[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 202 (Tuesday, December 12, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7958-S7959]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Funding the Government and the Republican Tax Bill
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, as everybody knows, the Republican Party
now controls the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate, and the White House. We
also know that unless a budget agreement is reached by December 22, the
U.S. Government will shut down, which will cause serious harm to our
country, including the men and women in the Armed Forces and our
veterans.
I do not know why the Republican Party, which controls all the
branches of government, wants to shut down our government. I think that
is wrong, and I think a shutdown will be very hurtful to people from
coast to coast.
Earlier this year, President Trump tweeted: ``Our country needs a
good shutdown.'' I strongly disagree. I don't think we need a good
shutdown; I think we need to reach an agreement on a budget that works
for the middle class of our country and not just the wealthiest people.
It is no great secret that we are living in a nation that has almost
unprecedented income and wealth inequality, at least since the 1920s.
We have the top one-tenth of 1 percent owning almost as much wealth as
the bottom 90 percent.
I don't believe that now is the time to give massive tax breaks to
the wealthiest people in this country in a horrific tax bill and then
at the end of 10 years raise taxes on 83 million middle-class families.
I think that makes no sense. I don't think it makes much sense to be
passing a tax bill that gives 62 percent of the benefits to the top 1
percent.
Apparently it is not good enough for my Republican colleagues that
corporate America today is enjoying recordbreaking profits and that the
CEOs of large corporations are earning more than 300 times what their
employees make. What the tax bill would do is give over $1 trillion in
tax breaks to large, profitable corporations at a time when already one
out of five of these major corporations is paying nothing in taxes.
That is apparently not good enough--we need to lower taxes for large
corporations even more.
Right now as we speak, legislation is being written behind closed
doors by the House Freedom Caucus and other Members of the extreme
rightwing to provide a massive increase in funding for the Pentagon for
the rest of the fiscal year, while only providing temporary and
inadequate funding for the needs of the working families of this
country, including education, affordable housing, nutrition,
environmental protection, and other vital programs.
What we have seen over the last year is a Republican effort to throw
30 million people off of health insurance. What we then see is a
Republican effort to give $1 trillion in tax breaks to the top 1
percent and large corporations and at the end of 10 years raise taxes
on middle-class families. Now what we are seeing on the part of the
Republican Party is an effort to increase military spending by $54
billion while ignoring the needs of a struggling middle class. We have
to get our priorities right and maybe--just maybe--we have to start
listening to what the American people want, not just what wealthy
campaign contributors want.
In terms of the Republican so-called healthcare bill, the repeal of
the Affordable Care Act, there is massive opposition from the American
people. In terms of this tax bill, in case you haven't seen the last
few polls, there is massive opposition to a tax bill that gives
incredible tax breaks to people who don't need it and raises taxes on
the middle class. Maybe--just maybe--we should start paying attention
to the needs of working families.
For a start, let us be clear that since the passage of the Budget
Control Act of 2011, Democrats and Republicans have agreed to operate
with parity, which means if you are going to increase military
spending, you increase programs that meet the needs of working
families, domestic spending. There was parity in 2011 and parity three
times after, and parity must continue. It is not acceptable to be
talking about a huge increase in military spending and not funding the
needs of a shrinking middle class, which desperately needs help in
terms of education, in terms of nutrition, and so many other areas.
Furthermore, the American people are quite clear that they want us to
move toward comprehensive immigration reform. They understand that it
would be a terrible, terrible, terrible thing to say to the 800,000
young people who have lived, in most cases, their entire lives in the
United States of America: We are ending the DACA Program. You are going
to lose your legal status. You are not going to be able to go to
school. You are not going to be able to hold a job. You are not going
to be able to be in the military. We are taking away the legal status
that you now have, and you will be subject to deportation. That is not
what the American people want. They want to continue the DACA Program,
and, in fact, they want comprehensive immigration reform--and now. Now
is the time to deal with that.
I am happy to say that on this issue, there are a growing number of
Republicans in the House and in the Senate who understand that in
America, you are not going to throw 800,000 of our brightest young
people, who are serving in the military and holding important jobs, out
of this country by withdrawing their legal status.
I have been deeply involved, as have Senator Blunt and others, in the
Community Health Center Program, which is so important for the people
of our country. Twenty-seven million Americans today receive their
healthcare through community health centers, which provide primary
care, provide mental health counseling--so important today--provide
dental care, and provide low-cost prescription drugs. While my
Republican colleagues have been busy trying to throw 30 million people
off of health insurance, while they have been busy trying to give a
trillion dollars in tax breaks for the rich and for large corporations,
somehow they have not had the time to extend the CHIP program or the
Community Health Center Program. How in God's Name can we be talking
about tax breaks for billionaires and not extending a health insurance
program for the children of our country? If the CHIP program is not
reauthorized, 9 million children and working families will lose their
health insurance.
Let us get our priorities right. Let us immediately pass legislation
extending and funding the CHIP program and the Community Health Center
Program.
[[Page S7959]]
In the Midwest, as you well know, and all over this country, we have
a major crisis in terms of pensions. So many of our older workers are
scared to death about retiring because they have very little or nothing
in the bank as they end their work careers. If Congress does not act
soon, the earned pension benefits of more than 1.5 million workers and
retirees in multiemployer pension plans could be cut by up to 60
percent. People who have worked their entire lives, people who have put
money into a pension program, people who have given up wage increases
in order to gain decent pensions now stand the possibility of seeing
their pensions cut by up to 60 percent. How can we do that? How do you
tell someone who has worked their entire life, who is looking forward
to a decent retirement, that we are going to cut their pension by up to
60 percent? We cannot do that. When a worker is promised a pension
benefit after a lifetime of hard work, that promise must be kept.
Congress needs to act before the end of the year to make sure that no
one in America in a multiemployer pension plan will see their pension
cut. Yes, I also think that is more important than tax breaks for
billionaires.
We need to make a downpayment on universal childcare. In my State of
Vermont and all over this country, it is increasingly difficult for
working families to find high-quality, affordable childcare. We must,
in my view, double the funding for the Childcare and Development Block
Grant to provide childcare assistance for 226,000 more children and
move toward universal childcare for every kid in America. What the
social sciences tell us is that there is no better investment than
early childhood education. Every dollar we invest there is paid back
many times over by kids doing better at school and by kids getting out,
getting jobs, and becoming taxpayers.
There is another crisis in this country that has to be dealt with.
Ten years ago, Congress passed the Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Program to support Americans who enter public service careers--
teachers, nurses, firefighters, police officers, social workers, and
military personnel. One of the absurdities that exists in America today
is that we have tens of millions of Americans who are paying outrageous
interest rates on their student debt. People who have done the right
thing by trying to get the best education they could are now being
punished because they went to college, went to graduate school, and are
having to pay a significant part of their income back to the government
in terms of their student debt. Congress must address this issue, and
there is legislation to make sure that, at the very least, if you are
prepared to go into public service work--if you want to be a teacher, a
nurse, a firefighter, a police officer, a social worker, or want to go
into the military--we will forgive your debt. That is an issue that
should be dealt with before the end of the year.
We have a crisis in terms of our rural infrastructure, and I come
from a rural State. In the year 2017, soon to be 2018, how does it
happen that in rural communities all over America there are inadequate
broadband capabilities? How do you start a small business in a small
town if you don't have good-quality broadband? How do the kids do well
in school if they can't gain access to the internet? This is the United
States of America, and we should not be trailing countries all over the
world that have better broadband access at lower costs than we do. If
we want to grow rural America, if we want our kids to stay in rural
America, we have to deal with the collapsing infrastructure in this
country, especially in rural America.
Mr. President, I don't have to tell you--because Ohio has been hit
hard, as has Vermont, New Hampshire, and all over this country--that we
have a terrible, terrible epidemic in terms of opioid addiction. I am
trying to deal with this issue in the State of Vermont, and I know it
is severe in Ohio. We have to be adequately funding programs that focus
on prevention, making sure that our young people do not get trapped
into a life of addiction. We have to provide the kinds of treatment
people need. We cannot ignore this. This is an epidemic that is
sweeping this country. More people will die this year from opioid
overdoses than died during the entire war in Vietnam. We have to
adequately fund treatment and prevention for the epidemic that we are
seeing in terms of opioids.
We ought to keep our promises to our veterans. We now have tens of
thousands of positions at the Veterans Administration that have not
been filled, and we need to make sure they are filled so that the
veterans of our country, when they go into the VA, get high-quality
care in a timely manner, which they are entitled to.
There was an article, I think it was in the Washington Post, a couple
of weeks ago that talked about the fact that 10,000 people died in the
last year, waiting for a decision on Social Security disability
benefits. In other words, you have people who desperately need these
benefits; they have applied for these benefits through the Social
Security Administration, and they wait and they wait and they wait.
Unbelievably, in the last year, 10,000 people died while they were
waiting for a decision from the Social Security Administration. This
has everything to do with the fact that there have been budget cuts in
recent years that have been significant and have resulted in the loss
of more than 10,000 employees in the Social Security Administration,
the closing of 64 field offices, and reduced hours in many others. In
Vermont, one field office has seen its staffing cut by 30 percent. We
have to adequately fund the Social Security Administration so that our
elderly and our disabled can get due process in terms of the benefits
for which they have filed.
In 2016, the National Park Service recorded over 330 million visits
to national parks and over $11 billion in deferred maintenance. In
other words, our national parks are very, very popular, but they are
not getting the maintenance work they need. Meanwhile, the President
wants to double fees for people visiting our beautiful national parks.
This is an issue we must deal with.
The bottom line is that we are coming toward the end of the year, and
we have a lot of work to do, but the work we do has to start reflecting
the needs of the working people of this country, not just the
billionaire class. We cannot give $54 billion more to the military and
ignore the needs of our children, our elderly, our sick, our poor. We
have to come up with a budget proposal that works for all of us and not
just wealthy campaign contributors. As a member of the Budget
Committee, I expect to be very active in that process.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.