Military Contruction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts.

We spend a lot of time here on the floor of the Senate talking about how our States are different. That happens in the House of Representatives where I served as well. But there is one thing that certainly unites all of our States and, frankly, one thing that unites all of the front desks of our Senate offices, and that is this: We have all been flooded with phone calls from the thousands upon thousands of constituents in each one of our districts who are furious that they are going to get no increase in Social Security at the beginning of next year. Despite the fact that prices for virtually everything that fixed income seniors are paying for are going up, they are getting absolutely nothing to try to compensate them for those cost of living increases.

We are hearing from people like Kevin in Bridgeport, who said:

Dear Senator Murphy, I am a lifelong resident of Bridgeport. ..... I am 63 years old ..... living on SSDI due to a rare disease of the spinal cord. ..... Since my only source of income is SSDI, I am concerned about the recent announcement that there is going to be no COLA increase for 2016. If there is anything you can do to reverse this decision, millions of Americans like myself would be greatly helped and greatly appreciative.

Or there is Fred from Wolcott, who said:

I understand the lower gas prices have kept the CPI lower with the result [being] no [Social Security] increase in 2016. Many of us do not drive or drive a limited amount and the lower gas prices do not place additional funds in our pocket.

Meanwhile, the cost of beef, chicken, eggs and milk etc., the things we live on have risen, and have reduced our purchasing power. Many on Social Security have no other form of income.

Adeline of New Fairfield, CT, says:

My husband and I were very disappointed that we did not receive our cost of living raise in our check. ..... Please let that be the last time. With all the medical deductibles and food and clothes and taxes going up, it gets discouraging. ..... We are up in age and not in the best of health and because of that we are unable to get a job. [Social Security is what we depend on.]

These stories can be multiplied millions of times over, and all over our districts. What are we going to do about it? Are we going to sit here, as we do with issue after issue, and offer no response to the millions of our constituents who are telling us that they are going to have trouble making ends meet? Or are we going to make a choice? Are we going to make a choice to end an unjustifiable loophole that allows corporations to hand over millions of dollars to their CEOs virtually tax-free or are we going to invest in the millions of seniors and disabled across this country who are going to have a hard time living and making ends meet if we don't make the change involved in the piece of legislation that we are announcing today? The SAVE Benefits Act is going to save the lives of seniors who without a cost of living increase are going to have trouble affording medication and food. It really comes at no cost to the corporations that are right now receiving an unjustifiable tax benefit--one that Congress really never intended.

Congress passed and has accepted as part of our tax law for 20 years this provision that doesn't allow companies to take a tax benefit for salaries over $1 million. It is not surprising that companies found a way around that provision because it exempted performance-based pay. So bonuses and stock options could be handed over with full tax benefit, and that became the standard for compensation packages. All of a sudden it wasn't about salary any longer, and it became about this performance-based pay.

You live in a world today in which there is this perverse system--the more corporations pay their CEOs, the lower their tax bill is.

It is not going to hurt corporations to simply have to pay taxes on the bonuses above $1 million that they send to their CEOs and big executives. They are going to continue paying their CEOs a lot of money. A lot of them live in Connecticut. I don't have any fear that there is going to be a rapid diminution in the amount of money that CEOs are making, but at least those companies will pay taxes on those exorbitant salaries. We will be able to use that money to make sure that their customers--the people who are buying the goods that these big companies make--actually have the purchasing power with which to enter and be active in the economy.

I guess that is the piece of economics that I will end on here. By putting $50 more a month into the hands of frail, poor seniors and disabled, you are providing an enormous economic benefit to the economy, because all of that money is going to go into the economy.

Let me tell you what a senior living at or below the poverty line is going to do with $50 a month. They are going to put it into food. They are going to put it into medicine. They are going to put it into Main Street businesses. The fact is that when you decide instead to subsidize salaries of above $1 million, that money isn't going back into the Main Street economy. Maybe a portion of it is, but a lot of it is ending up in giant accrued pensions and savings accounts or in offshore investments--not in the Main Street economy.

This is not just the right thing to do for these seniors who are crying out to every single one of our offices to do something about this unjustifiable lack of a COLA, but it is the right thing to do for the economy at large because the money is going to find its way into all sorts of crevices and corners of this economy that badly need that kind of infusion.

I wish to thank Senator Warren for introducing this legislation. I wanted to come down to the floor to lend my voice to it and for it on behalf of the hundreds and hundreds of seniors in Connecticut who are contacting and calling our office asking for the Senate to do something.

With that, let me yield to my colleague and friend from Connecticut, Senator Blumenthal.

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