[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.