Conressional Budget for the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2008
Floor Speech
CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008 -- (Senate - March 21, 2007)
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me begin by thanking Chairman Kent Conrad and his staff for the very hard work they have done in crafting the important budget resolution that is before us. I know of their work because I am a member of that committee and have seen how much effort it has taken.
Mr. President, as you know, a budget is more than a long list of numbers and this budget certainly has many numbers and it adds up to a huge sum of money. But after all is said and done, a budget is a statement about our values, about our priorities, and what we as a nation stand for. That is what a budget is about. In my view, the time is long overdue for the Congress in its budget to get its priorities right, and by that I mean to begin to stand up for the vast majority of our people--the middle class, the working families of this country--rather than just the large multinational corporations and the wealthiest people in our Nation who year after year have had their way on budget initiatives.
Mr. President, when we analyze the merits of a Federal budget, we have to begin by taking a very serious look at the economic reality which faces the American people. In other words, is the budget we are working on now reflective of the needs of our people? Is that what we are doing?
On many occasions, members of the Bush administration have come before the Budget Committee, of which I am a member, and they have given us their view of how our economy is doing. I am astounded each and every time by their worldly view with regard to the budget. We have heard members of the administration telling us how wonderful the economy is doing, how marvelous it is, and how the economy is booming. I sit there, and I think millions of Americans sit there, and they begin to scratch their heads and they say: What world are these people living in?
I know that in my own State of Vermont, when we do town meetings, we always talk about the economy; how well the middle class is doing. I always ask people: How do you think the middle class is doing right now--doing well, not so well? With very few exceptions, people tell me that the middle class in this country, in the State of Vermont, in their own lives, that people are struggling economically to keep their heads above water. I find it hard to understand how people from the Bush administration can come forward and tell us just how great the economy is doing. I really wonder what world they are living in.
In my view, and I think the facts substantiate my view, the economic reality facing the vast majority of our working people is that the middle class is shrinking, that people today all over our country are working longer hours for lower wages.
When I was a kid growing up, the expectation was that one person in a family--in those days, almost always the man--could work 40 hours a week and earn enough money to pay the bills--one person, 40 hours a week. How many middle-class families do we know today where one person is working 40 hours a week? The answer is, likely not very many. Most of the middle-class families we know are seeing husbands working very long hours, wives working very long hours, and on occasion kids working to help save some money for college. In fact, at the end of the day, what we have to understand is that the American worker today is working longer hours than the people of any other industrialized country. We surpassed the Japanese a few years ago.
We also have to understand, when we talk about a shrinking middle class, that many millions of American workers today are working longer hours for lower wages than used to be the case. In Vermont, and throughout this country, in fact, parents are wondering why, despite a huge increase in technology, despite huge growth in worker productivity, there is a strong likelihood that for the first time in modern American history our children will have a lower standard of living than we do. The American dream has always been about parents working hard with the hope that their kids, the next generation, will do better than they have done. That was the case with my parents and in the case of millions of families in this country.
Unfortunately, now we are in a situation unique in modern history where, unless we turn this economy around, what we will see is our children having a lower standard of living than we do.
I wonder how the Bush administration can tell us how great the economy is doing when more than 5 million Americans have slipped into poverty since the President has been in office, including over 1 million children. That is not a booming economy.
How can the economy be doing well when median income for working-age families has declined for 5 years in a row and when the personal savings rate in this country now is below zero, something which has not happened since the Great Depression?
How can our economy be doing well when almost 7 million Americans have lost their health insurance since President Bush has been in office and when, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 35 million Americans struggled to put food on the table last year and hunger in America is increasing? If hunger is increasing, that, to my mind, does not sound like a booming economy.
How can people talk about our economy doing so well when college students are graduating with about $20,000 in debt and some 400,000 qualified high school students don't go to college because they can't afford it? We all talk about education, education, education. Hundreds of thousands of young people cannot afford to go to college.
How can our economy be doing great when home foreclosures have skyrocketed to the highest level in nearly four decades, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, and when we have lost over 3 million good-paying manufacturing jobs since President Bush has been in office?
How can our economy be doing so great when 3 million fewer American workers have pension coverage today than when President Bush took office, and half of private sector American workers have no pension coverage whatsoever?
When the President of the United States and his administration tell us the economy is doing great, well, they are partially right. While the economy is not doing well for the middle class or working families of our country, it is doing very well for the wealthiest people in America. That is the truth.
Today, the wealthiest people in our country are becoming much wealthier. In fact, they have not had it so good since the 1920s. That is the reality. The middle class is shrinking, poverty is increasing, the people at the top have never had it so good since the 1920s, and we have, as a nation, the dubious distinction of now having, by far, the widest gap between the rich and the poor of any major country on earth.
Today, the upper 1 percent of families in America have not had it so good since the 1920s. According to Forbes Magazine, the collective net worth of the wealthiest 400 Americans increased by $120 billion last year to $1.25 trillion. The 400 wealthiest Americans are now worth $1.25 trillion at the same time that hunger in America is increasing and 5 million more of our citizens have slipped into poverty.
I have given this broad overview of the economy in order to place the discussion of our budget in what I think is a sensible context; that is, if the wealthiest people in America are becoming wealthier while the middle class is shrinking and poverty is increasing, what the budget should be about is responding to that reality. That is the reality to which the budget should be responding.
The President of the United States, in his budget proposal, told us what he thought. He said in his budget that, despite the growing health care crisis in our country, he was going to cut Medicare and Medicaid by $280 billion over the next decade and that he was going to inadequately fund the Children's Health Insurance Program. Today, the United States is the only nation in the industrialized world that does not guarantee health care to all its people. We have millions and millions of children who have no health insurance, and this President refuses to adequately fund the health insurance program for children.
Despite the reality that we have 23,000 wounded coming home from Iraq and tens of thousands more who will be coming home with post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury, the President, in his budget, once again inadequately funded the needs of our veterans, as he has done year after year. In fact, since President Bush has been in office, an estimated 1 million veterans have been denied access to health services at the VA.
Despite a horrendous crisis in childcare access and affordability for working families, so that all over this country working people are desperately trying to locate quality, affordable childcare while they are at work, the President, in his budget, reduced the number of children receiving childcare assistance by 300,000 and he cut funding for the Head Start Program.
Despite millions of homeowners paying outrageously high property taxes, the President has, in his budget, further retreated from the Federal commitment to special education and he has cut funding for that program. This will result in a lowering of the quality of education for all of our children, including those with disabilities, and an increase in property taxes. This is a very serious problem in my State of Vermont, where towns are divided every March when they go over the budget.
People understand the needs of the schools. They understand the high cost of mainstreaming kids with disabilities. Yet people cannot afford higher and higher property taxes. We as a Congress have to fully fund special education and keep the commitment we have made to school districts all over this country. Yet the President, in his budget, cuts funding for special education.
Interestingly enough, while cutting programs for the middle class and working families of our country, while inadequately funding the needs of our veterans, of our children, and of our senior citizens, the President has
reached the conclusion in his budget that we do have enough money as a government to provide enormous tax breaks to the wealthiest people in our society--$739 billion in tax cuts for households earning more than $1 million per year over the next decade. We can't fund the needs of our kids, the President wants to eliminate a wonderful nutrition program for low-income seniors, we can't fund special education, we don't have enough money to put into sustainable energy, we can't take care of our veterans--we just don't have enough money--but somehow the President did manage to find in his budget $739 billion in tax cuts for households earning more than $1 million per year over the next decade.
Part of the President's budget calls for a complete elimination of the estate tax, a tax which now applies only to the wealthiest three-tenths of 1 percent of our population. The elimination of this tax would provide an estimated $1 trillion in tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires between 2012 to 2021. One, just one multibillionaire family, the Walton family, which owns Wal-Mart, would receive an estimated $32 billion in tax relief--for one family. But we just don't have the money to take care of hundreds of thousands of veterans or our children or our seniors. Now, that may make sense to somebody, but that is not my sense of what moral values are about.
While the budget resolution, introduced by Chairman KENT CONRAD, which we are debating now is far from perfect, it is much more responsive to the needs of ordinary Americans than the President's. Instead of cutting back on the educational needs of this country, this budget resolution provides over $6 billion more than the President's request for education, including significant increases for Pell grants, Head Start, title I, and special education.
Instead of cutting back on health care, this budget resolution provides an increase of $2.8 billion over the President's request for health care, including strong funding for a program that I think is enormously important for rural America and that is Community Health Centers and the National Health Service. Instead of cutting back or inadequately funding the needs of our veterans, this budget resolution provides over $3 billion in increases over the President's budget for our Nation's veterans--one of the priorities that I regard most important as a member of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.
But I think over the long run we can and must do much better in establishing our budget priorities than this budget does. This budget is much better than President Bush's budget, but in my view we have a long way to go to create a budget which responds to the needs of ordinary Americans.
As an example of where I think we should be going as a nation in terms of our budget, last week I introduced the National Priorities Act which would expand the middle class, reduce the gap between the rich and the poor, and lower property taxes all over America as well as reduce the level of poverty. The basic premise of this legislation is pretty simple: We raise $130 billion in new revenue by rescinding the tax breaks that President Bush gave to the most wealthy 1 percent.
I know a lot of my colleagues do not agree with me, but I think that at a time when we have a $8.5 trillion national debt, at a time when the middle class is being squeezed, at a time when the wealthiest people in our country have never had it so good, I believe that it is time to rescind the Bush tax breaks that have been given to the wealthiest 1 percent.
What we also do is ask the Pentagon to take a hard look at their budget and cut out the waste, the fraud, the unnecessary weapons systems that currently exist. When you do that, you end up raising $130 billion of new revenue. We propose that $30 billion go to deficit reduction and we propose the other $100 billion go to address the longtime unmet needs of the middle class and working families of this country.
If as a nation we are serious about addressing the long neglected needs of the working people of America and creating a more just society, we have to change our national priorities. The wealthiest people in this country are doing just fine. They are doing really well. It is time we pay attention to working families, to the middle class, to the people who are struggling.
I appreciate very much the hard work that Senator Conrad has done and I applaud his efforts. In the coming days I will be offering several amendments that I think will make the budget bill a stronger bill. One of the amendments is pretty simple. I hear a whole lot on the floor of the Senate about the need for deficit reduction, and I share that concern. The fact that we have a $8.5 trillion national debt should be of concern to every Member of the Senate and every Member of the House. So our proposal is going to be a pretty simple one--very simple.
What we are going to propose is that we rescind all of the tax breaks given to people who earn $100 million or more--a tiny fraction of 1 percent--and that we use those savings for deficit reduction. That is it. Pretty simple. If you are in favor of deficit reduction, I hope you will support that amendment.
There is another amendment that we will also be offering. We have not worked out all the details but again what this amendment would do is rescind tax breaks for upper income people and use all of those savings to start the process of fully funding special education. All over America, people are paying higher and higher property taxes. It is certainly true in Vermont; it is certainly true in many States. The question is, Do we continue to maintain tax breaks for the most wealthy people in this country while property taxes are soaring? I say no. I say we lower property taxes, provide quality education for our kids including the kids with disabilities, and we do that by rescinding tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country.
I think we are making some progress in terms of the budget, the budget before us today, far better than what the President presented to Congress. But we still have a long way to go. I ask my colleagues to support amendments which will strengthen the middle class and working families of our country.
I yield the floor.
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