Setting Forth the Congressional Budget for the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2022 and Setting Forth the Appropriate Budgetary Levels for Fiscal Years 2023 Through 2031

Floor Speech

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Mr. SANDERS. Con. Res. 14, the budget resolution for fiscal year 2021, the majority and the Republican managers of the resolution, while seated or standing at the managers' desks, be permitted to deliver floor remarks, retrieve, review, and edit documents, and send email and other data communications from text displayed on wireless personal digital assistant devices and tablet devices.

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Mr. SANDERS. Con. Res. 14.

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me begin by thanking President Biden and Majority Leader Schumer for their leadership in the arduous process which has gotten us to where we are right now.

I do understand that many of my Republican colleagues are in a bit of shock. They are in a bit of shock now. They are finding it hard to believe that the President and the Democratic Caucus are prepared to go forward in addressing the long, neglected needs of working families and not just the 1 percent and wealthy campaign contributors. That is not the way things usually happen around here.

Usually, it is the big money interests, the campaign contributors, and the lobbyists who call the tunes. But not today. Today, we move this country in a very different direction.

The American people are sick and tired of growing income and wealth inequality in our country, where two people now own more wealth than the bottom 40 percent, where the top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 92 percent, and where 45 percent of all new income has gone to the top 1 percent since 2009.

In other words, the people on top are doing phenomenally well.

Meanwhile, while the very rich have become much richer, the gross unfairness of our current tax system has allowed, in a given year, some of the wealthiest people in our country and some of the largest and most profitable corporations to not pay a nickel in a given year in Federal income tax--not one penny.

Well, that is about to change. The American people want a government which represents all of us and not just the few. And this legislation is going to ask the wealthiest people in our country to start paying their fair share of taxes so that we can address the needs of working families, the elderly, the children, the sick, and the poor.

And despite what some of my Republican colleagues may be saying, no one in America who makes less than $400,000 a year will pay a nickel more in Federal taxes. In fact, what we are looking at in this budget proposal is a historic tax cut for working families and the middle class.

Further, and importantly, at a time when California is on fire, when Oregon is on fire, when Greece is burning, and when countries throughout the world are experiencing unprecedented drought, which will clearly impact food production, this legislation begins the process of combating climate change so that our kids and grandchildren can live in a country and on a planet which is healthy and habitable. It would be immoral and an absolute dereliction of our responsibilities as elected officials to do anything less. We cannot ignore climate change any longer. Now is the time for our great country to lead the world out of this existential crisis.

And, by the way, as we address the long neglected needs of working families and as we combat climate change, we are going to create millions of good-paying jobs, many of them union jobs.

Let me very briefly take this opportunity to describe some of what is in this budget proposal. First, we are going to address the disgrace of the United States having the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth. This is the wealthiest country on Earth, and we should not have millions of our children living in poverty.

This budget is going to provide the long-awaited-for help that working parents all over this country desperately need, and when we do that, we will substantially reduce childhood poverty in America. And we are going to do that by extending the child tax credit so that families continue to receive monthly direct payments of up to $300 per child.

We began that process in the American Rescue Plan. It has been enormously successful in Vermont and all over this country as parents finally get the help that they need to raise their kids, and, in fact, it has helped reduce childhood poverty in our country by 61 percent. And we are going to extend those child tax credits.

Further, we are going to help working parents by addressing the crisis in childcare by making sure that no working family in our country pays more than 7 percent of their income for childcare. And all over this country, in talking to parents in Vermont and elsewhere, people are paying 20 percent, 25 percent of their income for childcare so that they can go to work. That makes no sense at all. Under our proposal, no working family will pay more than 7 percent. And when we do that, when we make childcare more affordable and accessible, it will allow over a million women who are now home with their kids to reenter the workforce and improve our economy.

Further, in terms of addressing the needs of our working parents and their kids, we will expand public education by providing universal pre- K to every 3- and 4-year-old in the country.

This budget proposal is going to end the international disgrace of the United States being the only major country on Earth not to guarantee paid family and medical leave as a right. Somebody who is sick today should not be forced to go to work and maybe, by expanding their illness by contagion, make other people sick. Parents should be able to stay home with their sick children. When a woman has a baby, she should not be forced back into work a week after giving birth simply because she has no income to stay home.

Yes, in America, we will join every other major country and guarantee paid family and medical leave.

We will begin to address the crisis in higher education by making community colleges in America tuition-free, and this will give millions of young people and working people the opportunity to get the education they need to acquire the skills so they can go out and get the good- paying jobs that are out there. It will also give people the opportunity to transfer the 2 years of credits earned at a community college to a 4-year school. Now, I hope in years to come we will go further, but 2 years of free community college is no small thing.

This budget proposal begins the process of taking on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and saving taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars by requiring that Medicare negotiate prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry. It is not acceptable to me and to the American people that we continue to pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Medicare must negotiate prescription drug prices, and this budget sets the stage for that to happen.

And we will use the savings acquired by negotiating prescription drug prices in Medicare by expanding Medicare. We are going to use those savings to expand Medicare to cover the dental care, the hearing aids, and the eyeglasses that seniors desperately need. This is the wealthiest country on Earth, and yet we have millions of senior citizens who lack teeth in their mouth. They need dentures; they can't afford to get them. They need hearing aids in order to communicate with their grandkids; can't afford to do that. They need a decent pair of glasses; can't afford that.

And in terms of healthcare, we will also substantially increase the number of doctors, nurses, and dentists who practice in underserved areas and expand the Community Health Centers Program into new areas as well.

This budget proposal will combat homelessness in America and address the reality that nearly 18 million households are paying over 50 percent of their limited incomes for housing through an unprecedented investment in affordable housing. We will ensure, further, that people in an aging society--we are getting older as a society, and we will ensure that those people can receive the healthcare they need in their own homes instead of being forced into expensive and inadequate nursing homes and that the workers who provide that important care to the elderly and the disabled are not forced to exist on starvation wages. This is such important work and such emotionally draining work; those folks deserve a decent paycheck.

We will bring undocumented people out of the shadows and provide them with a pathway to citizenship, including those very brave workers who have courageously kept our economy going in the middle of a deadly pandemic.

As I mentioned earlier, we will take on the existential threat of climate change by transforming our energy system toward renewable energy and energy efficiency. Among many other provisions in terms of climate change, we will establish a Civilian Climate Corps which will give hundreds of thousands of young people good-paying jobs and educational benefits as they roll up their sleeves and get to work to help us save the planet.

This budget proposal will make it easier, not harder, for workers to join unions in America.

My Republican colleagues are upset that we are using the reconciliation process and only 50 votes to pass this budget. They are very upset about that. But let us be clear. This idea of using reconciliation is certainly not a new idea. When Republicans controlled the Senate, they used reconciliation to pass trillions of dollars in tax breaks to the top 1 percent and large corporations.

When Republicans controlled the Senate, they used reconciliation to make climate change worse by opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling.

When Republicans controlled the Senate, they tried to use reconciliation to repeal the Affordable Care Act and throw 32 million Americans off of the healthcare they had.

Well, today, it is true we will also use reconciliation, but we will do it in a different way. We will use it to help the working families of our country and not just the wealthy and the powerful.

It is no great secret that millions of Americans are giving up on democracy, are moving toward authoritarianism, and are losing faith in their government. Many of those people are working longer hours for lower wages; they can't afford healthcare; they can't afford to send their kids to college; and they worry very much about the future of their kids and the future of this country.

This legislation will not only provide enormous support-- unprecedented in recent American history--to the children in our country, to the parents in our country, to the elderly people in our country, to the working families of our country, but it will also, I hope, restore the faith of the American people in the belief that we can have a government that works for all of us and not just the few.

Thank you.

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Mr. SANDERS. 3055, Carper No. 3330, Thune No. 3106, and Cortez Masto No. 3317.

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Mr. SANDERS. I yield the majority's remaining time on the resolution.

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Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, Mr. Barrasso's amendment is interesting, when he talks about the Green New Deal. The only problem is what he is talking about has nothing to do with the Green New Deal.

Despite what Senator Barrasso says, the Green New Deal would not ship jobs overseas. In fact, it will create millions of good-paying jobs in the United States of America. It will not raise electricity prices. It will not make the United States dependent on dirty sources of energy from other countries.

In case the Senator from Wyoming has missed it, Oregon is burning, California is burning, Greece is burning. There is a drought hitting virtually every country on Earth. News flash: Climate change is real and the United States and other countries have got to address it.

Madam President, as a supporter of the Green New Deal, I have no problem voting for this amendment because it has nothing to do with the Green New Deal. Vote on Amendment No. 3055

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Mr. SANDERS. 3104; Hassan- Young, No. 3278, Crapo, No. 3099; Wyden, No. 3365; Cramer, No. 3105; Scott, No. 3073; and Rubio, No. 3097

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I would urge my Republican colleagues to read the recent IPCC report. And if they did, they would find that it is now unequivocal that climate change is caused by human activity.

We are seeing what climate change is doing with our own eyes. We can no longer be blind to this reality. We are seeing the intensity and the increase in forest fires. We are seeing more extreme weather disturbances. We are seeing rising sea levels that will soon threaten the habitability of great American cities like Miami, New York, and Charleston. We are seeing the acidification of the oceans that threaten fishing and marine life. And we are seeing an increase in disease.

We have got to move away from fossil fuel. We have got to end fracking.

I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment. Vote on Amendment No. 3105

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Mr. SANDERS. 3293; Grassley, No. 3251; Wyden, No. 3569; Mr. Tuberville, No. 3113; Ms. Klobuchar, No. 3731.
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Mr. SANDERS. 3627; Paul, No. 3150.

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Mr. SANDERS. 3805; Paul, No. 3150.
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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, Senator Paul's amendment would slash Federal spending by trillions of dollars. It would mean massive cuts to Medicare, to Medicaid, to food stamps, to virtually every Federal program that impacts working people and low-income people. It would cause massive suffering.

I urge a ``no'' vote. Vote on Amendment No. 3150

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Mr. SANDERS. 3680; Blackburn, No. 3062; Cruz, No. 3781.
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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to this amendment that makes it more difficult for Congress to respond to an emergency when one occurs.

Let us be clear. There is no reason to hold up Federal dollars to help people recover from a natural disaster while Congress searches for revenue or spending cuts to pay for emergency assistance.

This amendment would create a supermajority hurdle for the Senate to declare something an emergency. When people are suffering after a hurricane or a wildfire, we should not be creating additional barriers to them getting the help they need.

Congress has provided exemptions for emergency spending ever since the budget process started a pay-as-you-go system. This helps Federal dollars respond to emergencies in a more timely manner.

Importantly, the 60-vote threshold still exists for emergency legislation, meaning any bill that includes emergency spending will still face a 60-vote hurdle. There is simply no need to make getting urgently needed money out of the door one step harder. I urge my colleagues to vote no on this amendment.

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Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, this amendment is a poison pill that would defeat everything that many of us are trying to accomplish tonight in this historic budget: no reduction in childhood poverty; no expansion in childcare, pre-K, or Medicare; no investment in affordable housing or home healthcare; no paid family and medical leave; no effort to combat the existential threat of climate change; no creation of millions of good-paying jobs. Using an arbitrary inflation number, it would end all of that. This amendment must be defeated. Vote on Amendment No. 3815

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