[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Pages 22217-22218]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              THE ECONOMY

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, earlier this week I placed on my Web 
site-- sanders.senate.gov--a letter to Secretary Paulson, and I asked 
people who shared the sentiments of that letter to sign a petition. 
Essentially, kind of boiling it down, what the petition says is that at 
a time when the middle class is shrinking, and millions of working 
people are struggling to keep their heads above water; at a time when 
Bush's economic policies have done so much harm to so many people--6 
million people have left the middle class and gone into poverty; over 6 
million people have lost their health insurance, millions have lost 
their pensions--it does not make a lot of sense for the middle-class 
and working families, who had nothing to do with causing this financial 
meltdown, to be asked to go substantially more in debt--to the tune of 
$2,200 per person or $9,000 for a family of four. It is not fair; and 
that, in fact, if a bailout is necessary, it should be the people who 
have caused the bailout, the people who have benefitted from Bush's 
economic policies, who should put their money at risk and not the 
middle class.
  As you well know, since President Bush has been in office, there has 
been a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the top 1 
percent. We have a situation where the top 400 individuals in America 
today, since Bush has been in office, have seen an increase in their 
wealth of $670 billion at a time when the middle class is shrinking. 
What the petition says in so many words is those are the people, not 
working families, who should pay the costs of the bailout.
  I was amazed at the kind of response we received. As of now, we have 
over 37,000 signatures on a petition to Secretary Paulson and President 
Bush which says: Your friends, the people who have made out like 
bandits under your reckless economic policies, should pay for this 
bailout, not working families.
  What I would like to do now is--in addition to these 37,000 
signatures on the petition, my office has received thousands of e-mails 
and phone calls, mostly from Vermont but sometimes from other States as 
well. What I think would be appropriate and refreshing here in the 
Senate is, rather than people hearing my point of view, I think it 
would be a good idea just to read a few of the e-mails I have been 
receiving from the State of Vermont as to how ordinary people are 
responding to President Bush's bailout proposal.
  Let me start with an e-mail I received from a small town in northern 
Vermont, Fairfield, VT:

       Dear Senator Sanders, this e-mail and words themselves 
     cannot express the dismay and disbelief I feel about the 
     current Wall Street crisis and proposed bailout. After 
     pulling down 6, 7, and 8-figure bonuses for flying their 
     respective companies into the ground, these Wall Street 
     geniuses then pulled their golden parachutes and leave it up 
     to the taxpayers to clean up the mess and pay their bills. 
     Unbelievable, just unbelievable.
       And to make a bad situation tragic, due to the ever-
     escalating Federal deficit, the bill will be paid by my 
     children and grandchildren.
       I wish I had a solution to offer you but I don't. All my 
     life I have strived to live within my means and pay my debts. 
     I guess the

[[Page 22218]]

     joke is on me--except I feel more like crying, than laughing. 
     Unbelievable.

  This is from Springfield, VT, a town in southern Vermont:

       Hold fast, Bernie. It took a long time for the banking 
     crisis to develop; don't be pressured into capitulating to a 
     half-baked solution. I'm among the Americans outraged at the 
     undisciplined, arrogant, reckless nature of the markets. Many 
     of us have been quietly toiling away on our workaday jobs and 
     now our wages--our fiscal support of the Federal Government--
     are all that's between Wall Street and economic free fall. 
     Keep reminding them of who is finally paying the price for 
     that avarice.

  This is from Chester, VT:

       I may not always agree with you on every topic, but I most 
     certainly agree with you on opposing the current (or any 
     future) bailout for private corporations.
       If I could ask you to share a message with your peers, it 
     would be this: You do not have my permission to take any--
     any--not so much as a single near worthless penny--of my 
     hard-earned money to reward the people who have mismanaged 
     their businesses.
       Senator Sanders, thank you for opposing this bailout 
     package.

  From Rupert, VT:

       We are absolutely sickened by the prospect that honest, 
     hard-working, fiscally responsible middle class Americans 
     will have to foot the bill for the Wall Street bailout. While 
     we realize that something must be done to prevent further 
     damage, we have a problem knowing that the very people who 
     caused the problem will literally sail off into the sunset on 
     their yachts. Some type of strictly defined framework must be 
     established to protect our tax dollars from being further 
     pilfered by the greedy denizens that are at the center of 
     this crisis. Also, what about some accountability for what 
     has already been done? What about being forced to pay back 
     the obscene bonuses and salaries earned in the course of this 
     unprecedented example of unscrupulous pillaging.
       So many Vermonters are struggling to provide their families 
     with the basics right now. It's hard to imagine how something 
     as far-reaching as this crisis could have happened. Yeah, 
     let's hand over the Social Security next.
       Please do what you can to insist that the bailout be done 
     with strict oversight.

  Waterbury, VT:

       Senator Sanders, you and I may seem to be very different. 
     You are the only one who calls himself a socialist in the 
     Senate. I am in favor of free markets and capitalism. 
     However, we can agree on one thing. The privatization of 
     profits and the socialization of losses is immoral and wrong. 
     To bail out the well-connected on Wall Street, those who 
     thrive on government regulations and monetary policy, is 
     unconscionable. I urge you to reject the bailout of Wall 
     Street that Bush, Paulson and Bernanke propose.

  From Richmond, VT:

       Dear Bernie, my wife and I are both 65 years of age. We 
     both retired this past January. For the past 8 years we have 
     lived under one of the worst administrations in U.S. history. 
     This administration is now asking Congress, just a few weeks 
     shy of one of our most important national elections, to 
     approve a massive financial bailout without strong 
     protections for the American people.
       As two people who have worked hard all of our lives and who 
     have saved for our retirement, we strongly urge you not to 
     get caught up in this panic attack and to ensure that you 
     give taxpayers strong protections before approving Henry 
     Paulson's bailout.
       As always, we appreciate your support.

  Newport, VT, right near, on the Canadian border:

       Dear Bernie, thanks for all you do for Vermonters and the 
     Nation. I am sure that you know that if this bailout plan is 
     rushed through, it will make it that much more difficult for 
     the next administration to address our already dire problems, 
     such as education and health care.

  Brattleboro, VT, which is the other end of the State, down in the 
south:

       Please vote against any bailout of these investment 
     concerns that have made risky, unwise actions and now expect 
     us to cover their mistakes. The Bush administration began 
     with the Enron debacle and it now seems that scheme to 
     deprive hard-working Americans of their money is being 
     applied to the country as a whole.
       Congress has already given away sizable authority to the 
     executive branch via the PATRIOT Act in the wake of 9/11. It 
     has no right to give the White House and its Secretary of the 
     Treasury the power to transfer the people's money to the 
     richest bankers in the country. Vote no on the bailout 
     legislation.

  Burlington, VT, the largest city in the State, where I live:

       We know that you are a leader in this and are very 
     appreciative. We are very concerned about the Bush 
     administration's proposed bailout legislation. We don't 
     believe that extremely wealthy investment bankers who engaged 
     in irresponsible, risky behavior deserve to be bailed out. We 
     would like to see you craft the support legislation that 
     provides relief to homeowners facing foreclosure and middle 
     class people about to retire, for example. Please do not 
     force middle class folks in general to pay for the efforts of 
     the wealthiest people among us to further enrich themselves.
       We hope Congress will not rush to pass legislation that it 
     and the American people will regret for a generation.

  St. Albans, VT, in the northern part of the State:

       Senator Sanders, I know you are busy, but I just wanted to 
     express my opposition to the latest bailout of the mortgage 
     industry. While I don't want to see the economy crash and 
     burn, I also don't want to see the banks and bankers 
     responsible just be able to wash their hands and walk away 
     while leaving generations of Americans paying for their mess. 
     I feel if we need to purchase these bad debts, we should do 
     so in true venture capitalist fashion and offer pennies on 
     the dollar, just enough so that the banks don't fail but not 
     enough for them to show any type of profit. In addition, 
     there should be a proviso denying any officer of any of the 
     banks that accept this bailout any sort of bonus.

  Mr. President, these are just a handful of the e-mails my office has 
received. I know my office is not alone. I don't know how many hundreds 
of thousands of these e-mails have come to Capitol Hill, but the number 
is enormous. I think what most of them are saying--what the vast 
majority of them are saying--is that after 8 years of Bush's economic 
policies which have benefited the wealthy and the powerful at the 
expense of the middle class, it would be immoral, it would be absurd to 
ask the middle class to have to pay for this bailout.
  I hope Members of the Congress will be listening to their 
constituents, will show the courage to stand up to the wealthy 
financial campaign contributors who have so much influence over what we 
do here and to say to the upper 1 percent: You are the people who have 
benefited from Bush's policies. You are the people who are going to 
have to pay for this bailout, not the middle class.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Salazar.) Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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