbye, Department of Education, goodbye, Federal aid to education, 
title I, and many other important programs that are supporting public 
education in America: Goodbye.
  ``We . . . oppose . . . mandatory kindergarten.'' Right now it is 
widely regarded that the United States has the worst early childhood 
education system of any major country on Earth. People can't find 
affordable early childhood education. Their proposal is to abolish 
mandatory kindergarten.
  I spoke about this earlier: ``We believe the Environmental Protection 
Agency should be abolished.'' No problem. If a company wants to put 
toxins into the rivers and the lakes and the air, go for it because we 
have no agency that is going to stop them.
  ``We recommend repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment of the U.S. 
Constitution, with the goal of abolishing the I.R.S. and replacing it 
with a national sales tax collected by the States.''
  In English, what that means is, what they want to do is move to 
regressive taxes, ending all forms of progressive taxation. So they 
want working people, middle-class people, to pay more in taxes, while 
the wealthy pay less.
  ``We favor abolishing the capital gains tax [and the estate tax],'' 
which, of course, falls most heavily on wealthy people.
  Here is what they say--and I have to give these guys credit, they are 
up front, they put this on paper--``We believe the Minimum Wage Law 
should be repealed.''
  So there we go. People in America will now work for $3 or $4 an hour 
if that is what the circumstances require.
  I point out, as I said earlier, this is coming from the Texas 
Republican Party Platform, and I could have gone elsewhere. But the 
ideas that come from them end up filtering among rightwing circles all 
over America.

[[Page S6631]]

  Now, interestingly enough, at a time when the middle class is 
disappearing and the wealthy and large corporations are doing 
phenomenally well, it is important to hear what the CEOs of the largest 
Wall Street banks and corporations in this country--the Business 
Roundtable--have to say on the economy. Wall Street--bailed out by the 
middle class of this country--corporate America enjoying record-
breaking profits.
  Earlier this year, the Business Roundtable--again, these are the CEOs 
of the major corporations in America. Without exception, these guys are 
making millions of dollars a year in income. They have wonderful 
retirement packages, health care benefits for them and their families. 
This is what they have to say. They came to Washington, and they called 
on Congress to raise the eligibility age of Social Security and 
Medicare to the age of 70--70.
  Wall Street billionaires, CEOs making huge amounts of money, with 
wonderful retirement packages--they now want Congress to raise the 
retirement age of Social Security and Medicare to age 70; they want to 
cut Social Security and veterans benefits, their COLAS; they want to 
raise taxes on working families and, obviously, it goes without saying, 
cut taxes for the largest corporations in America, at a time when one 
out of four of these corporations does not pay a nickel in taxes.
  That is the background: the middle class collapsing; the rich getting 
richer. Then we have a right wing in this country, fueled by people 
like the Koch brothers, and others, who are pushing a totally 
reactionary agenda.
  Let's talk about what that immediate agenda looks like in terms of 
the CR, the continuing resolution, that, in fact--and this is what is 
going to pass in the House, as I understand it--would lock in place 
sequestration for domestic programs, while providing a $20 billion 
boost to defense spending for the next 3 months. That is annualized, 
looking from the year's perspective.
  If we do that for a year, that sequestration level, according to the 
Congressional Budget Office, sequestration will lead to the loss of 
900,000 jobs and cause a seven-tenths of 1 percent drop in the GDP. 
Real unemployment today is close to 14 percent. With sequestration for 
a year, it would result in the loss of some 900,000 jobs--at exactly a 
time that we do not need it. Many of the jobs lost will be government 
jobs, but that should come as no surprise because the extreme right 
wing really does not believe in the concept of government.
  So when we lose jobs in the teaching profession, when we lose police 
officers and firefighters and construction workers and VA nurses and VA 
doctors and scientists and engineers, that is no problem for some of 
these fellows.
  Sequestration--we should be clear--has already caused enormous pain 
for millions of Americans. As I mentioned earlier, this country is way 
behind our global competitors in terms of childcare, early childhood 
education.
  As a result of sequestration, more than 57,000 kids are losing access 
to Head Start and Early Head Start Programs.
  At a time when food insecurity is skyrocketing, and when millions and 
millions of parents are wondering how they are going to be able to feed 
their kids, what the sequestration does is it literally goes after some 
of the most vulnerable people in this country, who are elderly people, 
low income, living on minimal Social Security benefits, who cannot even 
leave their homes. They are served right now by the Meals on Wheels 
Program, and I want to thank all of the Meals on Wheels volunteers out 
there for doing a great job trying to help these seniors. Sequestration 
will continue major cuts, throwing thousands and thousands of seniors 
off the Meals on Wheels Program.
  We have a serious housing crisis in America. Sequestration will make 
it harder for over 100,000 families to get a variety of affordable 
housing programs.
  Everybody knows the cost of a college education is soaring. Working-
class families cannot afford college today. Yet sequestration would 
result in 70,000 college students losing Federal work-study grants. 
That is the means by which they earn some money to help stay in 
college.
  Sequestration will result in cutting back on chemotherapy treatments 
to thousands of cancer patients because of a 2-percent cut to Medicare 
providers.
  The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program--very important in the 
State of Vermont where it gets cold--massive cuts.
  Long-term unemployment checks--unemployment remains high--a 10-
percent cut. That will be continued.
  So that is where we are right now.
  And it gets worse. It gets worse. If the Boehner CR is approved, 
programs that millions of Americans rely on will be cut even further. 
So everything I told you will get even worse.
  I think what we are looking at right now is not just the immediate 
pain of the continuing resolution or the threat not to pay our debts 
and destroy the credit rating of the United States of America. Those 
are enormous realities. But what we are looking at is a real effort to 
dismember the U.S. Government and wreak havoc on the lives of tens and 
tens and tens of millions of people.
  To my mind, what we have to do is exactly the opposite of what our 
rightwing friends are suggesting. They are suggesting that we should 
raise unemployment. They are suggesting that we should cut back on 
Federal funding for infrastructure. I believe we should be investing 
billions and billions of dollars in addressing our crumbling 
infrastructure--roads, bridges, water systems, wastewater plants, our 
rail system. When we do that, we make this country more productive and 
we create millions of jobs. I believe we have to invest significantly 
in energy efficiency and sustainable energy. When we do that, we not 
only protect the environment and combat global warming, but we also 
create jobs. I believe we have to rewrite our disastrous trade policies 
so that American jobs are not our No. 1 export. I believe, instead of 
further deregulation of Wall Street, Wall Street has to be effectively 
regulated so their greed and recklessness can no longer cause enormous 
problems for our economy. Instead of lowering taxes for the wealthiest 
people, I think it is high time they started paying their fair share of 
taxes.
  So what we are involved in here is a great debate, which goes beyond 
the continuing resolution. It goes beyond the shutdown of the 
government. It goes beyond whether the United States fails to pay its 
bills for the first time in history. I believe what we have is an 
ideology, a rightwing ideology which reflects, at most, the views of 15 
percent of the American people. I think that is probably a generous 
perspective. I think the vast majority of the American people do not 
believe what rightwing extremism is doing, and it is high time we begin 
to stand and say to these people: If you are going to continue those 
efforts, you may not be back here in the U.S. Congress.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Murphy). The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to speak 
for up to 10 minutes in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BROWN. Thank you, Mr. President.

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