Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions
Floor Speech
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By Mr. SANDERS (for himself and Ms. Mikulski):
S. 552. A bill to reduce the Federal budget deficit by creating a surtax on high income individuals and eliminating big oil and gas company tax loopholes; to the Committee on Finance.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I will try to bring this budget debate down to Earth and talk a little bit about the reality of what is happening and go beyond the amount of numbers that are out there.
My good friend from Alabama who sits with me on the Budget Committee makes the point that this country has a severe budget crisis. He is right. The question is, How did we get to where we are today and how do we go forward in a way that is fair and responsible to address it? In that regard, the Senator from Alabama and I have very strong disagreements.
How did we get to where we are today when not so many years ago, the day George W. Bush became President, we had a significant surplus? We had a surplus when Clinton left office. Now we have a major deficit crisis. There are a number of reasons:
No. 1, against my vote, we are fighting a war in Iraq which, by the time we take care of our last veteran, is going to cost us some $3 trillion. I didn't hear any of my Republican friends saying we can't go to war unless we figure out a way to pay for it.
No. 2, my Republican friends for years have been pushing huge tax breaks for the very wealthiest people. I didn't hear them ask how that was going to be paid for.
No. 3, under President Bush, with strong Republican support and against my vote, Congress passed a $400 billion-plus Medicare Part D prescription drug program, written by the insurance companies and the drug companies. It drove up the deficit.
No. 4, against my vote, Congress voted for a massive bailout of Wall Street. I didn't hear too many people talking about how we would pay for that, $700 billion to bail out Wall Street. I didn't hear them arguing that it was too much money and it would drive up the deficit.
Yesterday, the Republicans brought forth and voted on H.R. 1. Almost all of them voted for it. Those who did not actually wanted to go further.
The main point I wish to make is, A, we do have to address the deficit crisis, but, B, we have to address it in a way that is fair and responsible and not solely on the backs of working families, the middle class, the elderly, the sick, and the poor. That is immoral. That is wrong. That is bad economics.
To my mind, it is absolutely absurd that when my Republican friends talk about deficit reduction, they forget to talk about the reality that the wealthiest people have never had it so good; that the effective, the real tax rate for the richest people is the lowest on record; and that the wealthiest people, the top 2 percent, have received many hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks.
I ask my Republican friends, why do they want to balance the budget on the backs of low-income children, low-income senior citizens, those who are sick, those who are vulnerable, without asking the wealthiest people who have never had it so good to put one penny into deficit reduction? I think that is wrong, and the American people think that is wrong. When we talk about deficit reduction, we have to talk about shared sacrifice, everybody playing a role, not just little kids, not just the elderly, not just the sick, but even--dare I say it--people who have a whole lot of money and who have never done so well.
I have not been impressed at how the media has been covering this issue. They have not made it clear to the American people how devastating the cuts are that Republicans want to impose on working families. Let me briefly tick off some of them.
The Republicans want to throw over 200,000 children off of the Head Start Program. Every working family in America knows how hard it is today to come up with affordable childcare, early childhood education. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. The Republican solution is to slash Head Start by 20 percent, cut 218,000 kids off of Head Start, and lay off 55,000 Head Start instructors.
The cost of college education today is so high that many young people are giving up their dream of going to college, while many others are graduating deeply in debt. Republican solution: Slash Pell grants by $5.7 billion and reduce or eliminate Pell grants for 9.4 million low-income college students. Middle-class families, working-class families, do they hear that? We are going to balance the budget by either eliminating or lowering Pell grants--the ability of young people to go to college--for over 9 million college students.
I know in my office we get calls every week from senior citizens, people with disabilities, widows who are having a hard time getting a timely response toward their Social Security claims. It takes too long to process the paperwork. What the Republicans want to do is slash the Social Security Administration, the people who administer Social Security for seniors and the disabled, widows and orphans, by $1.7 billion. That means half a million Americans who are legally entitled to Social Security benefits will have to wait significantly longer times in order to receive them.
We have 50 million Americans with no health insurance today, and 45,000 Americans die because they don't get to a doctor in time. Last year, as part of health care reform, I worked very hard with many Members to expand community health centers so that more and more low-and moderate-income people could walk into a doctor's office, get health care, dental care, low-cost prescription drugs, mental health counseling. In H.R. 1, the bill they voted for yesterday, Republicans want to deny primary health care to 11 million Americans at a time when State after State is cutting back on Medicaid. What are you supposed to do if you are 50 years old, you have a pain in your chest, and you don't have any health insurance? Where do you go? Republicans want to deny health care to another 11 million Americans.
For the poorest people, community services block grants provide the infrastructure, the ability to get out emergency food help, emergency help to pay the electric bill, LIHEAP. They are the infrastructure of this country that protects the poorest and most vulnerable. Republicans want to slash $405 million from the Community Services Block Grant Program. That is wrong. And the President's proposed cut to the community services block grant is also wrong.
In real terms, 16 percent of our population today is really unemployed, if we add together the official unemployment--those people who have given up looking for work, those people who work part time and want to work full time. Republicans want to slash $2 billion in Federal job-training programs.
Republicans want to slash $400 million in LIHEAP. That is the program that in my State and all over the country enables people to stay warm in the winter. We have a lot of senior citizens in Vermont getting by on $13,000 or $14,000 a year in income. They need help. It gets cold in Vermont. It gets 20 below zero. People don't have the income. LIHEAP is a very valuable tool. Republicans want to slash $100 million for LIHEAP.
They want to slash the EPA by 30 percent. These are the people who have successfully enforced the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, so that the air we breathe does not give us asthma, doesn't provide us with the soup that makes us sick. The Clean Air Act has been an enormous success in cleaning up our air. Republicans want to slash that by 30 percent.
Republicans want to cut the WIC Program. This is the program that provides supplemental nutrition for women, infants, and children. They want to cut that by $750 million. Poverty in America is increasing. What we understand is that if pregnant women and little kids do not get good nutrition, the likelihood is that births might be low weight or the little babies might come down with illnesses if they don't have good nutrition.
Poverty is increasing. Yet the Republicans want to cut the WIC Program by $750 million--10 percent.
Title I education funding. Everybody understands we have problems with education right now, with large dropout rates. Republicans want to cut $5 billion from the Department of Education.
On and on and on it goes.
What do I think? Do I think it is appropriate we balance the budget on low-income pregnant women and infants who need nutrition? Do I think you should throw 200,000 kids off the Head Start Program? Do I think we cut the Social Security Administration severely? Do I think we cut Planned Parenthood, which has done such a good job in preventing unwanted pregnancies? Does that make sense? I do not think so. I do not think that is good for America.
But I do believe we have to move toward a balanced budget. So what is one way to go forward, other than savage cuts on programs for the most vulnerable people in this country? That is, I think we have to begin talking about revenue, not just cuts.
Today I am introducing legislation which does two things. No. 1, it creates a millionaire's surtax, which will be used strictly for deficit reduction. It will be a 5.4-percent surtax on income over $1 million. That says that all households that have income over $1 million will pay a 5.4-percent surtax on that income, which will go into an emergency deficit reduction fund. Just doing that--asking millionaires to pay a little bit more in taxes, after all the huge tax breaks they have received--will bring in approximately $50 billion a year.
I think that is a good idea, but it is not just me who thinks it is a good idea. Recently, last week, there was an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, and they asked the American people: What is the best way to go forward on deficit reduction? Mr. President, 81 percent of the American people believe it is totally acceptable or mostly acceptable to impose a surtax on millionaires to reduce the deficit.
The American people get it. They understand you cannot move toward deficit reduction just by cutting programs that working families, the middle class, and low-income people desperately need in order to survive in the midst of this terrible recession. They understand serious, responsible deficit reduction requires shared sacrifice. It is insane--and I use that word advisably--it is insane to be talking about deficit reduction, as my Republican friends do on one hand, and then say: Oh, yes, we have to give hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the top 1 percent, the top 2 percent, when those guys are doing phenomenally well, are seeing an effective tax rate lower than it has been in decades and have received huge tax breaks already.
Why does anyone think it is moral or right to move toward deficit reduction on the backs of the weak and the vulnerable? I understand--and I know something about politics--I do understand the parents of kids who are in Head Start do not make large campaign contributions. I know the senior citizens of this country who need some help with Social Security do not make large campaign contributions. I understand that. I understand college students, desperately trying to go through college on a Pell grant, do not make large campaign contributions.
But there is a sense of morality we have to deal with. I think it makes no sense, I think it is immoral, I think it is bad economics to balance the budget on the backs of working families, while we give continued tax breaks to those people who do not need it.
So today we are introducing a piece of legislation which I hope will have strong support. I think it paves the way for us to go forward with serious deficit reduction in a way that is fair. Do we need to make cuts? Absolutely. But do we also need to ask the wealthiest people in this country to start contributing toward deficit reduction? I think we do.
Once again, the legislation I am introducing today creates a millionaire's surtax of 5.4 percent, which would bring in about $50 billion a year, to be used exclusively for an emergency deficit reduction fund.
We also end tax breaks for big oil and gas companies, which will bring in about $3.5 billion a year. Over the past decade, the five largest oil companies in the United States have earned nearly $1 trillion in profits. Meanwhile, in recent years, some of the very largest oil companies in America have paid absolutely nothing in Federal income taxes. In fact, some of them have actually gotten a refund, a rebate from the IRS.
So that is my plea. My plea is that, yes, the need for deficit reduction is real. It is urgent. Let's go forward, but let's go forward in a way that is fair and responsible and not simply on the backs of the most vulnerable people in this country.
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