American Jobs And Closing Tax Loopholes Act Of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, every day it becomes harder and harder for me to listen to my Republican friends who race down to the Senate breathlessly telling the American people how concerned they are about the $13 trillion national debt we have and how ``we have to get our financial house in order.'' That is what they tell us every single day. But a funny thing happened: under the leadership of President George W. Bush, these very same Republicans turned a recordbreaking Federal surplus left by President Clinton into recordbreaking deficits. Back then, as we all recall, not so many years ago, their rallying cry was ``deficits don't matter.'' That was articulated by Vice President Dick Cheney. This ``deficits don't matter'' philosophy gave us two wars that were not paid for, including the war in Iraq, which may end up costing us $3 trillion. It gave us $700 billion in tax breaks--no worry about paying for those tax breaks that went to the very wealthiest people in our country. It gave us $400 billion in an unpaid-for prescription drug Medicare Part D bill. And, of course, it gave us a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street developed by President Bush and his Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Paulson. No worry; in those days, we did not have to pay for any of that. It is OK, just add it onto the debt of our kids and our grandchildren.

But it seems our Republican friends recently, about a year and three-quarters ago, had a change of heart. Coincidentally, that was when President
Obama came into office. I am sure it was just a coincidence, but now it appears that deficits do matter. For 8 years, deficits didn't matter. Now they do matter. Now they are telling us we cannot afford to extend unemployment benefits to over 2 million Americans who lost their jobs in the worst recession in modern history. They tell us we just cannot afford to invest in our economy to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure or transform our energy system, which would create, over a period of years, millions of good-paying jobs. We can't do that. We don't have the money to do that.

The Republican hypocrisy is about to reach a whole new level, literally, today. In the name of fiscal responsibility, while they oppose every effort to help the middle-class and working families of our country, today an amendment is going to come onto the floor which is specifically designed to provide huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. In other words, there is no money available to help desperate families who have lost their jobs, but there is all kinds of money to provide huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.

Finally, last night, as a result of the appointment of a new Senator from West Virginia, we got the 60 votes we needed to end the Republican filibuster so that we can extend unemployment benefits. But instead of allowing this bill to pass yesterday, as common decency would allow, so we can begin to get the money out to those families who are wondering right now how they are going to buy the food they need, pay the rent, pay the mortgage, the Republicans are forcing the Senate to wait another 30 hours before final passage.

Adding insult to injury, my good friend from South Carolina, Senator DeMint, wants to suspend the rules so the Senate can take up legislation to permanently repeal the estate tax. This, even for the Senate, is really weird and really extraordinary. In the midst of telling us how serious the deficit is, how serious the national debt is, these folks want to give tax breaks to billionaires by permanently repealing the estate tax and, as this chart shows, adding more than $1 trillion to the deficit over 10 years. That is a very unusual way to deal with our deficit crisis, by adding $1 trillion to the national debt over a 10-year period. Furthermore, as this chart shows--and maybe this is the most important point I want to make in my brief remarks--only a tiny fraction of estates from death in 2009 owed any estate tax. In fact, 99.7 percent of Americans would not receive a nickel from Senator DeMint's legislation.

Four years ago, every Republican except two voted to completely eliminate the estate tax, a tax that has been in existence since 1916 and impacts only the very richest families in America, the top three-tenths of 1 percent. Let me tell you who the major beneficiaries of this huge tax break would be. Would it be the average middle-class worker who during the Bush years saw a $2,200 decline in his income, people who really need the money? No, they are not being helped by Mr. DeMint or the repeal of the estate tax. Would it be a small businessperson, the people who are creating almost all of the new jobs in our economy? Would small business be helped when we repeal the estate tax? No, not those guys. Would it be a single mom who wants to send her kid to college for the first time in their family's lifetime? No, that single mom is not going to be helped, not anybody on Social Security, not the people who need the help the most. They don't get one penny from the repeal of the estate tax, as Senator DeMint is proposing.

Who benefits? Who are the beneficiaries of the estate tax or, as my Republican friends and their pollsters like to refer to it, the death tax? If we pass what Senator DeMint wants us to do today, completely repeal the estate tax, it would provide an estimated $32.7 billion tax break for the Walton family, the founders and owners of Walmart--a $32.7 billion tax break for a family that is worth almost $87 billion. Some people here may think the Walton family--worth almost $100 billion--is in desperate need of a tax break at a time when we have a $13 trillion national debt. I am not one of those people. I do not think they do.

But it is not just the Walton family, obviously, who will benefit. Other very wealthy families will. Do you remember those hedge fund managers on Wall Street who made $1 billion a year or several billion a year? They are going to benefit. Those are the guys--the people who drove us into the recession, who made huge amounts of money gambling on Wall Street. They will be very happy if that amendment passes. They benefit. The Mars candy family will get an $11 billion tax break; the Cox cable family, $9 billion tax breaks.

Remember, this law has been in existence since 1916. And remember again, it only benefits the top three-tenths of 1 percent, and 99.7 percent of the American people, working people, middle-class, lower income people, upper middle-class people, don't benefit one nickel from this tax break which costs us $1 trillion over a 10-year period.

At a time when our country has a $13 trillion national debt, the highest level of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, a crumbling infrastructure, a desperate need to transform our energy system--I see Senator Boxer, who has been a leader in that effort--it is beyond comprehension to me that anyone at this moment in American history would advocate huge tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires.

This concept of the estate tax was developed by Teddy Roosevelt. He was concerned about two things. He was obviously concerned about raising revenue for the Federal Government, but he was also concerned about making sure we did not maintain an oligarchy in the United States where billionaire families--people worth tens of billions of dollars now--are able to give away their fortunes to their own heirs. He believed in a meritocracy and that it was appropriate that those people pay a fair share of taxes.

This is what he said:

The absence of effective state and especially national restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power ..... Therefore I [Teddy Roosevelt] believe in a ..... graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing in amount with the size of the estate.

Teddy Roosevelt, 1910. I think our Republican friends have kind of disowned Teddy Roosevelt, and we don't hear him quoted terribly much anymore.

In order to sell this concept of repealing the estate tax to the American people, Republican pollsters--I have to admit, we have to be honest about this--have done a very good job. They framed this tax break for billionaires into a death tax. So people on the street in Burlington, VT, come up to me and say: BERNIE, I want to leave my kids $20,000. Why are they going to tax me? The Republican pollsters have done a very good job and their lobbyists have done a very good job in misleading the public. As usual, Republicans are using the old tactic of pretending to worry about the needs of ordinary people as a smokescreen to serve the wealthy special interests.

That is what they do very well. If you are in the middle class and you want to leave your family $1 million or $2 million or $100,000, this doesn't apply to you; you don't benefit one nickel. This is for millionaires and billionaires.

The other thing they talk about is, we have to preserve the family farm and the estate tax is wiping out family farms. I am a strong advocate of family-based agriculture, and in terms of the preservation of family farms, the American Farm Bureau was asked to come up with an example of one single family farm being lost as a result of the estate tax. They could not find one farm that had to be sold as a result of the estate tax. This is not legislation to help family farmers. This is legislation to help provide tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires.

Let me quote from an article that appeared in the New York Times July 8, 2001:

Neil Harl, an Iowa State University economist whose tax advice has made him a household name among Midwest farmers, said he had searched far and wide but had never found a case in which a farm was lost because of estate taxes. ``It's a myth,'' Mr. Harl said.

As it happens, I called up Professor Harl this afternoon, just a few hours ago. Interestingly, he told me he has conducted over 3,000 seminars on the
estate tax and agriculture. This guy is an expert on the issue. I just wanted to get an update from him. What he told me 2 hours ago is that after studying this issue for decades, he has not heard of one family farm that had to be sold because of the estate tax--not one.

When my Republican friends talk about preserving the family farm--something we have to do--this estate tax issue has nothing to do with that.

In terms of small business, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, as this chart indicates, has estimated that only 80 small businesses and farm estates throughout the country paid an estate tax in 2009, representing 0.003 percent of all estates.

This legislation is not for the family farmer. This legislation is not for small business. This legislation is specifically designed to provide huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country, millionaires and billionaires, at the same time as we have a $13 trillion national debt.

Let me conclude by saying this.

We have heard our Republican friends week after week, month after month, coming down to the floor of the Senate and saying, no, we cannot extend unemployment benefits to desperate Americans all over this country who, through no fault of their own, have lost their jobs. We cannot afford to do that.

Finally yesterday we got the votes to go forward. But having said that, that they cannot help working families and people who have lost their jobs, they are now coming down to the floor and saying, we desperately need to give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.

You know, Woody Guthrie had a song some years ago. The title was: ``Whose Side Are You On?'' The Republicans have answered that loudly and clearly. But when it comes to the needs of the unemployed and uninsured, when it comes to protect the interests of the struggling middle class, the Republicans are deficit hawks. We know they are going to go after them. But if you are a billionaire family who needs a huge tax break that will cost $1 trillion over 10 years, they are on your side.

I yield the floor.

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, this is an absurd amendment. This amendment would provide $1 trillion in tax breaks to the top three-tenths of 1 percent, and 99.7 percent of the American people do not get a nickel. Despite all the rhetoric we hear around here about fiscal responsibility, this isn't paid for. It is another $1 trillion over 10 years to our national debt.

I yield to the Senator from Michigan.

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