Concurrent Resolution on the Budget, Fiscal Year 2019--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, this morning we will be voting on a budget resolution written by my Republican colleague Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky.

This is a budget that would lead to devastating cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and education, while paving the way for even more tax breaks to the top 1 percent and large, profitable corporations.

Make no mistake about it: Senator Paul's budget is an immoral budget. It is bad economic policy. While I am confident that this resolution will be defeated in the Senate, let me be very clear.

Senator Paul's vision of America--balancing the budget on the backs of working families, the elderly, the sick, the children, and the poor in order to make the richest people in America even richer--is the exact same vision of the Republican Party in the House and the Republican Party in Washington, DC.

So let me commend Senator Paul for being honest with the American people in terms of what he believes and for putting down on paper what a majority of Republicans in the House and billionaire campaign contributors like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson believe.

And this is what they want.

At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, Senator Paul and the Republicans in the House do not believe that it was good enough to provide over $1 trillion in tax breaks to the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations. The budget that we are debating today would give the wealthy and the powerful an even bigger tax break.

Last year, the congressional leadership came up with a bill to throw 32 million Americans off of health insurance. Senator Paul and many Republicans in the House do not believe that bill went far enough. The budget we are debating today would throw up to 45 million Americans off of Medicaid.

A few months ago, President Trump proposed a budget calling for Medicare to be cut by nearly $500 billion. Senator Paul and a majority of Republicans do not believe those cuts went far enough. The budget we are debating today would cut Medicare by up to $3.3 trillion over the next decade.

At a time when 10,000 people die each and every year waiting for their Social Security disability benefits to be processed, Donald Trump's budget proposed making a bad situation even worse by cutting the Social Security Disability Insurance Program.

Senator Paul and a majority of Republicans do not believe that those cuts went far enough. The Paul budget would not only cut Social Security for the disabled, his budget would cut the entire Social Security program by $442 billion over the next decade compared to current law.

Overall, Senator Paul's resolution calls for slashing the budget by more than 51 percent by the end of the decade.

Not too long ago, if someone proposed ending Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid as we know it so that billionaires could get a huge tax break, that would have been considered a radical and extreme agenda. Today it is the mainstream position of the Republican Party in Washington.

The reality is that Republicans in Washington have never believed in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Federal assistance in education, or providing any direct government assistance to those in need. They have always believed that tax breaks for the wealthy and the powerful would somehow miraculously trickle down to every American, despite all history and evidence to the contrary.

Needless to say, and I am only speaking for myself, I have a very different vision of America.

In my view, we need to create a government and an economy that works for all of us, not just a handful of billionaires.

What does that mean?

It means that instead of giving over a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the top 1 percent and large profitable corporations, we must demand that Wall Street, the billionaire class and large, profitable corporations start paying their fair share in taxes.

Instead of trying to abolish the estate tax, which impacts less than two-tenths of 1 percent, we must substantially increase the inheritance tax not only to bring in needed revenue, but to dismantle the oligarchs that now control so much of our economic and political lives.

Instead of making it easier for corporations to avoid paying U.S. taxes by stashing their cash in the Cayman Islands, we need to crack down on offshore tax haven abuse and use this revenue to create 15 million good-paying American jobs rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure.

Instead of cutting Social Security, we need to expand Social Security so that every American can retire with the dignity and the respect they deserve. We pay for that by making sure everyone who makes over $250,000 a year pays the same percentage of their income into Social Security as the middle class.

Instead of cutting Medicare, we need to guarantee healthcare as a right to every man, woman, and child in America through a Medicare for all, single-payer healthcare program.

Instead of slashing Federal aid to education, we must make every public college and university in America tuition free, and we pay for that by imposing a tax on Wall Street speculation. If we could bail out Wall Street 10 years ago, we can tax Wall Street so that every American who has the desire and the ability can get a higher education regardless of their income.

Instead of listening to the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, and other multibillionaire campaign contributors, it is time to start listening to the overwhelming majority of Americans who want a government and an economy that works for the many, not just the few.

Let us not only defeat the Paul resolution, but let us have the guts to take on the greed of Wall Street, the greed of the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry, the greed of Big Oil, and the greed of corporate America and break up the oligarchy that is destroying the social fabric of our society.

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