Economic Policy

Floor Speech

ECONOMIC POLICY -- (Senate - September 11, 2008)

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, a little while ago Senator Grassley of Iowa was down on the floor critiquing Senator Obama's tax plan in some detail. Right now, I am not prepared to refute what Senator Grassley said, although I strongly disagree with his conclusions. But I did wish to talk a little bit about some of the differences I perceive between Senator McCain and the proposals he is bringing forth in terms of what Senator Obama has been talking about.

I, also, most importantly, wish to make the point--and I think Senator McCain would be upfront in admitting--that if he is elected President, what we are going to be seeing is 4 more years of the policies we have seen in this country for the last 8 years, which have been a disaster for the middle class and working families of this country. I wish to spend a few moments on that.

Since President Bush has been in office, nearly 6 million middle-class Americans have slipped out of the middle class and are now in poverty. I can tell you that all over this country--in my State of Vermont but all over this country--people who used to believe they were securely in the middle class, people who looked to the future with optimism, are now lining up in front of emergency food shelves because the wages they are earning are simply not enough to sustain their families. We are seeing a run on emergency food shelves all over America from working families.

I can tell you that in Vermont and throughout the northern tier of this country, people are frightened to death about the coming winter because in many instances they simply do not have the money to pay the fuel bills which will keep their homes warm this winter.

Since George W. Bush has been in office, median household income has declined by over $2,100 for working-age Americans. That is a huge drop.

Since President Bush has been in office, over 4 million Americans have lost their pensions. People who have worked their entire lives at a company with the expectation that when they retired there would be a defined pension plan available to them--that has not happened in 4 million instances.

Since George W. Bush has been President, 7 million Americans have lost their health insurance and the cost of health care has soared and more and more people are underinsured.

Since President Bush has been in office, more than 3 million manufacturing jobs have been lost, as corporate America has thrown people out on the street, moved to China, moved to Vietnam, moved to any country where they can pay people a few pennies an hour.

Since George W. Bush has been in office, nearly half a million jobs have been lost over the last 6 months alone, and the unemployment rate today is over 6 percent.

I ask you: Do we need to continue these economic policies which have been such a disaster for the middle class and working families in our country? Do we need 4 more years of these disastrous economic policies?

Since George W. Bush has been President, total consumer debt has more than doubled. Everybody knows that. Everybody we know almost is in debt. We have a personal savings rate in this country today which is zero.

Since President Bush has been in office, home foreclosures are the highest on record. There are huge numbers of foreclosures all over this country. In 2007, the typical American family paid over $1,700 more on their mortgage payments.

Is that a record, is that a series of policies that this country wants to continue for another 4 years? I think not--not for ordinary people. If you are a millionaire or a billionaire, I could understand that but certainly not for the average American family.

Since George W. Bush has been President, Americans are now paying $2,100 more for gasoline, $200 more for food, $1,500 more on childcare expenses, $1,000 more for a college education, $350 more for health insurance, $600 more for afterschool costs, and so forth.

The bottom line is, the Bush economic policies have been a disaster for the middle class and for working families and the only people who have benefited from these policies are the people on the top. I do not believe we need a President in Mr. McCain who is going to emulate these economic policies to the detriment of tens of millions of working families.

When Bill Clinton was in office--and I have to tell you, as an Independent, I had strong disagreements with President Clinton on a number of issues, including his trade policies, but when President Clinton was in office, 22.7 million new jobs were created over that 8-year period. That is a strong record of job creation. Since President Bush has been in office, we have created fewer than 6 million new jobs. Mr. President, 22.7 million, fewer than 6 million, that is a real difference.

Under President Clinton, 6 million Americans were lifted out of poverty. That is pretty good. Under President George W. Bush, over the same period of time, 6 million Americans have slipped out of the middle class and into poverty. Under President Clinton, 6 million people rise above poverty; under President Bush, 6 million more Americans slip into poverty.

Are those the economic policies we want to continue for another 4 years? We have a national debt right now which is an incredible disgrace. It is a debt we are leaving to our kids and our grandchildren. I always find it ironic that our Republican friends pose as the party of fiscal responsibility. Yes, they are staying up nights worrying about earmarks, worrying about everything.

Under President George W. Bush, the national debt has increased by $3 trillion. We are closing in on $10 trillion. Under President Clinton, we had recordbreaking surpluses as far as the eye could see.

I think there is a real difference between the economic policies we have seen under President Bush over the last 8 years and the economic policies we saw under President Clinton the previous 8 years. The difference is that under President Clinton, the middle class grew and expanded, poverty went down. Under President Bush, the middle class shrunk, poverty went up.

But I have to be honest. Under President Bush, there have been people who have done very well. While 90 percent of the American people have seen their incomes go down in the last 8 years, we do have to acknowledge that the people on top are not only doing well, they are doing fantastically well. As an economic stratum among the top 1 percent, those folks are doing better than at any time since the 1920s. In fact, the wealthiest 15,000 American families received a 57-percent increase in income under President Bush.

We now have--and we do not talk about it too much--the absurd situation that the top one-tenth of 1 percent earn more income than the bottom 50 percent. Now, I know a lot of folks get up here and they talk about family values and they talk about morality. Let me go on record as saying I believe it is immoral that the top one-tenth of 1 percent earn more income than the bottom 50 percent.

While the middle class shrinks and poverty increases, the average income of the top 400--top 400--American tax filers--and that represents 3 out of every 1 million taxpayers of this country--has more than doubled under President George W. Bush, going from a mere $104 million in 2002--how do you get by on a mere $104 million? They were scraping by. But the good news is, by 2005, that $104 million went up to $214 million a year.

Adding insult to injury, the effective tax rate of the richest 400 people, whose incomes are exploding, has nearly dropped in half, from 30 percent in 1995 to only 18 percent in 2005, because of the Bush tax cuts for the rich.

It is not just income; it is wealth, also. The wealth--that is the accumulated income of the richest 400 Americans--has also soared under President Bush, going from a mere--now, we are talking about 400 families. Mr. President, 400 families had an aggregate wealth of $290 billion. When President Bush came in, their wealth was $290 billion, and it went to $1.5 trillion by the year 2006--$1.5 trillion for 400 Americans, and in our country today, we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any country on Earth. We have 46 million Americans without any health insurance.

I raise these issues to talk about what is going on in our society today economically, to point out that the policies of President George W. Bush have very clearly worked if you are a millionaire or a billionaire. They have been a disaster for you if you are in the middle class or a working person.

I commend Senator McCain for being pretty honest and straightforward in saying he wants to continue those policies: more tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, more tax breaks for the largest corporations in our country, more efforts to privatize Social Security, more efforts to cut back on programs desperately needed by working families and low-income people.

So the thrust of what I wished to say this evening--and I was compelled to come down here because I heard Senator Grassley speaking before; and Senator Grassley, as I indicated earlier, was very critical of Senator Obama's tax policies, and I disagree with Senator Grassley's conclusion. But I think if one is going to talk about Senator Obama's tax policies, it is important to talk about Senator McCain's overall economic policies which are going to be 4 more years of Bush's policies. This country--at least the middle class of this country, in my view--cannot survive 4 more years of those policies. So that is about all I wanted to say this evening.

I thank you, and I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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