Concurrent Resolution On The Budget, Fiscal Year 2016
Floor Speech
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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I look forward to continuing to work with Senator Enzi in a thoughtful and important process, and I thank the Senator for his civility. I think we are going to have an interesting few days.
To my mind, the basic issue surrounding this budget debate is whether we address the enormous needs facing a declining middle class and whether we come forth with ideas that create the jobs--the millions of jobs our people need--whether we raise the wages that millions of workers desperately need who today are working for $7.50 an hour, $8 an hour, whether we deal with the scandal of pay equity in this country where women are making 78 cents on the dollar compared to men, whether we make sure we do not cut Social Security at a time when there are so many vulnerable seniors out there whose entire income or almost their entire income is Social Security.
In my view, we cannot balance the budget on the most vulnerable people in this country. We cannot cut the Meals on Wheels Program. We cannot cut Head Start. Essentially at a time when the middle class is shrinking, we cannot balance the budget on the backs of the elderly, the children, the sick, and the poor.
On my side of the aisle in the Democratic Caucus, what people are looking at is massive wealth and income inequality taking place in America. Senator Reid a few minutes ago made the point that in the last 2 years alone--the last 2 years alone--the wealthiest 14 people in this country have seen their wealth increase by over $150 billion--in 2 years. That is more wealth that they have increased in 2 years than the bottom 40 percent of the American people own. That is pretty crazy. The richer are becoming phenomenally richer, and we have tens of millions of Americans struggling to keep their heads above water.
My Republican colleagues say, well, we want to deal with the deficit by cutting programs for the working families, lower income people, the people who are struggling, but we are not going to ask the wealthy or largest corporations in this country who are doing phenomenally well to pay an additional nickel in taxes. That does not make sense to me. I do not believe it makes sense to the American people.
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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, what this amendment deals with is something I think virtually every Member of this body understands to be an enormously important issue, and the American people understand it as well, and that is our crumbling infrastructure and the fact we have to begin the process to substantially invest in our roads, our bridges, our water systems and our wastewater plants, our levees and our dams and our airports. The needs out there are enormous. When we do that, we can create millions of jobs at a time when we need to create millions of jobs. I heard Senator Enzi yesterday speaking on the issue. I think he reflects the views of many. I don't think there is a great debate on whether our infrastructure is crumbling. I don't think there is a great debate--and I speak as a former mayor--that if you allow your infrastructure to continue to crumble, it only becomes more expensive to rebuild it. I don't think there is a debate on that. The debate, of course, comes down to how you pay for it. That debate has been going on here for many years.
If anyone had a magical solution, I suspect it would have been brought forth already. But the proposal we are bringing forth calls for a $478 billion investment over a 6-year period. That will be paid for by eliminating some outrageous corporate loopholes today that, among other things, allow large, profitable corporations to stash their profits in the Cayman Islands, in Bermuda, and in other tax havens and not have to pay one nickel in taxes to the U.S. Government. Our proposal is pretty simple. Let's eliminate some of those loopholes, let's take that money, let's invest in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, let's make our country more efficient, more productive, safer, and let us create millions of jobs.
The need for rebuilding our infrastructure should not be in doubt. One out of every nine bridges in our country is structurally deficient, and nearly one-quarter are functionally obsolete. Almost one-third of our roads are in poor or mediocre condition. And as everybody stuck in a traffic jam at this moment knows, more than 42 percent of urban highways are congested.
Much of our rail network is obsolete. We are competing against countries which have high-speed rail, which operates much more rapidly than our railroads do. America's airports are bursting at the seams and still rely on antiquated 1960s radar technology. More than 4,000 of our Nation's dams are considered deficient, and nearly 9 percent of all levees are likely to fail during a major flood. That is a pretty scary proposition. Our drinking water systems are nearing the end of their useful lives all over this country. Virtually every day there is another pipe which bursts, causing flooding in downtowns and wasting huge amounts of clean drinking water. Further, our wastewater plants routinely fail during heavy rains, allowing all kinds of crap to go into our lakes and our rivers, which should not be the case. Our aging electrical grid has hundreds of avoidable power failures each year and is unacceptably vulnerable to cyber attacks.
Now $478 billion may seem like a lot of money. It is a lot of money, but the American Society of Civil Engineers tells us we need to invest an additional $1.6 trillion to get our infrastructure into a state of good repair by 2020. To be honest with you, while this amendment is a significant step forward, it does not go anywhere near as far as it should go.
I would hope on this amendment we would have strong bipartisan support. It is not good enough for people to continue to say what everybody acknowledges--yes, we need to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, but, no, we don't know how we are going to come up with the money to do it. It is too late to keep expressing that rhetoric. We have heard it for too many years. Every day we don't act, it becomes more expensive for us to act.
I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to today make an important statement that, A, we cannot continue to delay rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure; that, B, when real unemployment in this country is not 5 1/2 percent but 11 percent, when youth unemployment is 17 percent, when African-American youth unemployment is off the charts, we need a major jobs program to put our people back to work at decent wages. That is what work on infrastructure does. The time for rhetoric is gone. The time for action is now. Let's rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. Let's put people to work. Let's end outrageous corporate tax loopholes. Let's make our country safer, more efficient, and more productive. I ask for support for that important amendment which comes up for a vote I believe at around 12:00 or so.
I yield 5 minutes off the resolution to Senator Boxer.
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Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, Senator Portman's amendment touches upon a serious issue that I hope and expect will have broad bipartisan support, and that is the needs of children with serious chronic conditions.
In the United States, over 3 million children have medically complex health conditions. Of those 3 million kids, 2 million rely on Medicaid for their health insurance. That is two out of three kids, which should tell every Member of the Senate how important Medicaid is.
Let me repeat. Two out of three children rely on Medicaid. They have medically complex issues--the issues Senator Portman is speaking about.
Last Congress, Senator Nelson offered a similar amendment during the budget process to address this important issue, and I was pleased to support it. I also plan to support this amendment today and hope that we have widespread bipartisan support for it.
But what I must say is that given that the Republican budget eliminates the Affordable Care Act, which throws 15 million Americans off of health insurance--many of whom have just, for the first time in their lives, received health insurance--and given that the Republican budget cuts Medicaid by some $400 billion over a 10-year period, the amendment Senator Portman is offering deals with only one tiny and small part of what the Republican budget is doing. What the Republican budget is doing is decimating health care in the United States of America.
Senator Portman says: Well, we have a situation with kids who have medically complex problems.
He is right, but we have many other issues out there that the Republicans are decimating.
Medicaid provides 6.4 million elderly seniors who rely on Medicaid, many of whom are living in nursing homes--6.4 million elderly seniors, some 80 or 90 years of age, rely on Medicaid for their nursing home care. In some cases, these seniors have incomes of $8,000 to $9,000 a year. The Portman amendment does not address the devastating cuts that happen to elderly Americans in nursing homes.
Pregnant women who rely on Medicaid for vital prenatal care that improves the health and well-being of mothers and babies--those programs are going to be cut. The Portman amendment does not protect them in any way.
Nearly 33 million children in our country rely on Medicaid for their health insurance. These are kids of low-income, working-class families, and they need important medical care when they are young, such as immunizations and well-child visits. The Portman amendment does not address the fact that many of those people will be thrown off of health insurance.
Some 10 million Americans with disabilities rely on Medicaid to treat serious, sometimes life-threatening disabilities. The Portman amendment does not address what happens to people with disabilities who are on Medicaid.
While I support this amendment, I am also concerned about the devastating impact the Republican budget will have on many millions of Americans by ending the Affordable Care Act--16 million Americans thrown off of health insurance, $400 billion in cuts in Medicaid, millions more.
I believe we need a budget that strengthens health care in America, not decimates it. I believe we need a budget that doesn't force us to choose between a seriously ill child and a pregnant woman with small children at home. These are false choices which a great nation such as ours should not be forced to make, especially at a time, as Senator Boxer mentioned, when we have the wealthiest 14 people in this country seeing their wealth increase in the last 2 years by $157 billion. Our Republican friends say: No, these people should not be asked to pay more in taxes, but we should balance the budget by taking millions of people off of health insurance. I don't think anybody in America thinks those priorities make any sense at all.
I am offering a side-by-side, and in doing so, I urge my colleagues to vote for the Portman amendment but also to vote for my amendment, cosponsored by Senator Wyden, which supports all Medicaid beneficiaries by opposing cuts to the program.
Let's not sit around saying: Well, we are making some progress in one area, but we don't care about the millions of other people who have been thrown off of Medicaid.
I urge support for the amendment Senator Wyden and I are offering.
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Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, first I wish to thank Senator Wyden for his remarks. I concur with what he said, and I thank him for cosponsoring the amendment on infrastructure that we will be voting on in a few minutes.
Senator Wyden and I understand that you cannot be a great nation if your roads and bridges, water systems, wastewater plants, airports, levees, dams, and railroad system are crumbling. That is not what a great nation is about.
Years ago, the United States used to be the envy of the world in terms of infrastructure. Countries all over the world looked to the United States and asked: How do you do it? How do you provide clean water to your people? How do you have such an efficient transportation system? How do you have such great roads?
That is no longer the case. Today we are in 12th place, and I don't think any of my Republican colleagues would deny that. In fact, our infrastructure is crumbling. We have to address this issue. We cannot kick the can down the road. We can't say: Well, let's wait a few years until we come up with some magic funding formula.
We have to do it, and we have to do it now. The reason we have to do it now is that every year we delay, the problem only becomes worse. We are spending billions of dollars just to maintain the status quo, patching up a deteriorating system--whether it is transit, rails, roads or bridges. We have to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. There is no disagreement, I believe, in the Senate on that.
Second of all, I hope there is no disagreement that unemployment in this country is much too high. Real unemployment is at 11 percent, counting those who have given up looking for work and those who are working part-time. Youth unemployment is 17 percent, and African-American youth unemployment is higher than that. We need a major jobs program to put millions of people back to work at decent wages, and that is what rebuilding our infrastructure does.
The economists tell us that if we want to create jobs, the fastest way to create jobs in America is to rebuild our roads, bridges, and rail system. That is the fastest way to do it. Many of my Republican colleagues probably understand that as well. Where we disagree is how we fund the front.
Some on the Republican side will say: Well, we are looking at tax reform, and we are looking at this and looking at that, and maybe it will happen, but maybe it will not happen. We certainly have not had a lot of luck on these issues in recent years. Our Republican friends are not particularly interested in investments in America. Their idea of dealing with the deficit is to cut, cut, cut.
What we are proposing here is a $478 billion infrastructure package for 6 years, and it is funded by something I hope all of us can agree is unacceptable, and that is that at a time when corporate profits are at an all-time high, many corporations are stashing their profits in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Luxembourg, tax havens around the world. Guess what they are paying in American income tax to the United States Government. Zero.
We eliminate those loopholes. We raise substantial sums of money. We put that money into rebuilding our infrastructure, creating jobs, and making our country more efficient, safer, and more productive. That is what happens when you have a strong infrastructure.
I ask that Americans try to imagine what America will look like when we have some 9 million workers. This proposal would create some 9 million good-paying jobs in all of our States. People would be working to improve our roads and our water systems, and we can try to begin to compete effectively with the rail systems of other countries throughout the world. Think of what America will look like when we become and develop a first-rate infrastructure, not a third-rate infrastructure. I know people think this is a lot of money, but it is nowhere near what the American Society of Civil Engineers is telling us that we need.
If you are interested in creating a 21st century infrastructure, please vote for my amendment. If you are interested in creating and maintaining some 9 million jobs over a 6-year period, please vote for my amendment. If you are interested in ending an outrageous corporate loophole, which in some cases enables large, profitable multinational corporations to pay zero in Federal income tax, please vote for this amendment. It will send a powerful message that now is the time to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and put our people to work and end absurd loopholes.
With that, I yield the floor.
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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I wish to thank Senator Inhofe for his remarks on infrastructure. I hope we can all work together for what I would suspect every Member here sees as a serious problem.
But this amendment says let's not kick the can down the road. Our infrastructure is crumbling. We used to be the envy of the world; today we are in 12th place. This impacts not just people who are driving cars, it impacts every business in America. We need now to start the process of rebuilding our roads and bridges and dams and levees and airports. When we do that, this amendment, over a 6-year period, can create and maintain 9 million jobs--9 million jobs--at a time when we need decent-paying jobs.
I understand the difference of opinion stems from how we get the funding for this. Our approach is pretty simple. It eliminates an outrageous loophole that allows large, profitable corporations to stash their money around the world and, in some cases, pay zero in Federal income taxes.
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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, Senator Portman's amendment touches on a very serious issue that I believe has broad bipartisan support, the need to deal with children who have serious, chronic conditions. In fact, over 3 million kids in this country have medically complex health conditions.
Senator Portman appropriately is calling attention to that issue. I support him. But when you look at the overall Republican budget, it throws 16 million people off of health insurance by ending the Affordable Care Act and millions more through a $400 billion cut in Medicaid. What happens to a pregnant woman on Medicaid who needs prenatal care? No health insurance for her. What about a kid who was in an automobile accident whose family has no health insurance and is thrown off of Medicaid? No health insurance for that kid. What about an elderly person in a nursing home? There are millions of elderly people on Medicaid in nursing homes.
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