Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2015 -- Motion to Proceed -- Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I do not agree with Speaker of the House John Boehner on very much, but I do agree that it is an excellent idea for there to be a joint session of Congress in the fall to hear from Pope Francis. To my mind, in the last few years the Pope has played an extraordinary role in speaking out on issues of enormous consequence that impact every man, woman, and child, not just in our country but on the planet. He has shown great courage in raising issues that we very rarely discuss here in the Congress or in parliaments around the country.

What I want to do briefly this afternoon is quote and discuss some of the statements that the Pope has made that I think we need to listen to. I think it is a wonderful idea that Speaker Boehner has invited the Pope, but I think it is important we also listen to what he has said. This is from Pope Francis.

We have created new idols. The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.

On another occasion what he says is: ``Man is not in charge today, money is in charge, money rules.''

Then he says in another quote:

Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.

Then he says this on an issue that is, I think, very relevant to this body:

In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.

Then he says:

..... these things become the norm: that some homeless people die of cold on the streets is not news. In contrast, a ten point drop on the stock markets of some cities, is a tragedy.

In other words, when people die because they are poor and hungry and cold, that is not news. But a 10-point drop in the stock market becomes a tragedy.

Then he says:

We must say ``we want a just system! A system that enables everyone to get on''. We must say: ``we don't want this globalized economic system which does us so much harm!''

Here we have the leader of the Catholic Church raising profound issues about the state of the economy--certainly not just to the United States but all over the world. I don't want to paraphrase him, but my interpretation of what he is saying is that money cannot be an end in itself. The function of an economic system is not just to let the marketplace reign and end up in a situation where a small number of people have incredible wealth while so many people have virtually nothing.

That is true not just of the United States, but it is even more true around the world. We have a situation right now--incredible as it may sound--where the wealthiest 85 people in the world own more wealth than the bottom half of the world's population. So 85 phenomenally wealthy billionaires are here, and half of the world's population are over here--over 3 billion people. Does anybody in the wildest stretch of their imagination think this is anything close to a just world economic system?

Oxfam recently told us that within the global economy within a year or two, the top 1 percent of the world's wealthiest people will own more wealth than the bottom 99 percent. What religion condones this type of economic disparity? What political party should condone this type of economic disparity?

What the Pope is essentially saying is we need to pay attention to those people who are hurting--not just the homeless, not just the hungry, but those people who are working longer hours for low wages and at exactly the same time when in this country we have seen a proliferation of millionaires and billionaires. Is that what our economy is supposed to be about?

Let me just amplify what the Pope was saying by giving you some cold statistics in terms of what is going on in the United States of America. I am not talking about the global economy. I am not talking about Greece, where unemployment is 25 percent and where their economy has contracted by a quarter in the last 6 years. I am talking about the American economy.

Since 1999 the median middle-class family--that family right in the middle of the American economy--has seen its income go down by almost $5,000 after adjusting for inflation. Incredibly, that family earned less income last year than it did 26 years ago, back in 1989.

Do you want to know why people in America are angry? Whether they are in the Occupy Wall Street movement and consider themselves progressive, whether they are in the tea party movement and consider themselves conservative, the median male worker--that man right in the middle of the American economy--earned $783 less last year than he did 42 years ago. In other words, you have seen an explosion of technological productivity, but the male worker in the middle of the economy--inflation adjusted for dollars--made $783 less last year than he did 42 years ago, while the median female worker--the woman in the middle of the American economy--earned $1,300 less last year than she did in 2007.

All over this country we are seeing men and women working longer hours for lower wages. We are seeing people working not one job but two jobs or three jobs in order to cobble together the income they need and maybe some health care as well. But while the middle class continues to disappear on a 40-year trajectory, the wealthiest people and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally well. The gap between the very, very rich and everybody else is growing wider.

This is what the Pope means, I think, when he says this:

While the income of a minority is increasing exponentially, that of the majority is crumbling. This imbalance results from ideologies which uphold the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation, and thus deny the right of control to States, which are themselves charged with providing for the common good.

This is from Pope Francis. So what does he mean when he talks about the income of a minority increasing exponentially while the majority is crumbling? Let me give you some examples. I talked about male wages, female wages, and median family income. Let me talk about what is going on in the top 1 percent.

Today the top 1 percent in America now own about 41 percent of the entire wealth of our country while the bottom 60 percent own less than 2 percent. Let me repeat that. The top 1 percent own over 40 percent of the wealth. The bottom 60 percent own less than 2 percent. Today, incredibly, the top one-tenth of 1 percent now own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent--one-tenth of 1 percent. So 16,000 families own almost as much wealth as the bottom 300 million people in our country. Today the Walton family--the owners of Walmart and the wealthiest family in America--is now worth $153 billion. That is more wealth in one family than the bottom 40 percent of Americans. Over the past decade, the net worth of the top 400 billionaires in this country has doubled, up to an astronomical $1 trillion in just 10 years.

In terms of income as opposed to wealth, almost all of the new income generated in recent years, since the Wall Street crash, has gone to the top 1 percent. In fact, the last information that we have indicates that over 99 percent of all new income generated in this country goes to the top 1 percent.

The top 25 hedge fund managers on Wall Street made more than $24 billion in 2013, equivalent to the full salaries of more than 425,000 public school teachers. What we are seeing in this country is growing income and wealth inequality.

What we are seeing around the world is the same.

What troubles me very much is that in the midst of a disappearing middle class, at a time when we have more people living in poverty today than at almost any time in recent history, I believe my Republican colleagues on the Budget Committee will bring forth a budget in the next few years which will move us in exactly the wrong direction. When the rich get richer, their proposal will be let's give more tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.

When large corporations are enjoying huge profits, and major corporation after major corporation is paying nothing in Federal income tax, their proposal will be let's give more tax breaks to large multinational corporations.

Then after giving tax breaks to the rich and large corporations, they say: Well, we want a balanced budget, and the way we are going to balance the budget is on the backs of a disappearing middle class, on the backs of millions of working families, and on the backs of the poorest and most vulnerable people in this country.

This is the Robin Hood principle in reverse. This is taking from the poor and working people and giving it to the millionaires and billionaires.

I would hope the American people say: Enough is enough. We don't need more tax breaks for the rich and large corporations. We don't need to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, nutrition programs for hungry people, and Pell grants so the kids can go to college. That is not what we should be doing. In fact, we should be moving in exactly the other direction.

From 1983 to a few years ago, what we have seen in this country is an incredible transfer of wealth from the bottom 90 percent to the top 1 percent. We are talking about trillions of dollars in wealth going from the bottom 90 percent to the top 1 percent. Most Americans are saying: Enough is enough. We don't need more austerity for the middle class. We don't need to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Maybe it is time for some austerity for the top 1 percent.

I hope when we come together to discuss the budget, Members of the Senate will listen to what Pope Francis has been talking about and give us a budget which works for the most vulnerable people in this country, which works for tens of millions of working families, and does not simply work for large campaign donors.

With that, I yield the floor.

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