Unanimous Consent Request--S. Res. 136

Floor Speech

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Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I find this resolution somewhat odd, if I may say so. There are enormous crises facing our country and the world. The fact that we are spending time on the floor of the Senate to condemn a proposition or a theory does not seem to me to be the best way to be spending our time.

And the implication--and I think the Senator from Indiana made this implication--that the President of the United States is objecting to raising taxes is simply not factual.

The President has come forward with some very specific tax proposals, but his proposals are not meeting much support on the other side of the aisle because he is saying that he doesn't want to raise taxes on anybody in this country earning less than $400,000 a year, but he does want to raise taxes on some of the wealthiest people in America and some of the largest corporations that today may be paying zero in Federal income tax. And he shares a concern that many of us share and that Warren Buffet reminds us of, that the effective tax rate for the billionaire class is actually lower than it is for working families.

The President's view, which I share, is that this Congress must address the enormous crises facing working families, and that is rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, making sure that our kids have quality childcare and pre-K, that we have to address the existential threat of climate change, and we have to address many of the other problems facing working families, and one way we do that is demanding that the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes.

When we talk about resolutions condemning something--I am not, again, sure why we are condemning a particular theory--we might be today thinking about condemning the actions of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives today. They got rid of a Member of their leadership for the crime of suggesting that that party should not maintain a big lie implying that Donald Trump won the election. Shall we condemn that? I think that is worth condemning.

I think we might want to condemn the fact that we have more income and wealth inequality today in America than at any time since the 1920s. Let's condemn that. Maybe we want to condemn the fact that every scientist who has studied the issue tells us that climate change is a threat to our Nation and the world, and we have done virtually nothing to lead the world in addressing climate change. Let's condemn that inaction.

Let's condemn the fact that in the richest country in the history of the world, we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth. How about condemning that?

Let's condemn the fact, maybe, that half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck. Let's condemn the fact that we live in a country which has institutional racism.

We can go on and on. There are a lot of things to condemn, but I don't know that it is in the best interest of the U.S. Senate to be condemning a particular economic theory.

You don't like it, argue against it. That is fine. But I don't know that we have to spend our time condemning it.

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Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, if I could respond?

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Mr. SANDERS. I am not sure--the Senator from Indiana suggested a moment ago that the President was not interested in raising taxes, and, of course, he has a very specific proposal to raise taxes.

And I would suggest to my colleague from Indiana that if we want to talk about the burden on our kids and on our grandchildren as a result of the national debt, maybe we should also be discussing the fact that, under the last administration, a massive tax break was given to the very wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations. We were told that that tax plan would pay for itself, but, in fact, it will result in almost $2 trillion in additional national debt, and virtually all of those benefits went to the people on top.

So all that I am saying is, we can argue taxation; we can argue economic policy; we can argue why we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people; we can argue why we are paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs; we can argue why we have a political system that allows billionaires to buy elections--a lot of things that we could be talking about, but I am not sure that it is in the best interest of the Senate to be condemning a particular economic idea that some economists have brought up.

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Mr. SANDERS. Madam President.

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