[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 158 (Tuesday, October 3, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6277-S6278]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               The Budget

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, after failing to throw 32 million 
Americans off of the health insurance they currently have last week, 
the Republicans are continuing their attack against the working 
families of our country with one of the most destructive budgets in 
American history.
  I know the American people today, for very good reason, are 
preoccupied with the horror of what happened in Las Vegas, and people 
are horrified about what has happened in Puerto Rico, but I would beg 
of the American people to please pay attention to the budget proposal 
and the so-called tax reform ideas brought by the Republican leadership 
in the Senate, as well as in the House.
  This proposal would cause devastating economic pain for tens of 
millions of Americans by, on the one hand, giving incredibly large tax 
breaks for the wealthiest people in the country, while at the same time 
making it harder for our children to get a decent education, harder for 
the families of this country to get the healthcare they need, harder 
for families, literally, to put food on the table, harder to protect 
our environment, and harder for the elderly to live their retirement 
years with dignity.
  This is the Robin Hood proposal in reverse. The Robin Hood principle 
in reverse is that instead of taking from the rich to help the poor, 
this proposal makes massive cuts in programs desperately needed by the 
middle class and working families of our country, precisely to give 
unbelievably large tax breaks to the people on top--the people who 
least need those tax breaks.
  At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, where we have more 
inequality today than at any time since the 1920s and more inequality 
than almost any major country on Earth, where the very, very rich are 
becoming much richer and we have 40 million people living in poverty 
and tens of millions of middle-class families are going nowhere in a 
hurry, this Republican budget, according to the Tax Policy Center, at 
the end of 10 years, would provide 80 percent of the tax benefits to 
the top 1 percent.
  Right now, today, the rich are doing phenomenally well. Everybody 
understands that. The middle class is shrinking. But according to the 
nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, by the end of the decade, nearly 80 
percent of the tax benefits in the Republican plan would go to the top 
1 percent--under this plan, this Republican plan. The top one-tenth of 
1 percent, the richest of the rich, would receive a tax break of over 
$1 million a year.
  At a time when so many of our families are struggling to put food on 
the table, struggling to figure out how to send their kids to college, 
struggling to figure out how to pay for childcare, we have a Republican 
tax proposal that would provide trillions of dollars in tax breaks to 
the richest people in this country.
  This is a budget that would increase the Federal deficit by $1.5 
trillion over the next decade. We have heard on the Senate floor my 
Republican friends talking about how worried they are about the $20 
trillion national debt and how high the deficits are. This proposal, 
designed to give tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country, 
would increase the Federal deficit by $1.5 trillion over the next 
decade, and, by the way, this is a conservative estimate. There are 
those who think the deficit would go up a lot more than that.
  This is a Republican proposal that eliminates the estate tax. What is 
the estate tax? Republicans name it the ``death tax,'' but let us be 
clear about what this tax is and who benefits from it. Despite 
Republican efforts trying to find farmers or ranchers who would benefit 
from it, this is not legislation designed to help farmers or ranchers. 
This is legislation designed to help the top two-tenths of 1 percent. 
So 99.8 percent of the American people will not benefit one nickel from 
the repeal of the estate tax. Only the wealthiest of the wealthy will 
benefit. If this Republican proposal to repeal the estate tax would go 
through, the Walton family of Walmart, the wealthiest family in 
America, would receive a tax cut of up to $52 billion.
  Does anybody for one second think that, at a time when so many of our 
people are struggling and when we have a $20 trillion national debt, we 
should be passing legislation that gives the wealthiest family in this 
country up to a $52 billion tax break by repealing the estate tax?
  But it is not just the Walton family, of course. This is a budget 
that says that if you are the second wealthiest family in America, the 
Koch brothers--and this, by the way, is just coincidental, no doubt. I 
know it is amazing how these coincidences take place. The Koch brothers 
are a family who contributed hundreds of millions of dollars year after 
year to the Republican Party to elect candidates who represent the 
wealthy and powerful. Just coincidentally, that family would receive a 
tax break of up to $38 billion.
  People ask why the Koch brothers are contributing hundreds of 
millions of dollars every campaign cycle. That is a huge amount of 
money. That is a huge amount of money for normal families, but when you 
are the second wealthiest family and you have a tax break of $38 
billion, contributing a few million dollars every campaign cycle is 
pocket change and is a good investment.
  This is a budget that will cut Medicare by $450 billion. Right now in 
this country, we have millions and millions of seniors who are 
struggling to make ends meet. They can't afford their prescription 
drugs. They can't afford to keep their homes warm in the wintertime. 
Yet this Republican budget would cut Medicare by $450 billion.
  Now, the Republicans tried, time after time, despite massive 
opposition from the American people, to repeal the Affordable Care Act. 
In every one of their pieces of legislation, they made devastating cuts 
in Medicaid. Well, they are back again. Ostensibly, this is not a 
healthcare piece of legislation. It is a budget. It is so-called tax 
reform. There is $1 trillion of cuts in the Medicaid Program. So if you 
were worried last week, 2 weeks ago, and 1 month ago about what the 
terrific Republican healthcare bills would do, stay worried because 
this bill will cut $1 trillion over 10 years in Medicaid, resulting in 
at least 15 million Americans losing their health insurance.
  Can you imagine a set of priorities that says that we are going to 
throw 15 million people off of health insurance in order to give tens 
of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the wealthiest families in this 
country? Unbelievable.
  It really is unbelievable.
  This proposal not only adds to the deficit, not only makes massive 
cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, it also impacts the American people in 
many ways. We have a program in this country called the Women, Infants, 
and Children Program, and at a time when the United States has the 
highest rate of infant mortality of any major country on

[[Page S6278]]

Earth, what we do to try to deal with that issue is provide help to 
low-income pregnant women and their babies after the babies are born. 
This Republican budget would make about $6.5 billion in cuts to the WIC 
Program, eliminating nutrition assistance to over 1.2 million pregnant 
women, new moms, babies, and toddlers in Vermont and all over this 
country.
  Here are the priorities: Tax breaks for the Walton family, for the 
Koch brothers' families, who are billionaires, and cuts in programs for 
low-income, pregnant women who want to have healthy babies.
  At a time when the cost of childcare has skyrocketed all over this 
country--in the State of Vermont, it is a very serious problem; 
families cannot find affordable childcare--the Republican budget 
eliminates Head Start services for 25,000 children each and every year 
by cutting this program by about $3 billion. In total, the Republican 
budget would cut more than $5 trillion from education, healthcare, 
affordable housing, childcare, transportation, and other programs the 
working families of this country desperately rely upon.
  Let's be clear about something else. This is not me talking; 
Republican economists are saying the same thing.
  What is the theory underlying this whole approach of giving tax 
breaks to billionaires? The theory is that when you give tax breaks to 
billionaires and large, multinational corporations, somehow or another, 
they are going to start using the new revenue they acquire to invest in 
the economy and create decent-paying jobs. This is the so-called 
trickle-down economic theory, and this is a theory that Senate 
Republicans and President Trump have embraced with this budget.
  The fact is that anyone who looks at history understands that whole 
theory is a fraud. It has always been an abysmal failure. Since Ronald 
Reagan and George W. Bush slashed taxes on the wealthy and deregulated 
Wall Street, trillions of dollars in wealth have been redistributed 
from the middle class and working families to a handful of millionaires 
and billionaires. That is what trickle-down economics results in--a 
transfer of wealth from the middle class to the people on top--and that 
is exactly what this Republican proposal will do.
  Today we have more wealth inequality than at any time since the 
1920s. Unbelievably, the top one-tenth of 1 percent now owns almost as 
much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. This budget would make a very bad 
situation worse, and it would increase the level of wealth inequality 
in America today.
  As the ranking member of the Budget Committee, I intend to do 
everything I can to oppose this absurd set of priorities, and when I do 
that, I am speaking for the vast majority of the American people. Poll 
after poll after poll tells us that the American people do not think 
billionaires need more tax breaks. Poll after poll after poll tells us 
that the American people do not agree with the Republican leadership 
when they want to throw millions of people off of the health insurance 
they have. This is not a budget for the American people. This is not a 
budget for economic growth. This is a budget paid for and fought for by 
the Koch brothers and a handful of billionaires who will gain very 
handsomely if this budget were to be passed.
  I would remind my Republican colleagues--and this is not a very 
radical idea--that we were elected to the Senate not just to represent 
a handful of billionaires; we were elected to the Senate to do our best 
for the middle class and working families of our country. This should 
not be legislation designed as payback for hundreds of millions of 
dollars in campaign contributions. We need to pass legislation that 
protects the interests of working families and the middle class and 
lower income people.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  (Mr. STRANGE assumed the Chair.)
  Mr. UDALL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Johnson). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.