FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I rise to briefly do three things. No. 1, there are a lot of politicians and pundits and economists who are proclaiming all over the country that the recession is over. They have some economic models by which they determine that the recession is over. I suggest those pundits and economists and politicians take a look at the booklet we recently produced in my office. It is called "Struggling Through the Recession--Letters from Vermont.''

We have also received letters from other States, people in other States as well. We sent out a request for people to tell us, as we enter the third year of this recession, what is happening in their lives. We got, from my small State, over 400 responses. That is a lot from a small State. We probably received an equal number from around the rest of the country.

The problem I had with these letters, some of them are so painful to read that it is hard to read more than a few at a time because you get sick to your stomach hearing what good and decent and hard-working people are going through.

I wish to take a few moments to read a handful of the letters I am receiving from Vermont, in answer to the question: Is the recession over?

This comes from a young lady from central Vermont. She says:

I have been fortunate to hold onto my job throughout the past 3 years, especially since I have about $42,000 remaining on my school loans.

One of the recurring themes we hear from all over Vermont--and I suspect it is true in New Mexico and all over the country--is a lot of young people are graduating with a heck of a lot of debt. The jobs they are getting are not sufficient, in terms of pay, to help them pay off that debt.

She writes:

Anyway, what I want to write isn't about me--it's about my boyfriend, a talented mechanical engineer that graduated with about $80,000 in school loans.

We are telling the young people of this country: Go out and get an education. They are coming out with huge loans, having a hard time getting a job.

He was laid off in November 2009 and it has not only caused financial hardship, but it has put all of our future plans on hold. He fortunately has temporary employment now after nearly a year of searching, but my qualm is with the high cost of education and how people in their twenties are supposed to move forward with their lives with school debt lingering over them.

That is a very significant point.

Here is another one. This is a young man from Barre, VT, in the central part of the State.

In 2002, I received a scholarship to Saint Bonaventure University, the first in my family to attend college. Upon graduation in 2006, I was admitted to the Dickinson School of Law at Penn State University and graduated in 2009 with $150,000 of student debt.

That is not uncommon.

In Western New York I could find nothing better than a $10/hour position stuffing envelopes.

Another example of a young person graduating from college, doing all the right things, and yet ending up with very substantial debt.

That is from some of the younger people. Then we got letters from middle-aged people. This is from a woman from the central part of the State.

My husband lost his job in 2002 and has been self-employed as a carpenter ever since due to the lack of jobs in central Vermont.

I should tell you the recession has been less disastrous in Vermont than in other parts of the country. These are stories from a State that has not been hit as hard as other States.

He's had no insurance and we have not saved a cent since 2002. We've depleted our savings account paying for property taxes. We've been burning wood to save money heating the house. The cost of fuel for the house and vehicles puts a huge burden on making ends meet. Being self-employed is extremely challenging due to the economic situation.

Again, she is touching on an issue that millions of people are aware of. The price of gas to get to work is going up. The price of home heating fuel in States such as Vermont is going up. Wages are low for millions of people. How do they survive in that crisis?

We also have stories from older people. This is from a woman named Beth, who lives in the northeastern part of our State, a very rural part of Vermont. She is 69 years of age. She writes:

I don't know what kind of a future my grand kids will have. How will they be educated if we can't help them? It is great there are loans out there for education but they are being charged more for the schools than I paid for my house. They will be in debt their whole lives.

Here is a woman who is worried about her grandchildren. Here is another woman, Ellen, who lives in Rutland County.

All I can say is I still have a job for all it is worth. I feel making $8.81 an hour at 17 hours per week is ridiculous!

This woman is 63 years of age.

I don't bring home enough to help out with the major household expenses I used to pay half on. I'm lucky if my paycheck reaches $130 a week. By the time I pay a few bills gas up and pick up a few needed items I'm lucky if I have any left for spending. I earned less than $8,000 this year. It [is] just about what I made back in the 1970's and lived better.

So the point here is, A, if folks tell you the recession is over, read some of these stories. These stories are available on my Web site: "Sanders.Senate.gov.'' These are mostly from Vermont, but I think they touch the same themes that exist all over our country. For millions and millions of people, not only those who are unemployed--those who are underemployed, those who are working full time and not making a living wage--trust me, the recession is not over.

The reason I ask people to send me these letters is I think it is important as a Senate to understand we have to address these economic issues. When 16 percent of our people are either unemployed or underemployed or have given up looking for work, when millions more are working with inadequate wages, we cannot say we should not be vigorously going forward in creating millions and millions of jobs that our people desperately need.

SOCIAL SECURITY

I also want to say a word on Social Security. What I want to say is, I get very tired watching the TV or hearing some of my colleagues tell me that Social Security is going bankrupt, that Social Security will not be there for our kids or that Social Security is part of the serious deficit and national debt problem we face. Let me say a few words on that.

No. 1, Social Security has existed in this country for 75 years, and it has been an enormous success. We take it for granted. But for 75 years, Social Security has paid out every nickel owed to every eligible American in good times and bad. When Wall Street collapsed a few years ago, millions of Americans lost all or part of their retirement savings when the stock market crashed. All over America, during the last 10, 20 years, corporations that had promised defined benefit pension plans to their employees rescinded on that promise. People had worked for years, expecting a pension from a company. That pension never came. Yet during all of that period, Social Security has paid out every nickel owed to every eligible American at minimal administrative cost. That is a pretty good record. Our job now is to make sure Social Security is strong and vibrant 75 years from now and continues to do the excellent job it has done in the past 75 years.

People say: Social Security is going broke. Social Security is in crisis. A lot of people believe that because they hear it over and over, and it is repeated in the media again, again, and again.

What are the facts? The facts are that not only is Social Security not going broke, Social Security has a $2.6 trillion surplus--a $2.6 trillion surplus--which, by the way, is going to go up before it goes down.

Social Security, according to the Social Security Administration and the Congressional Budget Office, can pay out every nickel owed to every eligible American for the next 25, 26, 27 years, at which point it will pay out between 75 and 80 percent of all of the benefits. The challenge we face, therefore, is how, in 25 or 30 years, do we make up that 20 percent gap? That is the challenge.

So Social Security is strong and will pay out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 25 or 30 years. People say: Oh, yeah, well, that is just worthless IOUs, that Social Security trust fund.

Absolutely not true. The U.S. Government, from the day of its inception, has paid its debt. Social Security is backed by the faith and credit of the United States of America. We have never yet--and I certainly hope we never will--default on our debt.

So the first point I want to make is, Social Security is strong. Social Security will pay out benefits for the next 26 years. For people to come forward and say we have to privatize Social Security, we have to raise the retirement age, we have to lower benefits, is absolutely wrong, to my mind. We made a promise to the American people regarding Social Security, and that is a promise we have to keep.

In the dialog around Washington, people lump the very serious problem of a $1.5 trillion deficit and a $14 trillion national debt with Social Security. So let's ask a very simple question. How much has Social Security contributed to our national debt? How much? The answer is, not one penny--not one penny--because Social Security is not paid out from the U.S. Treasury. Social Security comes from the payroll taxes that workers and employers contribute into the Social Security trust fund. That trust fund today has a $2.6 trillion surplus. So when people say we have a very significant national debt and, therefore, we have to cut Social Security, that is absolutely a wrong thing to say.

Let me say, I will do everything I can to protect a program that has worked extremely well for the American people.

Why are we hearing all of this opposition against Social Security? Where does it come from? It does not come from ordinary people. They know Social Security has been successful, it is worth preserving, worth protecting. By the way, as we all know, Social Security is not just there for the elderly, the retirees; it is there for people with disabilities; it is there for widows and orphans through the survivors fund.

Where is all of this opposition coming from?

It is coming from two places.

No. 1, it is coming from folks on Wall Street--from Wall Street--who are saying: Gee, we could make many billions of dollars if we ended the Social Security system right now and Americans had to invest in retirement accounts on Wall Street. And we can make all kinds of commissions doing that work.

That is one of the areas, one of the sources of the opposition to Social Security.

Second is from many of my very conservative Republican friends. Very honestly, they do not believe government should be playing a role in making sure elderly people have a secure and dignified retirement. They do not believe much in government. They do not think government should be playing a role in those areas, and they want to get government out of those areas.

I understand where they are coming from. It is an honest position. I strongly disagree with them. I think in a civilized, democratic society we have to make sure when you get old it has to be guaranteed--guaranteed--as it has been for 75 years, that you are going to get the help you need. I believe government should be playing that role.

I would remind you, Mr. President, before Social Security was developed in the mid 1930s, 50 percent of the elderly people of our country at that point lived in poverty. Today, that number is too high, but it is 10 percent--50 percent before Social Security; 10 percent today. That is a pretty good record.

So I would respectfully disagree with my Republican friends who say: Well, if people want a retirement account, let them invest in Wall Street, let them do it through the private sector. I do not agree with that. I think Social Security has worked well for 75 years. We have to make sure it works well for another 75 years. I will do everything I can as chairman of the new Defending Social Security Caucus to make that happen.

THE DEFICIT AND NATIONAL DEBT

The last point I want to make: I want to talk a little bit about the deficit and our national debt.

I think it is appropriate for the American people to be reminded about how we got into the very difficult situation we are in right now. I have to tell you, I find it a bit amusing that some of the ``loudest'' deficit hawks in the Congress are precisely the same people who helped drive up the deficit and the national debt--the same people.

Let's try to determine how we got into the recession.

No. 1, in the midst of a recession, by definition, less money is coming in. That is obviously an important part of why we have the deficit and the national debt we have today. But there are other factors.

Mr. President, you will recall that this country, during the Bush administration, began two wars--a war in Afghanistan, a war in Iraq. The war in Iraq is estimated, by the time we take care of the last veteran, to run up a tag of about $3 trillion. Does anybody quite remember how we paid for those wars? Well, the answer is we did not pay for those wars. Those wars were put on the credit card. President Bush said: We are going to go to war, but we do not have to worry about how we pay for them.

The second area: As a result of President Bush's tax policies, which have recently been extended, against my vote, in the Obama administration, we provided many hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. The wealthiest people in this country are doing phenomenally well. The effective tax rate for the wealthiest people in this country is lower than at any time on record, in many cases lower than what working people are paying. Yet we decided, against my vote, to give them hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks, driving up the deficit.

Congress voted, against my vote, to bail out Wall Street--unpaid for, driving up the deficit. Some years ago, Congress, against my vote, decided to pass an insurance company-written Medicare Part D prescription drug program--very expensive program, unpaid for.

So all of these things are unpaired for. The national debt goes up, the deficit goes up. Then our Republican friends say: Oh, my goodness, we have a very large deficit. What are we going to do? We are going to have to cut back on programs that are important to working people and lower income people.

I think that is absolutely unacceptable.

So the first point I would make is, I regard it as incomprehensible that there are folks who supported hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires and then they tell us they are concerned about the deficit and the national debt. That is absolute hypocrisy.

In my view, the Congress should not be about cutting back on programs for low- and moderate-income people after we have given huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country.

Second of all, I think the time is long overdue that we start ending a lot of the corporate tax loopholes which now are preventing this country and this government from getting the revenue we need. Before we talk about major cutbacks for our kids or for the elderly, maybe we should end the absurdity of the tax havens that exist in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, where the wealthiest people in this country and large corporations are stashing their money away, to the tune of about $100 billion a year--$100 billion a year--in taxes that are not being paid because of the tax havens that exist.

I would also argue it is somewhat absurd we have a situation where last year ExxonMobil paid no Federal income taxes at all and got a $156 million rebate from the IRS, after earning $19 billion in profits.

What I would say is, yes, deficit and national debt are very important issues. But it is important for us to understand how we got to where we are. It is important for us to understand that the top 1 percent today earn more income than the bottom 50 percent and have enjoyed huge tax breaks. So before we start slashing programs the middle class and working families of this country need, let's take a look at some of those issues as well.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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