Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, as I think almost everyone knows, President Obama and the Republican leaders have reached an agreement on taxes. It is, in my view, a bad deal, and I think we can do a lot better. Tonight, I wish to speak briefly, and I think I will have some other Senators join me. Tomorrow, I intend to be back to speak a lot longer about this issue because I think this is an issue the American people want serious discussion about.

I can tell my colleagues that representing the small State of Vermont, we have received in the last 3 days thousands--thousands--of phone calls from my State and from other States, and what I will tell my colleagues is that 99 percent of those calls were against this agreement. What I wish to do tonight, briefly, and at greater length tomorrow, is to tell my colleagues why I vigorously oppose the deal that has been cut and how we have to move in a very different way if we are going to save the disappearing middle class of our country.

In my view, the American people are against this agreement. They want to hear Members of the Senate speak out against this agreement, and that is what I will do this evening.

Let me explain, very briefly, why I am opposing the agreement reached by the Republican leadership and President Obama. First, at a time when our country has a recordbreaking $13.8 trillion national debt and a collapsing middle class, it is unconscionable to me that we could support an agreement that drives up our national debt because we have given huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires who don't need it. Here is an interesting irony: In many cases, they are telling us they don't even want it. Two of the richest people in the world, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, have said: Thank you. We don't need this tax break.

This country has serious problems. Use the money on those problems, not giving billionaires a tax break.

In my own State, the founder of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Ben Cohen, said: Yes, I would like a tax break, but I don't need it. You know what.

There are millionaires all over this country who are saying the same thing.

We have been told that the extension of the tax breaks for the rich will go on for only 2 years. The Bush tax breaks for the rich will go on for 2 years. Maybe that is the case, but I personally don't believe that. I believe that given the political reality that exists in Washington, my guess is that 2 years from now, when this same debate happens again, these tax breaks for the rich will once again be extended. Our Republican colleagues have been very clear they wanted a 10-year extension. It is hard for me to believe that 2 years from now they are going to say: Oh, 2 years, that is fine. That is enough. We give up. I don't think so.

The difficulty is, we have a President who campaigned vigorously against extending these tax breaks for the rich, but those tax breaks for the rich are in this agreement. So my fear is that if the President is the Democratic nominee 2 years from now and he says: Trust me, we are going to stop these tax breaks for the rich, I think his credibility might not be too high.

So my fear is, in fact, if these Bush tax cuts for the top 2 percent, many of whom are millionaires and billionaires, are extended over a 10-year period, we are looking at a $700 billion increase in the national debt.

Secondly, extending income tax breaks for the top 2 percent is not the only unfair tax proposal in this agreement. This agreement struck by the President and the Republican leadership continues the Bush-era 15-percent tax rate on capital gains and dividends, meaning that those people who make their living off their investments will continue to pay a substantially lower tax rate than the vast majority of the people in the middle class--people such as firemen, teachers, and nurses.

On top of all that, this agreement includes a horrendous proposal regarding the estate tax, a Teddy Roosevelt initiative which was enacted in 1916. It will be celebrating its 100th birthday in a few years. Under the agreement we will be debating here, the estate tax rate, which was 55 percent under President Clinton, will decline to 35 percent under this agreement, with an exemption on the first $5 million of an individual's estate, $10 million for couples.

I suspect there are people who are watching this evening and they are saying: Oh, my goodness. I don't want to pay a 55-percent estate tax. So let me be very clear in saying this, in telling you something the Republicans do not tell you: that the estate tax applies only to the top three-tenths of 1 percent, so 99.7 percent of American families do not pay 5 cents in the estate tax. So this is not just a tax for the rich; this is a tax for the very rich.

I know many of my Republican colleagues would like to abolish, repeal the estate tax altogether, and that would cost us $1 trillion over 10 years to our national debt, but they are making significant progress by lowering the rate to 35 percent.

Does my colleague from Ohio wish to respond?

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I thank the Senator for his very strong ethics in trying to get that $250 emergency check out to senior citizens on Social Security and disabled vets--over 15 million people.

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Absolutely. We won 53 to 45, but around here the majority does not rule. The Republicans filibustered, as they almost always do on anything of substance, and we could not get the 60 votes because we did not get one Republican vote.

The point the Senator was making gets to the heart of this entire issue, which is that our friends over there are fighting vigorously for $700 billion in tax breaks for the top 2 percent--$70 billion a year for the richest people in this country. And when we say to them that senior citizens and disabled vets who are living on $14,000 or $15,000 a year need a check of $250, oh, we can't afford that. But we can afford to give a billionaire a $1 million tax break.

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That is right. Most of us--I am sure Senator Brown has received a lot of calls from people in Ohio--I know seniors who are hanging on by their fingernails, trying to pay their bills, heat their homes, pay prescription drug costs, and take care of their health care needs. And $250 will not profoundly impact people's lives, but it will help a little bit. These guys say: Sorry, we can't afford a $250 check for a senior or a disabled vet because that would cost $13 billion or $14 billion a year. But we can afford $70 billion a year to go to the top 2 percent.

Frankly, I think that is what this whole debate is about. That is what it is about.

What I want to do is continue for a moment on some of the other objections. Senator Brown made an excellent point in contrasting the priorities we are seeing in the Senate, especially from our Republican friends. We didn't get one vote--not one--for a $250 check for seniors or disabled vets. I want to continue with some of the problems that I see in this agreement struck by the President and the Republican leadership.

Some folks may have heard a bit about the so-called payroll tax holiday. What that would do is cut about $120 billion in Social Security payroll taxes for workers.

On the surface, this sounds like a great idea. Instead of paying 6.2 percent, they will be paying 4.2 percent. They might think: Hey, that is great. I am paying less in taxes. My paycheck is a bit bigger. It is a great idea.

Well, let's stop for a minute and ask: Where did this idea originally come from? Well, the truth is this payroll tax holiday originated from conservative Republicans whose ultimate goal is the destruction of Social Security.

What does that mean? Well, it is not very hard to figure out. If you are substantially cutting the amount of money that goes into Social Security by cutting back on the payroll tax, that makes Social Security less financially viable. Today, Social Security can pay out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 29 years. Those of us who believe strongly in Social Security--that it has worked extraordinarily well for the last 75 years--and want to see it work well for the next 75 years, we want to strengthen it.

I know the occupant of the Chair, the Senator from Oregon, has ideas about putting increased revenue into the Social Security trust funds. Those are the ideas we should be looking at, not cutting funding that goes into that trust fund. Furthermore, while this payroll tax holiday is a 1-year provision, and this agreement says the money will be covered, for the very first time, by Federal dollars from the Treasury going into the Social Security trust fund, which historically has gotten all of its money from the payroll tax--while the proponents of this agreement say don't worry about it, it is a 1-year agreement, I make the same argument on this point that I made on the other. A year from now, people will be discussing whether we extend that payroll tax holiday. While those of us will say Social Security needs that money and you can't expend it, our Republican friends will say you are raising taxes on workers, and you can't do that. Then what we would be talking about over a period of years is less money going into Social Security, making it less financially solvent, which is exactly what many Republicans want to do. I think that is a bad idea.

I will tell you, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, which is led by a woman named Barbara Kennelly, who used to be in the House--I know Barbara very well--says this about that provision:

Even though Social Security contributed nothing to the current economic crisis, it has been bartered in a deal that provides deficit busting tax cuts for the wealthy. Diverting $120 billion in Social Security contributions for a so-called ``tax holiday'' may sound like a good idea for workers now, but it is bad business for the program that a majority of middle-class seniors will rely upon in the future.

Conservatives have long dreamed of a payroll tax holiday because it fulfills two ideological goals, lower taxes and weakening Social Security finances. The White House claims the 2 percent payroll tax cut won't impact Social Security; however, we disagree.

There's no such thing as a ``temporary'' tax cut.

And the fear right here is that cut will, in fact, go on indefinitely.

Mr. President, I talked about the payroll tax for a moment. Let me talk about another aspect of the agreement the President signed with Republicans; that is, while some of the business tax cuts in this agreement may work well to create jobs and some may not, economists on both ends of the political spectrum believe the better way to spur the economy and create jobs is to spend money rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure.

With corporate America already sitting on close to $2 trillion in cash on hand, the problem we are seeing in our economy today is not that large corporations are taxed too highly, it is that the middle class doesn't have enough money to purchase their goods. Creating decent-paying jobs and rebuilding our infrastructure could seriously address that problem.

What we have right now, as I think you know, Mr. President, is an infrastructure that is crumbling. There are very credible estimates out there that we need to invest, in the next 5 years, several trillion dollars in rebuilding our roads, bridges, water systems, wastewater plants, our mass transportation, our railroads. China is exploding with high-speed rail. We do not have any significant high-speed rail in this country. If we are serious about creating jobs, in my view, the most effective way to do that is to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, which makes our entire country stronger, more competitive and, at the same time, short term it gives us the best bang we can get for the buck in terms of job creation. That is another issue.

Tax breaks for businesses may work; maybe they won't. But I don't think that type of investment is anywhere near as effective in terms of job creation as investing in the infrastructure.

The fifth point I want to make on why I think this agreement is not a good one: One of the positive aspects of the agreement--one that I certainly support, and I know you do, Mr. President--is the need to extend unemployment benefits for millions of workers today who face the possibility that within a few weeks those extended unemployment benefits may end. These are workers who are experiencing extraordinarily difficult times through no fault of their own, often caught up in the Wall Street crisis, but they have lost their jobs.

In various parts of this country it is awfully hard to get a job. More and more people are applying for jobs, and the jobs are not there. We have the moral responsibility to extend unemployment benefits and allow those working families the opportunity to pay their bills and give them at least a modicum of security.

Here is the point I want to make. I strongly, absolutely believe any agreement has to have an extension of unemployment benefits for at least 13 months, maybe longer. But when folks who support this agreement say we want a great compromise, we managed to get an extension of unemployment benefits there, what I would say is that for the past 40 years, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, whenever the unemployment rate has been above 7.2 percent--now we are looking at 9.8 percent--unemployment insurance has always been extended.

So this great compromise is simply doing what we have already been doing as a matter of costs for the last 40 years, when Republicans ran the Senate and when Democrats ran the Senate, with Republican Presidents and Democratic Presidents. There was a consensus that we cannot leave fellow Americans high and dry when unemployment is high. Well, unemployment today is very high. In my view, this is not a great compromise. This is simply doing what this country has done under both Democrats and Republicans for 40 years.

Mr. President, I have been mentioning my concerns about this agreement, but let me also say, absolutely, there are positive elements to this agreement. I don't want to suggest for a moment there are not. Extending middle-class tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans is something that must be done, absolutely.

As you know, during the Bush years, median family income declined by over $2,000. What we are seeing in many parts of this country is that wages are actually going down, not up. People are working longer hours for lower wages.

Does the middle class of this country need to continue to have that tax break? Of course they do. I will fight as hard as I can to make sure they do. So this proposal is, in fact, an important proposal. There are other good proposals in it.

The earned-income tax credit for working Americans is very important. The child and college tax credits are also very important. These proposals will keep millions of Americans from slipping out of the middle class and into poverty, and they will allow millions more to send their kids to college.

But when we look at the overall package, we must put it in a broader context. What will the message of this legislation mean for the future of our country? And I think one point that has to be made is that if we pass this agreement as written, it says we are going to continue the Bush policy of trickle-down economics for at least 2 more years. To my mind, that is absurd. This is a policy--based on all of the evidence--that grotesquely failed. After 8 years of Bush-style economics, with all of these tax breaks for the rich, we ended up losing 500,000 private sector jobs--not a very impressive record. In fact, it is about the worst record in job creation in modern history.

Here is another concern that I have that I think folks are not talking about enough. This is what I believe will happen right after this agreement is passed. And I am going to do everything I can to see that it is not passed, and I hope very much that it is not passed, but if it is passed, no one should have any illusions that our Republican friends will not be back in a month or two saying the following: Gee, our national debt is getting close to $14 trillion, we have a $1.4 trillion deficit, and, you know what, we are going to have to cut. We are going to have to cut and cut and cut. Nobody should have any illusion that in 2 months there will not be ferocious debates on the floor of the Senate on the part of people who want to cut Social Security, who want to cut Medicare, who want to cut Medicaid, who want to cut childcare and education in general and environmental protection. Tax breaks for billionaires is good, but cutting back on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is also what they want to do.

I think Senator SHERROD BROWN, a moment ago, just crystallized that. That is what it is about. We can afford to give $70 billion a year to the top 2 percent, the wealthiest people, but we can't afford to spend $14 billion a year to make sure senior citizens and disabled vets get a $250 check. That is what this whole thing is going to be about--tax breaks for the rich and cutbacks on all of the programs the middle-class and working families of this country desperately need.

Mr. President, I will be back tomorrow because there is a lot more that has to be said on this issue, but let me conclude by saying I will give credit to my Republican colleagues in that they have been pretty honest and straightforward about what they intend to do. There is nothing mysterious about it. What they want to do is to take this country back to the 1920s. They want to take us back to the days where, when you were old, there was no Social Security and you had to fend for yourself in the waning years of your life when you couldn't work. They want to ultimately destroy Medicare.

I would suggest to all of the senior citizens in this country--the people who are 70, 75, 80; people who are maybe struggling with one illness or another--good luck in going to a private insurance company to get help when you are low-income and sick. It ain't gonna happen. They are not going to be there because they can't make any money off of you.

Those people are going to be out there on the street all alone because they are not going to be able to get the help they need if Medicare is destroyed, and the same thing with Medicaid.

You know, Mr. President, you and I heard in this Chamber the great debate over the death panels, the famous death panels that were included, supposedly, in the health care reform bill we passed. Well, it turns out that death panels are, in fact, now arising in America but not because of the health care reform passed here in Washington.

In Arizona, right now the Governor there apparently is deciding they do not have the money in their Medicaid Program to provide transplants to people who, without those transplants, will die. That is called a death panel. If you are poor and you need a transplant and you are living in Arizona, good luck to you.

Let me conclude by simply saying that I believe very strongly that we can forge a much better agreement than the current one before us. I believe, in my State of Vermont and all over this country, that the vast majority of people do not think it makes any sense at all to give hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country so that we can drive up the national debt and have our kids and grandchildren pay higher taxes in order to pay off that debt. That doesn't make sense to progressives like me, and it doesn't make sense to conservatives out there.

So I think the American people are on our side--at least the side that opposes this agreement. Our job here--I know it is a shocking idea--is to represent the middle-class and working families, not just millionaires and billionaires.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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