Making Further Continuing Appropriations for the Fiscal Year 2007

MAKING FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 2007 -- (Senate - February 14, 2007)

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THE BUDGET

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, the Federal budget is more than a long list of numbers which, in this case, adds up to about $2.9 trillion. The Federal budget, similar to any family budget or any company budget, is a statement of values and priorities. In fact, the Federal budget, in many ways, is a statement of what our country is all about.

We would all find it irresponsible and strange if a family we knew spent all of its money on an expensive vacation but forgot to put aside money for the mortgage or the rent and suddenly the family and their kids found themselves out on the street. We would say: My goodness, that is irresponsible. The family was spending money where they shouldn't have been and not spending it where they should.

Preparing the Federal budget and analyzing the Federal budget is exactly the same process. It is about spending the money of the people of the United States of America. It is about deciding where we should spend it and where we should not spend it. It is looking at the American people as a family. It is about taking a hard look at the needs of our people and prioritizing the budget in an intelligent and a rational way.

Let me take a quick glance at the economic reality facing the middle class, the working families of our country, tens and tens of millions of Americans and their kids.

Since President Bush has been in office, more than 5 million Americans have slipped into poverty, including over 1 million children. Not only does the United States of America have the highest rate of poverty of any major country on Earth, we also shamefully have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, with almost 18 percent of our children living in poverty. Today, 37 million Americans live in poverty and 13 million are children.

Last year, in the richest Nation in the history of the world, 35 million of our fellow Americans struggled to put food on the table. The Agriculture Department recently reported that the number of the poorest, hungriest Americans keep rising. In America today, hunger is a growing problem.

We have a crisis in our Nation in terms of affordable housing. Millions of working families in my State of Vermont and all over this country are paying 50 to 60 percent of their limited incomes for housing. And there are, as we well know, other families who are either living in their cars or living out on the streets--in some cases, with their children--in America.

Last year, there were 1.2 million home foreclosures in this country, an increase of 42 percent since 2005.

The cost of energy has rapidly risen since President Bush has been in office. Oil prices have more than doubled and gasoline prices have gone up by 70 percent since January of 2001. This increase in energy prices, in gas prices, is putting a huge strain on people from all over this country, including workers from rural States such as Vermont, who have to travel long distances to get to their jobs.

As is well known, many middle-class families in our country today are finding it increasingly difficult to afford the escalating costs of a college education with average tuition and other costs increasing rapidly with the result that many families are now saying: We can't send our kids to college, while other young people are graduating college deeply in debt.

In America today, millions of our workers are working longer hours for lower wages, and median income for working-age families has declined for 5 years in a row. Today, incredible as it may sound, the personal savings rate is below zero, which has not happened since the Great Depression. In other words, all over this country working people and people in the middle class are purchasing groceries, they are purchasing gas at the pump, they are purchasing other basic necessities through their credit cards and, in the process, are going deeper and deeper into debt.

Over the last 6 years, we have lost in this country 3 million manufacturing jobs, often good-paying manufacturing jobs, including 10,000 in my small State of Vermont. Many of the new jobs that are available to those displaced workers, if they are lucky enough to find new jobs, will pay wages and benefits substantially lower than the jobs they have lost.

It is no secret that in America today our health care system is disintegrating. There is little dispute about that. Health care costs are soaring. Today, we have 46.6 million Americans with zero health insurance, an increase of 6.8 million since President Bush has been in office.

Today, 3 million fewer American workers have pension coverage than when President Bush took office and half of private-sector American workers have no pension coverage whatsoever.

Throughout our country, American workers who now work the longest hours of any people in the industrialized world--husbands working long hours, wives working long hours, people being stressed out by having to work so hard to earn the living they need to pay for their basic needs--are finding it harder and harder to come up with jobs, to get jobs which provide them a decent amount of vacation time. The 2-week vacation is something many workers no longer can have in this country.

While the middle class is shrinking and while poverty is increasing in our country, there is another reality taking place. That is that the wealthiest 1 percent, the people at the very top of the economic ladder, have not had it so good since the 1920s. The middle class is shrinking, poverty is increasing, and the people on the top are doing phenomenally well.

According to Forbes magazine, the selective net worth of the wealthiest 400 Americans increased by $120 billion last year to $1.25 trillion; 400 families, $1.25 trillion in worth. The 400 wealthiest Americans are worth an unbelievable amount of money and their wealth is soaring.

Sadly, however, the United States today has the most unfair distribution of wealth and income of any major country and the gap between the very wealthy and everyone else is growing wider. This was a country formed around egalitarian principles--we are all in it together. When one goes up, others go up. Yet what we are seeing today in an almost unprecedented way is the people on the top making out like bandits, earning huge increases in their incomes, in their wealth, while the middle class shrinks and poverty is increasing.

Today the wealthiest 13,000 families in our country own nearly as much income as do the bottom 20 million families. That is 13,000 compared to 20 million. And the wealthiest 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent.

I have given a brief sketch of the economy in terms of how it impacts the middle class and working families of our country. Let me, within that context of what is happening to tens of millions of Americans, take a look at the President's budget.

At a time of a major health care crisis, with more and more Americans uninsured or underinsured, the President's budget would cut Medicare and Medicaid by $280 billion over the next decade, lowering the quality of health care for approximately 43 million senior citizens and people with disabilities who depend on Medicare and more than 50 million Americans who rely on Medicaid.

At a time when our childcare and early childhood education system are totally inadequate to meet the needs of working parents, the Bush budget reduces the number of children receiving childcare assistance by 300,000. Childcare in crisis. The President's response: Deny childcare to 300,000 children.

In addition, the President's budget provides a $100 million cut for the Head Start program at a time when only about one-half of the children eligible for this important and excellent program actually participate in it due to a lack of funding. Huge numbers of kids cannot get into Head Start. The President's response: Cut Head Start funding.

While hunger in this country, as I mentioned earlier, is shamefully increasing, the President's budget denies food stamps to 280,000 families and eliminates nutrition assistance to over 400,000 senior citizens, mothers, and newborn children.

We are in a war in Iraq. We are in a war in Afghanistan. The number of our veterans is increasing. Twenty-two thousand have been wounded, many seriously. Many will come back to this country with post-traumatic stress disorder. Yet the President has significantly cut funding for the VA over a period of years, and some years ago made hundreds of thousands of veterans ineligible to get VA health care.

In this great country, with so many people struggling desperately to keep their heads above water, we should not be cutting back on health care. We should not be cutting back on nutritional benefits. We should not be cutting back on Head Start, affordable housing, the needs of our veterans, and educational opportunities for middle-class families. That is what we should not be doing.

This is especially true when the President's budget provides $739 billion in tax breaks over the next decade to households with incomes exceeding $1 million per year. The average tax break for this group of millionaires will total $162,000 by the year 2012.

Let me be very blunt. In my view it is wrong, in my view it is immoral to give huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires--the people who need them the least--while cutting back on the needs of the middle-class and working families of our country. That is wrong.

Is this budget, the President's budget, a reflection of the values of the people of our country? I do not believe that. I do not believe ordinary Americans think it is right and appropriate to give tax breaks to billionaires and then provide inadequately for our veterans, for our children, and for our seniors. That is not, in my view, what America is about.

We are told over and over again we do not have the money to reduce childhood poverty in this country. We are told we do not have the funds to wipe out the disgrace of hunger in America. We are told we do not have enough money to make sure the young people who graduate from high school in this country, who are excited about going to college, will be able to do so without coming out deeply in debt.

We do not have the money to help those families. Yet--yet--while we turn our backs on the middle-class and working families of our country, it appears we have plenty of money for the millionaires and billionaires of this country. We have tens of billions, in fact, to shower on those who need it the least, yet we have nothing, and we are cutting back on the programs, for those who need it most.

Included in the President's budget, amazingly, is the complete repeal of the estate tax which would take effect at the end of 2010. As you know, the complete repeal of this tax would benefit only the top two-tenths of 1 percent of the American people. Let me repeat that. The complete repeal of the estate tax would benefit solely the upper two-tenths of 1 percent of the American population.

These are families, of course, who already are millionaires and billionaires, and these are families who in the current economy have been doing exceedingly well. In other words, 99.8 percent of Americans would not benefit by one nickel from the complete repeal of the estate tax, as proposed by the President.

According to the President's budget, this repeal of the estate tax would reduce receipts for the Treasury by more than $91 billion over the next 5 years and more than $442 billion over the next decade. But the long-term damage to our fiscal solvency is even worse.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, repealing the estate tax would cost over $1 trillion from 2012 to 2021--over $1 trillion. In other words, if the President's plan to permanently repeal the estate tax succeeds, the children and family members of the very few most privileged families in America will reap a massive tax break. Instead of closing the gap between the rich and the poor, instead of addressing the huge national debt and deficit problems we have, we make both situations worse by fully repealing the estate tax.

I have brought with me a few charts to demonstrate who are the winners and losers in the President's budget. Obviously, fortunes go up and down, and we do not know what anyone is going to be worth tomorrow, let alone in the coming years. And the estimates I am giving to you and the charts I am using are based on two reports.

The first is an April 2006 report by United for a Fair Economy and Public Citizen, entitled ``Spending Millions to Save Billions,' reflecting the financial position of the wealthiest 400 Americans in this country as compiled by Forbes magazine from the year 2005.

The second is a May 30, 2006 report from the House Government Reform Committee, entitled ``Estimated Tax Savings of Oil Company CEOs.'

Of course, no one can predict what the numbers will be in the years to come. But these are the best figures available to us at this time.

Let me go to the first chart. The granddaddy of all of the winners under the Bush budget is none other than the heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune. If the estate tax was completely repealed, the entire Walton family would receive an estimated tax break of $32.7 billion--that is with a ``B'--$32.7 billion in tax relief for one family which today happens to be one of the wealthiest families in this country already.

Meanwhile, in contrast, the President's budget proposes to cut Medicaid by $28 billion over the next decade, driving up the cost of health care for tens of millions of Americans. In other words, while one of the wealthiest families in this country gets a tax break of over $30 billion, tens of millions of Americans--children, seniors--will suffer. Now, that may make sense to someone, that may appear to be fair to someone, but it sure does not make sense to me. In other words, if the President's proposed budget passes, millions of Americans will lose, including some of the most vulnerable people in our country, while one very wealthy family wins.

A second major beneficiary of the President's tax cuts is the heirs of the Mars candy bar fortune. Now, I like Snickers as much as anybody. And I do not want to be seen here as attacking Snickers, one of the basic food groups of American society. But the family that owns Mars is slated to receive an estimated $11.7 billion tax break if the estate tax is fully repealed.

Mr. President, $11.7 billion for the Mars family. They are winners. Yet, who are the losers? As I mentioned earlier, all over this country there are waiting lines for veterans to get into VA hospitals. We are not keeping our promises to the veterans. Veterans lose while one family wins big time. I think that is wrong.

Another major winner in the President's budget is the Cox family. They are the heirs to the Cox cable fortune. They will gain $9.7 billion if the estate tax is repealed. Meanwhile, while the Cox family would receive almost $10 billion in tax breaks, the President wants to cut funding for education by $1.5 billion.

The President keeps talking about No Child Left Behind while his budget continues to leave, in fact, millions of children behind. In Vermont and all over this country, school districts are struggling with grossly inadequate funding for special education, which the President also wants to cut. We do not have the money to fund special education to improve public education in America. We do not have that money. But we do have $9.7 billion for one family, the Mars family.

Another major beneficiary of the President's budget is the Nordstrom family, owners of the upscale department store chain. By repealing the estate tax, the Nordstrom family stands to receive an estimated $826 million tax break, according to the April 2006 report from United for a Fair Economy. Tax breaks of over $800 million for an enormously wealthy family, and yet we see a $630 million cut in the President's budget for the Community Services Block Grant Program.

As you know, the Community Services Block Grant Program provides the infrastructure necessary to deliver services to 15 million of the lowest income people in our country. These are people who are hungry. When they are hungry, they go to the community action program. When they are homeless, they go to the community action program. When they do not have any money to buy food, they go to the community action program. We are going to cut back on that program, but we do have $826 million in tax breaks for the Nordstrom family.

Another major beneficiary of the Bush budget is the family of Ernest Gallo, who would receive a $468 million tax break--$468 million. Meanwhile, the President proposes to cut $420 million from the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, the LIHEAP program.

According to the latest available data, 5.4 million senior citizens on fixed incomes and low-income families with kids receive help paying their heating bills through this program each and every year. In the State of Vermont, trust me, it gets very cold, and we have a lot of people in Vermont and throughout this country who are dependent upon the LIHEAP program. But, as a nation, the President suggests: No, no, we have to cut $420 million from LIHEAP, which impacts the lives of low-income senior citizens. But--guess what--we do have $468 million available as a tax break for the Gallo family.

The former CEO of ExxonMobil does very well from the President's tax breaks. As some will remember, while the cost of gas at the pumps was soaring, while the profits of ExxonMobil were soaring, the company decided, in its wisdom and generosity, to provide a $400 million retirement package for their departing CEO, Mr. Lee Raymond. Now the President wants to reward Mr. Raymond by providing his estate with an estimated $164 million tax break. On the other hand, there is a program called the Commodities Supplemental Food Program which provides a package of high-quality, nutritious food to some 480,000 seniors, mothers, and children. The President wants to eliminate this program. He is saying to the 4,000 seniors in Vermont who benefit from this program, the almost half a million seniors, mothers, and kids who benefit from this package of food once a month: We in America don't have enough money to provide for you who are hungry, for you who are old. We can't do it. But if you are the former CEO of ExxonMobil, if you have a $400 million bonus at the end of your career, guess what. Your family will get a $164 million tax break.

As a member of the Senate Budget Committee, it appears to me that the choice we as a Congress are facing and that the American people are facing is pretty clear. Do we continue to shower huge tax breaks on millionaires and billionaires, people who are already doing phenomenally well, while we cut back on the needs of the middle-class working families and the most vulnerable people in this country? It all comes down to the phrase ``which side are we on.' Are we on the side of those people who make huge campaign contributions to Congress and the White House, or are we on the side of tens of millions of working families, struggling hard to keep their heads above water?

That is the choice we face. As a member of the Budget Committee, I think the answer is pretty obvious. I will not be voting to provide a tax break to the heirs of the Wal-Mart fortune. Rather, I will be fighting to substantially increase financial aid for low- and middle-class families so that every American, regardless of income, can receive a college education. I will not support another tax cut for the former CEO of ExxonMobil and his family. Instead, I will be voting to give support to working families all over this country who are desperately seeking quality and affordable childcare.

If, as a nation, we are serious about addressing the long neglected needs of the middle-class and working people and creating a fairer and more egalitarian society, we have to invest in education, health care, housing, and our infrastructure. We have to deal with the crisis of global warming and sustainable energy, as well as many other areas. We also have to reduce our national debt. Given that reality, Congress must develop the courage to stand up to the big money interests, to the wealthiest families. We must roll back the tax breaks given to the wealthiest 1 percent, and we must demand that fortunate people rejoin American society and understand that like everybody else in this country, they are part of America and not a special breed. If we are to keep faith with our children, our seniors, our veterans, and with those people who have no health insurance, we can do no less. I look forward to working with my colleagues to make sure we do just that.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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