Establishing the Commission on Freedom of Information Act Processing Delays-Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, I want to say a few words to my fellow Vermonters and anyone who might be interested as to why I will be voting against this deficit-reduction package when it comes to the floor. The reason is pretty simple. This deficit-reduction package is grotesquely unfair, and it is also bad economic policy. It should not be passed.

The wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally well. In a recent 25-year period, 80 percent of all new income created in America went to the top 1 percent who now earn more income than the bottom 50 percent. In terms of wealth, the United States has the most unequal distribution of wealth of any major country on Earth with the top 400 people owning more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans.

When we talk about this deficit-reduction package with the richest people becoming richer, huge corporations making billions of dollars in profits and in some cases paying nothing in taxes, how much are those people--the wealthy and the powerful--asked to contribute toward deficit reduction and shared sacrifice? How much are the rich and the powerful going to contribute into this deficit-reduction package? The answer is zero. Not one cent.

Meanwhile, as everybody in America knows, we are in the midst of a horrendous recession. Real unemployment is over 16 percent. People have lost their homes, their life's savings. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. Yet this deficit-reduction package comes down on those people--the working families, the low-income people, the sick, the elderly, the children. The rich pay nothing. Large corporations pay nothing. Yet working families and the most vulnerable people in this country are going to be shouldering the burden of deficit reduction on their shoulders. That is immoral, that is wrong, that is bad economic policy.

Mr. President, as you well know, this is a complicated package, and nobody can predict with any certainty exactly what programs will be cut and how much they will be cut because the process will kick in to the appropriations committees all over, the House and the Senate, and they will go to a supercommittee that will make very significant decisions. Nobody with certainty can tell exactly what programs will be cut.

What we can say is we are looking at up to $1.4 trillion in cuts, and virtually every program that working families depend upon, that our children depend upon, that the sick depend upon, is on the line.

In my State, for example, it gets cold. We have a beautiful State. We love our winters, but it gets cold. It gets 10 below zero, 20 below zero. Many people in my State, including senior citizens, desperately need a program called LIHEAP, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which provides help to many people, including a lot of seniors, to help keep them warm when it gets 20 below zero. I fear very much there will be major cuts in that program.

In our State we have done very well in expanding community health centers. We have over 110,000 people now accessing new community health centers, finally being able to get a doctor and dentist when they need it. I am going to do everything I can to prevent those cuts. I fear that those programs can be cut.

In Vermont, in Connecticut, all over this country, we have a major crisis in childcare. Families want to get into the Head Start Program. They want affordable childcare. Those programs will be cut.

In my State, we have a program that helps struggling dairy farmers, a program called the milk program. It helps them stay in business. I fear very much--and I am going to fight against this--I fear that program will be cut.

We have young people today from working-class families hoping upon hope that maybe they will be able to afford to go to college. Well, we can expect major cuts in Pell grants and other programs that make college affordable for our young people.

In this country, we have people who are going hungry. We did a study recently. There is more hunger among seniors. Some of those programs will be cut. Affordable housing programs will be cut.

So let's not kid ourselves. In the midst of a terrible recession, when so many people are hurting, so many people are struggling just to keep their heads above water economically, this deficit-reduction package is going to slap them at the side of the head and make life much more difficult for them.

Now, Mr. President, as you well know, this is a two-part program. The first part calls for approximately $900 billion in cuts, and the second part calls for about $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion in cuts. Here is where it gets a little bit complicated because a supercommittee, made up of six Democrats and six Republicans, will have the opportunity to look at everything.

As the majority leader said, everything is on the table. Now, what does that mean? If everything is on the table, Social Security is on the table. What we have heard from our Republican friends, what we have heard from some Democratic friends, what we have heard from the President of the United States is that maybe we should adopt a so-called chained CPI, which will result in very significant cuts in Social Security benefits. If you are 65 now and that program is implemented, when you are 75, you are going to lose $560 a year, and 20 years from now, when you are 85, you are going to lose $1,000 a year. Am I saying that definitely will happen? No, I am not.

Social Security will be on the table. Medicare will be on the table. Medicaid will be on the table. Everything will be on the table.

If that committee ends up not coming to a decision, if they end up being deadlocked, say, six to six, then we go to a sequestration program and more cuts will be made.

So I would say, when poll after poll after poll suggests strongly that the American people want shared sacrifice--a poll just came out last week from the Washington Post where 72 percent of the people polled said they believe folks making more than $250,000 a year should pay more in taxes in order to help us with deficit reduction. Poll after poll says it is absurd that large corporations get incredible loopholes that enable them to make billions of profits and not pay one nickel in taxes.

So this is a bad proposal. This is an unfair proposal. We can do better, and we must do better. I do not intend to vote for a deficit-reduction package where the sacrifices are being made by people in the middle class and working class who are already hurting. It is time for the big-money interests to start remembering they are also Americans and they should contribute to deficit reduction.

With that, I yield the floor.

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