[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5737-5740]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           BUDGET PRIORITIES

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, we are at an extraordinary crossroads in 
American history, both from a moral perspective as well as an economic 
perspective.
  The reality today, as I think most Americans understand, is that the 
middle class of our country is collapsing. Over the last 10 years, 
median family income has gone down by $2,500. Millions of Americans who 
have lost their jobs secured new jobs at substantially lower pay. 
Younger workers are finding it very hard to get a job at a livable 
wage.
  Furthermore, what we don't talk about terribly often here on the 
floor of the Senate or certainly in the corporate media is the rather 
unfortunate reality that in the United States, we have the most unequal 
distribution of income and of wealth of any major country on Earth. 
Today, the top 1 percent of earners make 23 percent of all income. The 
top 1 percent earn 23 percent of every dollar, and that is more than 
the bottom 50 percent. The top 1 percent make more money than the 
bottom 50 percent. The percentage of income going to the top 1 percent 
has nearly tripled--nearly tripled--since the 1970s. Between 1980 and 
2005, 80 percent--80 percent--of all new income in America went to the 
top 1 percent.
  Today, when we talk about distribution of wealth--not income--the 
numbers are, frankly, beyond belief. Today in America, if my colleagues 
can believe it, the wealthiest 400 Americans--400 Americans, a very 
small number out of a nation of over 300 million people--own more 
wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans. So 400 on one side, 150 
million on the other, and that gap between the very, very rich and 
everybody else is growing wider.
  I don't have to describe economically what is going on in this 
country because almost everybody understands it. Real unemployment 
today is not 8.9 percent; it is closer to 16 percent. Today in America, 
50 million people have no health insurance. Today in America, seniors 
and disabled vets understand they have not received a Social Security 
COLA in 3 years.
  So what we start with when we look at America today is a middle class 
which is disappearing, poverty which is increasing, and the people on 
top doing phenomenally well. Given that reality, one might think the 
Congress would be actively involved in trying to protect the middle 
class and working families and lower income people, but if one believed 
that, one would be sorely mistaken.
  Just last December, 4 months ago, Congress passed legislation to 
provide huge tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires by extending 
the Bush tax cuts to the top 2 percent and by even more by lowering the 
estate tax for the top three-tenths of 1 percent. So at a time when the 
people on top are already doing phenomenally well, what Congress did 
against my vote in December was make the wealthiest people even 
wealthier.
  Four months ago, after giving huge tax breaks to millionaires and 
billionaires and growing the deficit, our Republican friends and some 
Democrats come back and they say: Well, now we have a real deficit 
problem. We made the problem worse in December, so now we really have 
to deal with the deficit, and we are going to do it by making 
devastating cuts to programs that low- and moderate-income Americans 
desperately depend upon.
  What we are looking at is the Robin Hood principle in reverse: We are 
taking from working families who are struggling to survive--taking 
hundreds of billions of dollars and giving it to millionaires and 
billionaires. In my view, this is grossly immoral, and it is also very 
bad economics.
  Let me touch on some of the cuts that are coming down the pike in 
this, the 2011 budget. At a time of soaring fuel prices--in the State 
of Vermont and I am sure in Minnesota, a lot of people heat with oil--
the cost is going up. The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, 
LIHEAP, would be cut by $390 million. In Vermont, many of the people 
who use the LIHEAP program are low-income senior citizens. So we give 
tax breaks to billionaires, and we go after low-income senior citizens 
and say: Sorry, you may have to go cold.
  At a time when the cost of college education is getting unaffordable 
for many low- and moderate-income families in this country--hundreds of 
thousands of young people have given up

[[Page 5738]]

their college dream because of the high cost of college--Pell grants 
would be reduced by an estimated $35 billion over 10 years, including a 
nearly $500 million cut this year, and Pell grants are the major source 
of Federal funding to help low- and moderate-income college students go 
to school.
  At a time when 50 million Americans have no health insurance, 
community health centers would be cut by $600 million. This is an issue 
on which I have worked very, very hard. Community health centers 
provide access to primary health care, dental care, low-cost 
prescription drugs, and mental health counseling for some 20 million 
Americans right now. Our hope was to expand that to 40 million 
Americans. When we do that, we save money because people do not end up 
in the emergency room; they do not end up in the hospital sicker than 
they should have been. So $600 million for community health centers was 
cut. The Children's Health Insurance Program was cut by $3.5 billion.
  At a time when poverty is increasing, the WIC Program--women, 
infants, and children--a nutrition program for pregnant women and 
children, will be cut by $500 million.
  At a time when we have such high unemployment rates and we want to 
put Americans to work rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, 
including our rail system, which is now far behind Europe, Japan, and 
even China, Federal funding for high-speed rail will be eliminated in 
the budget we are going to be voting on very soon, representing a cut 
of $2.9 billion. Public transportation would be cut by nearly $1 
billion--a 20-percent reduction.
  I know in Vermont, and I expect all over this country, local 
communities are struggling with their budgets. Police departments are 
not getting the budgets and the manpower they need. Yet, in this budget 
we will be voting on, local law enforcement funding would be cut by 
$296 million.
  At a time when homelessness is increasing, when we need more low-
income housing, public housing would be cut by $605 million.
  That is the 2011 budget agreement that was just reached a few days 
ago. What is absolutely incredible about that budget is that deficit 
reduction falls totally on the backs of low-and moderate-income 
families, on people who will not be able to get health care at 
community health centers, young people who will not be able to go to 
college, and senior citizens who will not be able to heat their homes 
in the wintertime. That is where this budget is balanced--on the backs 
of the weak, the vulnerable, the children, the elderly, and the poor. 
Yet, at the same time as the wealthiest people are becoming wealthier, 
this budget does not ask for one penny--not one penny--from 
millionaires and billionaires.
  At a time when major corporation after major corporation enjoys huge 
tax loopholes--so not only do they avoid paying any Federal income 
taxes, but in many cases, such as General Electric, they actually get a 
rebate from the IRS--this budget does not ask corporate America to pay 
one penny more in corporate income taxes.
  That is where we are with the 2011 budget, and now we are looking in 
a short period of time at the 2012 budget. If my colleagues think this 
2011 budget is a moral and economic disgrace, wait until we hear what 
this 2012 budget, the so-called Paul Ryan tea party budget, which, as I 
understand it, will be voted upon in the House, likely passing later 
this week--that budget will slash trillions of dollars from Medicare, 
converting Medicare into a voucher program, meaning that seniors will 
have to pay substantially more for their health care than they 
currently do. The interesting question that has not yet been answered 
about this is, if you will be--when this Ryan budget would go into 
effect--a senior citizen living on $14,000 or $15,000 a year, which 
millions of seniors currently live on, how are you going to be able to 
come up with thousands and thousands of dollars to pay for your cancer 
treatment or the other problems senior citizens have? There is no money 
available for you to do it.
  What Ryan's budget does is demand that low-income seniors pay with 
money they don't have. I am not sure I have heard the answer to the 
question: If you are a low-income citizen and you are asked to come up 
with thousands of dollars, and you don't have that money, what do you 
do? The Ryan budget would savage Medicaid, education, the environment, 
infrastructure, and other programs that tens of millions of Americans 
depend upon.
  Here is the kicker. We savage Medicare, Medicaid, education, and many 
other programs that moderate and middle-class families depend upon in 
order to give even more tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this 
country and the largest corporations. After savaging health care in 
America for middle and low-income families, the Ryan budget would 
reduce the tax rates for the wealthiest people in this country from 35 
to 25 percent, and it would cut corporate income taxes to the same 
level, from 35 to 25 percent.
  I suspect there are people listening to me who don't believe that: 
Come on, you are not serious; at a time when the middle class is 
collapsing and the rich are getting richer, you are not telling me that 
the House is about to vote on a budget that will give huge tax breaks 
to millionaires and billionaires and throw millions more off of health 
care--you are not serious. Check it out. I am serious. This is what the 
Ryan tea party budget, which will likely pass the House, will do.
  As I began saying, we are at a pivotal moment in the modern history 
of this country. That question is whether we move, in a sense, into an 
oligarchic form of society, where a few people on top have incredible 
amounts of wealth and incredible amounts of political power, while the 
middle class disappears and poverty increases. That is where we are 
right now.
  I hope very much the American people engage in this debate and tell 
Members of the Senate and the House that it is morally wrong and very 
poor economics to cut back on programs that are desperately needed by 
working families, while giving huge tax breaks to people who absolutely 
don't need them.
  With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise to discuss the issue of our 
budget. Later this week, the House will vote on its fiscal year 2012 
budget resolution. Congressman Paul Ryan, the author of that blueprint, 
calls it a path to prosperity.
  Mr. INHOFE. Would the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. SCHUMER. I will be glad to yield to the Senator.
  Mr. INHOFE. I was scheduled to be speak at 4 o'clock. At the 
conclusion of the Senator's remarks, would the Senator request that I 
be recognized as in morning business for up to 30 minutes?
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I move that immediately after I finish 
speaking, the Senator--well, we had a Member who was going to go speak 
after you did. Could the Senator limit his speech to 15 minutes or----
  Mr. INHOFE. No, sir, I could not. I have to have 30 minutes. The 
floor has been pretty empty today.
  Mr. SCHUMER. OK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
immediately after I finish, Senator Inhofe be recognized for up to 30 
minutes, and then Senator Franken be recognized immediately after 
Senator Inhofe.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SCHUMER. So Mr. President, resuming my remarks, Paul Ryan, the 
author of that blueprint, called it the path to prosperity. It may be a 
path to austerity, but it is hardly a path to prosperity.
  Nonetheless, with the negotiations finished just days ago on last 
year's budget, Congressman Ryan has succeeded in jump-starting the 
debate about next year's. The President himself will join this 
conversation about

[[Page 5739]]

how to do long-term deficit reduction in a major address tomorrow at 
GWU--George Washington University. This is a debate we must have, and 
the President's entrance into it comes not a moment too soon. It will 
make for a powerful contrast with the Republicans' plan.
  The contrast we will hear from our President tomorrow will likely not 
be in the commitment to deficit reduction. Paul Ryan's goal in his 
budget is to trim the deficit by $1.6 trillion over the next 10 years. 
He does not succeed in meeting this target, according to CBO. In fact, 
budget experts say his proposal only achieves $155 billion in net 
deficit reduction. But the number itself is not the issue. Without a 
doubt, we must be ambitious in setting a target for deficit reduction. 
We cannot be gun-shy about achieving fiscal discipline. So, no, the 
contrast will not be in how much we seek to reduce the deficit, it will 
be in how we go about doing so.
  The Republicans would like the looming debate to be one about 
numbers, but, instead, it will be about priorities. The Ryan budget has 
all the wrong priorities.
  The House Republican budget puts the entire burden of reducing the 
deficit on senior citizens, students, and middle-class families. At the 
same time, it protects corporate subsidies for oil companies, let's 
waste at the Pentagon go untouched, and would give even more tax breaks 
to the millionaires amongst us. In short, the Ryan budget puts the 
middle class last instead of first. As a result, it will never pass the 
Senate.
  In the days since he first rolled out his budget proposal, 
Congressman Ryan has been hailed for taking on the tough challenges, 
and we certainly salute him for putting out a plan. But a closer look 
at his proposal shows that it is not bold at all. In leaving Pentagon 
spending and revenues completely untouched, Ryan's budget hews exactly 
to his party's orthodoxy.
  Some of the columns I read say it takes courage. Well, maybe it takes 
courage for someone who has a different political philosophy to say 
what he said but not for a conservative Republican to say what he said. 
It does not gore a single Republican ox. It is a rigid ideological 
document.
  Consider what Congressman Ryan wants to do on Medicare. In the name 
of ideology, Paul Ryan's budget proposes getting rid of Medicare as it 
exists today and replacing it with a private system that would cut 
benefits. We have seen this movie before. Five years ago, President 
Bush tried to sell the country on a plan to privatize Social Security. 
The public rejected it. If they didn't like what President Bush tried 
to do to Social Security, just wait until they see what Paul Ryan and 
the House Republicans want to do to Medicare. Their budget plan 
proposes putting the Medicare system into the hands of private 
insurance companies. That is a recipe for disaster. It would mean an 
end to Medicare as we know it.
  Beginning in 2022, Americans turning 65 would no longer be enrolled 
in Medicare but, instead, would receive a voucher to go shopping for 
their own health insurance on the open market. Insurance companies, 
however, would not be required to honor that voucher, which would 
average about $8,000. Many private insurance plans for seniors far 
exceed that price already today. Under the Ryan plan, seniors who 
cannot find an affordable plan at the value of their voucher will 
simply have to make up the difference themselves out of their own 
pockets.
  This problem would only worsen over time as health care costs rise. 
Ryan caps Medicare spending at the level of inflation, even though 
health care costs rise higher than that historically. As Ryan's voucher 
covers a smaller and smaller fraction of actual health care costs, 
seniors would have to cover the gap out of pocket.
  That is why Alice Rivlin, a Democrat and President Clinton's former 
OMB Director who worked with Congressman Ryan on his approach for a 
time, has distanced herself from this final product. She told the 
Washington Post she opposes the Ryan plan:

       In the Ryan version he has lowered the rate of growth and I 
     don't think that's defensible. It pushed too much of the 
     costs onto the beneficiaries.

  Let me repeat that last part of the statement of Alice Rivlin, 
Congressman Ryan's partner for a time in this proposal. She writes:

       It pushed too much of the cost onto the beneficiaries.

  Other Medicare experts agree with Rivlin. Stephen Zuckerman, a health 
care economist at the nonpartisan Urban Institute, said:

       The most serious flaw is that the focus of that approach is 
     on limiting Federal spending on Medicare without concern 
     about the potential of this change to shift costs to Medicare 
     beneficiaries.

  A better way to rein in Medicare spending would be to trim the waste 
and inefficiency out of the delivery system. Anyone who has gone 
through the health care system knows all the waste and inefficiencies--
the legendary stories of a doctor waving as you go into the emergency 
room and you never see him again, and then there is a $4,000 charge, 
these kinds of things. But it turns out that Ryan's plan does nothing 
to reduce overall health care costs. It increases them. We have to 
preserve the benefits to people but make the cost of delivering them 
less expensive. That is what every other country in the world does. 
That is what we have to do.
  The Ryan plan does not do that. The Ryan plan not only does not try 
to eliminate the waste and inefficiency out of the delivery system, it 
does nothing to reduce overall health care costs. It actually increases 
them.
  According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, in 2030 
traditional Medicare insurance would cost just 60 percent of a private 
policy purchased with Ryan's voucher. In other words, the Ryan health 
care plan would cost two-thirds more than traditional Medicare. Not 
only would the Ryan plan increase insurance costs, it would force 
seniors to shoulder a higher share of these costs.
  CBO said--this is CBO not Chuck Schumer, the nonpartisan CBO:

       Under the proposal, most elderly people who would be 
     entitled to premium support payments would pay more for their 
     health care than they would pay under the current Medicare 
     system.

  How much more? It is staggering when you look at the numbers. Here 
they are, the seniors' share of health care costs. We know even with 
Medicare seniors have to pay some of it themselves, but now they pay 25 
percent; under the Ryan budget, 68 percent. So there is this voucher, 
and it goes to the insurance companies, health care costs more, and 
seniors pay more. Why the heck would we do that?
  This is a crippling burden that would drive the average Medicare 
recipient into poverty. It is not only too much to ask for our seniors, 
it destroys the foundation of our health care system.
  Madam President, just to check on the time, I believe I said after I 
finished I asked unanimous consent that Senator Inhofe would follow me.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has used 10 minutes. 
Did the Senator wish for more than 10 minutes?
  Mr. SCHUMER. I did, and that was the intention of my unanimous 
consent request.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. SCHUMER. The bottom line is the House Republican budget would 
cause the cost of health insurance to rise and then would make seniors 
pay a greater share of that higher cost. It is a cut in benefits plans, 
plain and simple. If we are serious about reining in Medicare spending, 
there is a far better starting place than the Ryan budget. It is the 
health care law passed by Congress last year. Republicans are patting 
themselves on the back lately for leading on entitlement reform. When 
it comes to reining in the runaway costs of Medicare, the truth is the 
President did it first, and he did it better.
  In the health care law, we certainly did not complete the job, but we 
made a good start on reducing waste and inefficiency and duplication in 
the system. We started down the path of making delivery system reforms. 
We set up a system for studying the effectiveness

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of different methods and treatments so that care could be delivered 
more efficiently. We made a downpayment on shifting the larger health 
care system away from a fee-for-service model toward a system that pays 
providers for episodes of care.
  The Ryan proposal adopts none of these cost-saving approaches. In 
fact, his budget calls for the repeal of the health care law 
altogether. Left unsaid is that this would have the side effect of 
reopening the doughnut hole, another hit to Medicare beneficiaries.
  If the Ryan budget's only goal was to end Medicare, that would be 
ample cause to work tooth and nail to defeat it, but the Ryan budget 
doesn't even put most of its savings from ending Medicare toward 
deficit reduction. Amazingly, it cuts Medicare, ends Medicare as we 
know it, and takes whatever savings it produces and gives more tax 
breaks to the wealthiest Americans. That is right. Ryan's budget not 
only seeks to permanently extend President Bush's tax cuts for 
millionaires, he wants to cut their taxes even lower than the Bush 
levels.
  In fact, under the Ryan proposal millionaires would pay a rate so low 
that it was last seen in the days of Herbert Hoover. What about shared 
sacrifice? As unbelievable as it sounds, Congressman Ryan wants to give 
millionaires and billionaires an extra tax break. Ryan's budget 
proposal would bring down the top rate from 35 percent to 25 percent 
for those who are very wealthy. This would make for the lowest level of 
taxing the wealthiest among us since 1931 when the Great Depression was 
raging and Herbert Hoover was President. This is the trade Congressman 
Ryan proposes we make: Cut Medicare benefits for seniors so we can 
afford to give millionaires an extra tax break.
  This is exactly the opposite of what the public wants. They don't 
think the millionaires and billionaires should even be getting George 
Bush's tax cut, let alone an extra one on top of that. I have nothing 
against millionaires and billionaires, God bless them. Many of them 
made their money the good old-fashioned way, but they don't need a tax 
break when we are cutting health care and everything else. Most 
Americans agree with me.
  In last month's NBC Wall Street Journal poll that asked Americans 
what proposals they most support to reduce the deficit, 81 percent of 
Americans, including a majority of Republicans, as I recall, said they 
would support a tax on millionaires, the highest polling answer. One of 
the lowest polling answers was--you guessed it--cutting Medicare 
benefits. So the Ryan budget has its priorities completely upside-down.
  You may ask, if Congressman Ryan puts all his savings from Medicare 
into millionaire tax breaks, how does he propose to achieve any deficit 
reduction? The answer is, by targeting the programs most important to 
the middle class.
  It turns out that the Republican plan to end Medicare is also a plan 
to end other important programs. For example, the Republican plan to 
end Medicare is, additionally, also a plan to cut tens of thousands of 
teachers. The Republican plan to end Medicare is, additionally, also a 
plan to cut Head Start for kids. The Republican plan to end Medicare 
is, additionally, also a plan to cut medical research on diseases such 
as cancer. The Republican plan to end Medicare is, additionally, also a 
plan to cut clean energy projects that create jobs and help us become 
energy independent.
  In all, the Ryan plan assumes a steady squeezing of government until, 
by 2050, the total cost of everything, save for Social Security and 
health care, is shrunk from 12 percent of the GDP to just 3 percent. 
But he doesn't spell out a single detail of how to achieve those cuts. 
He has a number but no specifics. That is the definition of a meat ax 
approach as opposed to an approach that uses a smart, sharp scalpel.
  Even though the Ryan plan doesn't spell out where the cuts would come 
from to meet his goal, it isn't a total mystery. We can fill in the 
blanks. The just completed debate on the 2011 fiscal budget offers 
plenty of hints on the Republican approach to cutting spending. In the 
debate we just had, Republicans wanted to cut the very programs that 
create good-paying jobs and help the middle class. They targeted 
everything from cancer research to financial aid to college. We fended 
off many of their worst cuts by successfully pushing Republicans to 
include $17 billion in cuts from the mandatory side. We also got them 
to agree to reduce Pentagon spending by nearly $3 billion compared to 
their original budget. This was not the Republican's preferred way to 
reduce the deficit. Because of ideology, they disproportionately 
targeted the domestic discretionary part of the budget for cutting.
  But our deficit problems weren't caused by Head Start and cancer 
research, and we won't fix them by going after Head Start and cancer 
research. In the budget debates to come, we need to broaden the playing 
field beyond domestic discretionary spending. We should include, for 
instance, waste in the Defense Department. The Pentagon makes up half 
of the discretionary side of the budget, but Republicans continue to 
treat it as off limits. Ryan himself leaves it virtually untouched save 
for a symbolic trim. To say there isn't waste at the Pentagon like 
there is waste everywhere else in the budget is absurd.
  The bottom line is, any budget that leaves defense and revenues off 
the table is ultimately not serious. We need an all-of-the-above 
approach that puts all parts of the budget on the table. A dollar cut 
from mandatory spending or the Pentagon is just as good as a dollar cut 
from nondefense discretionary spending.
  Deficit reduction is an important goal, but the sacrifice must be 
shared. The Ryan budget fails that test. The Democratic Senate will not 
stand for any proposals that seek to balance the budget on the backs of 
the middle class and seniors. I look forward to hearing the President's 
remarks tomorrow. As for Congressman Ryan, I encourage him to go back 
to the drawing board and come up with a fairer, more balanced plan.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, let me thank my good friend from New 
York for allowing me to have this time. I do appreciate his generosity. 
I have to say, I don't agree with what he said, but that comes as no 
surprise to my friend from New York. I will only make one comment. One 
statement I heard him say toward the end of his remarks was that every 
other country in the world would do it this way. That is the whole crux 
of it right there. I often wonder if you look at the other countries, 
they are all trying to get to our system. They all envy America for its 
system of freedom, of health delivery. We wonder sometimes if 
government-run health care is bad--and that is what this is; that is 
what the Obama administration is trying to do--if it is better, then 
why doesn't it work anywhere? I have often looked at this. It doesn't 
work in Canada, Denmark, the UK. It doesn't work in any of the other 
places. Yet they always say: It will work here. A lot of my liberal 
friends say: If I were running it, it would work. We have a great 
system.
  I guess a little class warfare is healthy now and then, and we had a 
little bit of that in the last few minutes.

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