[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 31 (Wednesday, February 16, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S735-S738]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                         Issues Facing America

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, it is important, I think, that we 
acknowledge a very simple truth that few people can disagree with and 
that is we are living at this moment in the most difficult time of our 
lives.
  I say to the American people, if you are feeling anxious, feeling 
depressed, if you are feeling overwhelmed, if you are feeling confused, 
if you are feeling angry, you are not alone. Many millions of Americans 
feel exactly the same way.
  This pandemic has had a devastating and horrific impact upon our 
country. Over 900,000 people have died from COVID and tens of millions 
have been made ill. Many thousands of workers have lost their jobs 
simply because they went about doing their jobs. They had to go to 
work. They were critical workers and many thousands died as a result.
  In the midst of the pandemic, in an unprecedented way, millions of 
other workers have chosen to find new employment paths. They have given 
up their old jobs.
  But it is not just working people who have been impacted; it has been 
a terrible time for the young people of our country. The education of 
our younger generation, from childcare to graduate school, has been 
severely disrupted in a way that we have never seen in the modern 
history of this country.
  But, again, it is not just for workers or the children; it is for 
elderly people. You have senior citizens in this country who have died 
at alarmingly high rates, but in addition to that, they have been 
isolated over the last several years because of fear of catching the 
virus, which means that they can't come in contact with their kids or 
their grandchildren. They can't get out of the house, and they are 
hurting as a result.

[[Page S736]]

  In America today, it is no great secret--an issue we are trying to 
deal with--that mental illness is on the rise as is drug addiction, 
alcoholism, and domestic violence. In other words, these are difficult 
and, in fact, unprecedented times within our lives.
  But what I want to point out this afternoon is that while the vast 
majority of people in our country are hurting emotionally, they are 
hurting economically. These are not difficult times for everybody. That 
is an important point to be made.
  In fact, I want to start off, if I might, with some really, really 
good news if you are a billionaire in this country or a CEO of a large 
corporation.
  For those people, these times have not been bad; they, in fact, have 
been very, very good. In fact, if you are one of the very richest 
people in this country, this moment right now has never been better for 
you than anytime in American history.
  Today, corporate profits are at an alltime high, and CEOs, heads of 
large corporations, have seen huge increases in their compensation 
packages. Let me just give a few examples.
  Everybody in America is worried about the high price of gas. You 
drive around, and today, gas prices are higher than they were 
yesterday.
  While gas prices are soaring, shock of all shock, oil company profits 
are now higher than they have been in over 7 years. Gas prices are 
soaring, and--guess what--large oil companies are making huge profits. 
In fact, in the last quarter, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP made 
nearly $25 billion in profits in one quarter.
  Gas prices are soaring. The profits of the oil companies are soaring 
as well.
  But that is not all. Everybody is worried about higher food prices. 
Many senior citizens living on fixed incomes go to the grocery store, 
and they get very upset about seeing increased prices on meat and 
vegetables and everything else.
  Well, it turns out that the food industry is also enjoying huge 
increases in profits. In fact, Kroger, one of the largest grocery store 
chains in America, made a recordbreaking profit of some $4 billion in 
2021. While their stock price dropped 36 percent in the past year, its 
CEO got a 296-percent pay raise over the past decade. They have been 
able to spend $1.5 billion on stock buybacks and dividends to enrich 
their wealthy shareholders.
  Food prices are soaring. Yet company after company in the food 
industry is making huge profits.
  For the people on top, the good news is that it is not just that 
corporate profits have never been better--that is good news--but even 
better for them is that CEO compensation has never been higher.
  You know, there was a time way back in the 1950s when I was growing 
up when CEOs did very, very well. They made 20 times more than their 
average worker. Well, if you are a CEO, the good news is, those days 
are long gone when you only made 20 times more than your average 
worker. Today, as I am sure the CEOs of this country know, they are now 
making 350 times more than what the average worker in America makes--
350 times more. Talk about greed.
  By the way, at a time when we pay the highest prices in the world for 
prescription drugs, the really, really good news is that the CEOs of 
the top eight pharmaceutical companies in America made over $350 
million in compensation in 2020. Got that? Eight CEOs of the drug 
companies that charge the highest prices in the world for prescription 
drugs made $350 million collectively in compensation.
  If that is not good enough news for the billionaire class, let me 
give you some even better news. Today, the billionaire class owns more 
income and wealth percentagewise than at any time in American history 
as a result of a massive transfer of wealth.
  You know, we hear a lot of talk about transfer of wealth--oh my God, 
we can't tax the rich and transfer wealth; terrible; terrible--but 
there has been over the last many decades a huge transfer of wealth. 
The only problem is, it has gone in the wrong direction--from working 
families to the top 1 percent. As a result of that, what we have now is 
that the top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 92 percent. The 
top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 92 percent.
  Rather amazingly, the two wealthiest people in America now own more 
wealth than the bottom 42 percent. Two people own more wealth than the 
bottom 42 percent. You know, in this country, we pride ourselves on 
being a country that believes in fairness, that believes in justice--
justice for all. It is not fair, it is not just that two people now own 
more wealth than the bottom 42 percent of the American people--that is 
wealth, accumulated income.
  In terms of income, what we earn in a given year, since the Wall 
Street crash of 2008, the top 1 percent has earned 45 percent of all 
new income created in this country. Got a hundred people; the guy on 
top earns 45 percent of all of that income.
  You know, every day, as you well know, Members of the Senate and the 
House go to the floor to give congratulatory remarks to the Boy Scouts, 
congratulating them on their anniversary or kids who have done well, 
and the Girl Scouts, 4-H clubs, sports teams. I guess we recently 
honored Tom Brady for his great football success. That is what we do. 
Every day, somebody is coming here and congratulating somebody else, 
and that is fine. I do the same. In fact, we just congratulated some 
great Olympians from Vermont. But maybe the time is approaching when we 
should offer a unanimous resolution congratulating the billionaire 
class for their enormous success in moving this country into the 
oligarchic form of society that they have long desired. Maybe we should 
do a UC on that issue.
  By the way, here is another area of congratulations to the 
billionaire class. When we speak about oligarchy--when we speak about 
oligarchy--we should all understand that we are not just talking about 
massive levels of income and wealth inequality. We are not just talking 
about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. We should 
all understand that never before in American history have so few owned 
so much.
  This issue, the issue of the incredible concentration of ownership in 
our country, is almost never talked about here in Congress or in the 
corporate media, and that has a lot to do with the corrupt political 
system that we operate under where many Members of Congress receive 
huge campaign contributions from these very same people.
  But here is an important point to make, and tomorrow, actually, I 
will be doing a hearing on this as chairman of the Budget Committee. 
This is an issue we almost never discuss, and it is of enormous 
consequence.

  Today in America, just three Wall Street firms, BlackRock, Vanguard, 
and State Street--I suspect that many Americans have never even heard 
of these firms--BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, three firms, 
manage over $21 trillion in assets--$21 trillion in assets. What does 
that mean? Well, for starters, it means that the amount of money these 
one, two, three firms control is more than the gross domestic product, 
the GDP, of the United States of America, the largest economy in the 
world, and more than five times the GDP of Germany.
  These three firms, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, are major 
shareholders in more than 96 percent of S&P 500 companies. What does 
that mean? It means that they have significant influence over many 
hundreds of companies that employ millions of American workers.
  Now, it used to be, way back when, there was a company, Company X, 
owned by somebody--nice guy, not a nice guy, good employer, bad 
employer. There was a person or a group of people who owned a company. 
That is rapidly changing in the oligarchic world that we are living in 
where a handful of Wall Street companies have major control over 
hundreds and hundreds of companies.
  You know, after the Wall Street crash of 2008, I recall a lot of 
discussion about the wealth and the power of the big banks, the giant 
banks, and whether or not they were too big to fail. There was a huge 
amount of discussion.
  Well, today, these three firms, three Wall Street firms, are the 
largest shareholders in some of the biggest banks in America: JPMorgan 
Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citibank. In other words, these banks are also 
owned by a handful of Wall Street firms.
  What about transportation? You know, we all get on planes and go here

[[Page S737]]

and there. Well, these three major Wall Street firms, BlackRock, 
Vanguard, and State Street, are among the top owners of the four major 
airlines--United, American, et cetera.
  Well, what about healthcare? What about healthcare? Who owns the 
healthcare industry? Well, together, these three Wall Street firms own 
an average of 20 percent of the major drug companies. They also own 
many hundreds of nursing homes, hospitals, and emergency rooms.
  What about housing? Well, what we are seeing is a handful of Wall 
Street firms are now the major owners of rental housing in America--at 
a time, by the way, when the cost of housing and rents is soaring in 
this country.
  Maybe, just maybe, if you haven't heard a whole lot about these 
issues, it might have something to do with the fact that a handful of 
Wall Street firms control half of the newspapers in America.
  I think there is a reality which maybe says it all, and that is, 
during this terrible, terrible pandemic, when so many people have died 
and become ill and lost their jobs and missed school and suffered all 
of the isolation this pandemic has brought about, 745 billionaires in 
America became more than $2 trillion richer. That is, to my mind, the 
clearest example of the level of corporate greed we are now 
experiencing.
  Desperate workers who live paycheck to paycheck are forced to go to 
work. They go to work in hospitals. They go to work in public 
transportation. They go to work in meatpacking plants. They are 
busdrivers--whatever they may be. Thousands of them have died on the 
job while a handful of billionaires--745--became more than $2 trillion 
richer.
  When we talk about the growth of oligarchy in America--I talk about 
it; not a whole lot of other people here do--when we talk about 
oligarchy in America, it is not just that the very rich are getting 
much richer. That is one thing. But the reality is that tens of 
millions of working-class people, lower income people, in the 
wealthiest country on Earth are suffering today under incredible 
economic hardship, desperately trying day to day to survive, and 745 
billionaires in the pandemic--$2 trillion increase in their wealth, and 
tens of millions of Americans are struggling hard just to survive.
  Today, nearly 40 million Americans live in poverty; and tonight, 
almost 600,000 people will be sleeping out on the streets or in 
homeless shelters. They have no apartments, no places in which to live.
  And here is an important fact to remember: In our country today, the 
average worker is making $42 a week less than he or she made 49 years 
ago. In other words, when you try to appreciate the anger that exists 
in this country, the discontent, it has a lot to do with the fact that 
the average American worker is worse off in terms of real inflation 
weekly income than was the case 49 years ago.
  Now, think about that. Think about how crazy that is. Think about all 
of the increase in technology and productivity that we have seen, where 
workers today are producing a lot more than they used to because of the 
new technology, and yet, because of the huge transfer of wealth and 
income, they are worse off than they were in 1973.
  Half of the people in our country today are living paycheck to 
paycheck, and tens of millions are an accident, a divorce, an illness, 
or a layoff away from economic devastation.
  In America today, we remain the only major country on Earth not to 
guarantee healthcare as a right. The result of that is we have a system 
in which over 80 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured and 
tens of thousands die each and every year because they don't get to a 
doctor when they should.
  While many public schools throughout our country lack the resources 
to adequately educate our young people or pay their teachers the wages 
those teachers deserve, at the same time, we are the most heavily 
incarcerated Nation on Earth. We have got more people in jail than any 
other country.
  Meanwhile, 45 million Americans who did go to college--they saved up; 
they went to college--they are now drowning in $1.8 trillion in student 
debt. I talk to those nurses and workers every day who say: Bernie, we 
have got to do something because every month I am paying hundreds and 
hundreds of dollars in student debt.
  And here is something else that we don't talk about--you know, we 
have a habit here, I am afraid, in the Senate and the House; we talk 
about a lot, but often not the most important things in the country--
and that is that I suspect that, as part of human nature, every person 
in America and around the world would like to live long and happy and 
productive lives. That is pretty basic human nature. But in America 
today, the very richest people live, on average, 15 years longer than 
the poorest Americans.
  So when you talk about income and wealth inequality, it is not just 
about this guy has a nice house, this person doesn't have a nice house; 
big car, no car. That is one thing. If you are poor in America, you are 
dying at a significantly younger age than if you are wealthy.
  The polls seem to show that more and more Americans are giving up on 
democracy. They work long hours for low wages. They worry about their 
kids. They can't afford healthcare. They see their jobs going to other 
countries. Meanwhile, the people on top are doing better than any time 
in American history, and they wonder: Hey, if we elect these guys to 
the House and the Senate, Governors, what are they doing for us? Do 
they understand? Do they live in the real world? Do they understand 
what is going on in our lives, or are they too busy going out and 
raising campaign contributions from the rich and the powerful?
  I believe that the time is long, long, long overdue for the Congress 
to start addressing the needs of the American people. And I know it is 
a radical idea to suggest that maybe, just maybe, we should do what the 
American people want and not what wealthy campaign contributors want.
  When 83 percent of the American people want us to lower the cost of 
prescription drugs--do you know what, it might be time for the Senate 
to do that.
  When 84 percent of the American people know there is something wrong 
with elderly people who can't afford dental care, hearing aids, or 
eyeglasses--84 percent--maybe, just maybe, we may want to expand 
Medicare to cover those basic healthcare needs.
  When overwhelming numbers of the American people know that it is 
beyond absurd that some billionaires and large profitable corporations 
don't pay a nickel in Federal income tax, maybe, just maybe, we might 
want to change our tax system so that the rich and the powerful start 
paying their fair share of taxes.
  When 76 percent of the American people understand that our home 
healthcare system is a disaster, that many elderly people and disabled 
people would rather stay home rather than be forced into a nursing 
home, maybe we should expand home healthcare.
  When we remain the only major country on Earth not to have paid 
family and medical leave--the only major country on Earth--maybe it is 
time that the Congress pass a paid family and medical leave act.
  When we have a dysfunctional childcare system in which in my State, 
not different around the country, working parents are paying 25 
percent, 30 percent of their income for childcare so they can go to 
work, maybe we should reform our childcare and pre-K system so that it 
is affordable for all parents in this country.
  And maybe--I know this is another radical idea. There is a piece in 
the paper today about the impact of climate change. The sea level is 
going to rise by a foot in the next few decades. We are looking at 
drought, floods, extreme weather disturbances. Here is a really radical 
idea: Maybe, at a time when the scientists tell us that it is 
questionable in terms of the kind of planet we are going to leave our 
kids and future generations, whether or not it is going to be habitable 
or livable, I know it is a radical idea--a lot of fossil fuel money 
coming into this place--but maybe, just maybe, we stand up to the 
fossil fuel industry and tell them their short-term profits are not 
more important that the future of this planet.
  So we have a lot of work to do. I am not sure that we will do it. I 
am not sure that Members of Congress have

[[Page S738]]

the willingness or the courage to stand up to the powerful special 
interests who control the economic and political life of this country.
  But this, I will say: If we do not do that in terms of the economy, 
in terms of climate, in terms of healthcare, in terms of education, 
future generations will look back at this Congress and say, Where were 
you?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Rosen). The Senator from Wyoming.