Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act of 2011

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

DEFICIT CRISIS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I think many Americans understand we are at a pivotal moment in American history, and decisions that will be made in the Senate, decisions that will be made in the House, decisions that will be made in the White House regarding the budget and how we deal with the debt ceiling will impact virtually every American--our children, working families, seniors--virtually every American for decades to come. The stakes are huge. The debate is not just about a budget but the question of which direction America goes forward in.

Today, the Republican leaders--Eric Cantor in the House, Jon Kyl in the Senate--withdrew from the bipartisan budget talks that have been led by Vice President Biden. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, and Senator Kyl said:

The White House and Democrats are insisting on job-killing tax hikes and new spending.

President Obama needs to decide between his goal of higher taxes or a bipartisan plan to address our deficit. He can't have both. But we need to hear from him.

We need to hear from the President.

I agree with Senator Kyl and Senator McConnell that we need--the American people need, the Senate needs--to hear from President Obama on this enormously important issue. But I believe we need to hear from the President in a very different way than what Senator Kyl and Senator McConnell and Congressman Cantor want to hear.

Here is where we are in America today, and this is what the debate is about: Virtually every American understands that, to a very significant degree, the middle class in this country is disappearing. Median family income has gone down by $2,500 in the last 10 years. Many millions of workers today are earning lower wages than they used to earn. They are moving in the wrong direction.

In a recent 25-year period, ending in 2005, 80 percent of all new income did not go to the middle class. It went to the people on top. So the overall dynamic of America now: The middle class is collapsing, poverty is increasing, young people are finding it very difficult to get decent-paying jobs. While all that is going on, the people on top have never had it so good. Almost all new income is going to the top 1 percent.

There was an interesting piece in the Washington Post this Sunday talking about the growing gap between the very rich and everybody else. Wall Street, whose thievery and illegal behavior and recklessness caused this recession, is now making more money for their executives than they did before the recession they helped cause.

The top 1 percent is earning more income than the bottom 50 percent. The top 1 percent alone is earning 22 percent of all income in America. The top 400 individuals in this country own more wealth than the bottom 150 million.

I know the Presiding Officer has made the point about the gross inequities and unfairness in our tax system, that while the middle class is sinking, the people on top have been able to enjoy effective tax rates that are the lowest in recorded history, that janitors, cops, nurses--working people today--are paying an effective tax rate that is higher than millionaires and billionaires.

That is the reality economically this country faces today, and then that is the reality we have to deal with as we move toward a budget.

Every single poll I have seen says what is obvious: that if we are going to address the deficit crisis, it must be done in a way that is fair, that everybody participates in.

Our Republican friends have a very unusual idea about how to solve the deficit crisis. Yes, they say the rich are getting richer. Yes, they say corporations are doing phenomenally well. Some are making billions of dollars in profits, not paying a nickel in taxes. Yes, they understand the gap between the very rich and everybody else is growing wider, and their quaint and interesting idea, in the midst of that context, is that while the rich get richer, they should not be asked to contribute one nickel--not one penny--for deficit reduction.

Quite the contrary, under the Republican budget passed in the House, the so-called Ryan budget, while the rich get richer and corporations enjoy recordbreaking profits, their budget proposes $1 trillion more in tax breaks for the rich and large corporations.

Meanwhile, while the middle class disappears and poverty increases, their idea for deficit reduction is to make savage cuts in programs the middle class and working

families depend upon to survive--to survive.

Under the Republican budget, they would end Medicare as we know it in a 10-year period. They propose to give a senior citizen an $8,000 check, a voucher, and have that senior go out and get an insurance plan with a private insurance company.

Tell me what kind of plan a 70-year-old person dealing with cancer or another illness is going to get with an $8,000 voucher? Are they living in the real world? Do they know what hospital care costs today? You eat up $8,000 in the first day. Yet that is what a senior is supposed to live on for health care for 1 year.

But it is not only ending Medicare as we know it in order to give tax breaks to billionaires; it is savage cuts in Medicaid. Half the people on Medicaid are children. We are the only country today in the industrialized world that does not guarantee health care to all its people. Fifty million people are uninsured. If you cut Medicaid by $700 billion over a 10-year period, tens of millions more, including a lot of kids, will have no health insurance. They get sick. Working-class parents, where are they going to get the care? How do they get the care? I guess we have to do that in order to give a tax break to a large corporation that already is not paying anything in taxes.

Let me mention, for a moment, what is a fair way--a fair way--to move toward deficit reduction in a way the American people overwhelmingly support. You go out and you ask the American people: Do you think it makes sense, in terms of addressing the serious problem with deficit reduction, to give $1 trillion in tax breaks to the richest people and make savage cuts in programs that working people need in health care, education, nutrition, environmental protection? The overwhelming majority of the American people say that is nuts; it does not make any sense; we must not go in that direction.

So when my Republican friends in the leadership say: There is a lot of responsibility now on the President, the President has to decide which direction he wants this country to go, they are right. My hope is the President of the United States listens to the American people and demands that deficit reduction consist of shared sacrifice, that we move toward deficit reduction not just on the backs of the elderly and the children and the sick and the poor but that everybody--I know even people who make large campaign contributions--I know that is heresy to say on the floor of the Senate--but maybe even large corporations that buy and sell politicians, maybe they should be asked to contribute toward deficit reduction. Maybe billionaires, who have more money than they are going to spend in 100 lifetimes, might be asked to pay somewhat more in taxes before we throw children off our health insurance or deny nutrition to low-income seniors.

There are many ways to go forward in addressing the deficit crisis that is fair, that does not decimate programs working families depend on, especially in the middle of a severe recession.

Let me mention very few. We should not extend the tax breaks President Bush gave the wealthiest people in this country. That is it. We have a $1.5 trillion deficit, a $14 trillion-plus national debt. Sorry, we cannot afford it. These guys have already received huge tax breaks. No more. We cannot afford it.

We have to take a hard look at our defense budget. We have to begin bringing the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan a lot faster than the President has indicated. The defense budget has tripled since 1997. It has tripled. It is time to make cuts in the defense budget. We can do that while maintaining our strong defense capabilities.

There are studies which indicate that large corporations and wealthy individuals are stashing huge amounts of money in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, and collectively they are avoiding paying $100 billion in taxes to the U.S. Treasury. I think that is absurd. We have to end those loopholes. They have to pay their fair share of taxes.

I can go on and on in terms of loopholes that exist for corporate America which have to be closed, the absurdity of the richest people in this country having an effective, a real tax rate lower than middle-class people.

But here is the issue if the Republicans walk away from those negotiations.

The President of the United States has to accept that challenge. He has to go out to the American people. He has to rally the American people around a deficit reduction program which calls for shared sacrifice. That is what the call of the moment is. I hope the President does that.

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