Supercommittee Deliberations

Floor Speech

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, there has been a lot of discussion in the Senate, in the House, and in the media about what the supercommittee is doing and what they should be doing. The American people understand their responsibility in terms of trying to reduce our national debt and our deficit is difficult. I wish them the best of luck in coming up with a solution.

My hope, simply stated, is that the supercommittee will do what the American people want them to do. The American people, through demonstrations all over this country and in poll after poll, have made it pretty clear what they want to see happen. The American people are becoming more and more aware that there is something very wrong in this country when we have the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major country on Earth; when the top 1 percent earns more income than the bottom 50 percent; when in a recent 25-year period, 80 percent of all new income went to the top 1 percent; and when the gap between the very rich and everybody else is wider today than it has ever been since 1928, the year before the Great Depression.

If anyone thinks distribution of income in this country is unfair, then they should look at distribution of wealth, which is much more unfair. Today the wealthiest 400 Americans own more wealth than the bottom half of America, 150 million people--400 people, 150 million Americans. That unbelievable inequality in terms of wealth, in my view, is not only morally wrong, it is very bad economics, and it is not sustainable.

When the supercommittee deliberates as to where they should go, I think one direction is very clear. The American people of all political spectrums have made their point of view known very strongly on this issue. Whether Democrat, Independent, or Republican, poll after poll shows when the wealthiest people in this country are becoming wealthier; when, as Warren Buffett reminds us, their effective tax rate--i.e. real tax rate--is the lowest it has been in decades; yes, the wealthiest people in this country are going to have to pay more in taxes to enable us to go forward on deficit reduction.

So any serious plan brought forth by the supercommittee must ask the wealthiest people in this country to pay more in taxes. Furthermore, as I think everybody knows, we have corporation after corporation that benefits from huge tax loopholes.

A study just came out today that shows one out of four major corporations pays nothing in taxes. Recently, there are examples that major corporations made billions of dollars in profit and not only paid nothing in taxes but got rebates from the IRS. Many of these corporations stash their profits in tax havens in the Cayman Islands and elsewhere to avoid U.S. taxes.

I think the American people are very clear; if we are going to go forward with deficit reduction, large corporations are also going to have to start paying their fair share of taxes. This is across the political spectrum.

I hope the supercommittee is hearing and understands that any agreement must contain significant revenue from the wealthiest people in this country and from the largest corporations.

Furthermore, at a time when military spending has tripled since 1997, I hope as part of their agreement that the supercommittee takes a hard look at our defense budget and asks whether it is necessary that the United States of America spends more on defense than the entire rest of the world combined.

Those are some of the areas I hope the supercommittee will explore: asking the wealthy to start paying their fair share of taxes, ending tax loopholes for large corporations, and taking a hard look at military spending which has tripled since 1997.

Then there is another area the supercommittee must also look at; that is, to understand that in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression, a recession caused by the greed and recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street, the supercommittee must not cut Social Security, cut Medicare, or cut Medicaid. Social Security is the most successful Federal program in the history of our country. It has a $2.5 trillion surplus. It can pay out all benefits for the next 25 years because it is funded by the payroll tax. It has not contributed one nickel to our deficit. The supercommittee must not cut Social Security.

Madam President, 50 million Americans have no health insurance and many others are underinsured. According to a study at Harvard University, 45,000 Americans die each year because they do not get to the doctor when they should. Under those conditions it would be immoral, it would be wrong for the supercommittee to cut Medicare and to cut Medicaid.

I hope the supercommittee does what the American people have said very loudly and clearly--they have said it in demonstrations, they have said it in polls, they have said it in communications with their Members in the House and the Senate--we have an opportunity to make significant progress in terms of deficit reduction, but that deficit reduction should not take place on the backs of the elderly, the children, the sick, and the poor. Those populations, the most vulnerable people in this country, are hurting enough right now.

I hope the supercommittee has the courage to do what is right. I hope they have the courage to do what the American people want them to do.

I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

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