Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. If I could ask my colleague from Oregon a simple question--he is the ranking member of the Finance Committee. This is a bill that deals with trillions of dollars in our entire economy.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, a few moments ago, my friend from South Dakota was speaking about the bill. He made one statement that I do agree with, and that is, just because you say something over and over again does not make it true. Unfortunately, much of what he said is just not accurate. The truth is that what we are seeing today, in an unprecedented way, is the looting of the Federal Treasury. Today marks a great victory for the very wealthy campaign contributors who have contributed hundreds of millions of dollars over the years to the Republican Party. These billionaires will see a huge tax break for themselves at the same time as the deficit of this country is driven up by about $1.5 trillion. Today is also a victory for the largest, the most profitable corporations in America, companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Pfizer, and General Electric, which, despite recordbreaking profits, will now see hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, where the people on top are becoming wealthier while the middle class shrinks and 40 million live in poverty, this legislation--according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center--will provide 83 percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent, while increasing taxes on 92 million middle-class households by the end of the decade. Let me repeat that. By the end of the decade, this legislation will provide 83 percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent and, incredibly, 60 percent of the benefits to the top one- tenth of 1 percent, while, at the end of the decade, 92 million middle- class households will be paying more in taxes. Does anybody really believe that when we have such a massive gap in income and wealth inequality, we should be giving 60 percent of the benefits in this bill to the top one-tenth of 1 percent? It says a lot about the priorities of the Republican Party when the tax breaks for corporations in this bill are permanent, while the tax breaks for working families expire at the end of 8 years. Furthermore, I hope that every American is listening to what Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is saying, and other Republicans, when they talk about how they are going to offset the $1.5 trillion in deficits they just created by giving massive tax breaks to the wealthy and large corporations. What Ryan is saying and many other Republicans are saying is that they are going to come back and offset that $1.5 trillion in deficits by cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. And if I am wrong on that assertion, I would hope that some of my Republican colleagues would come down to the floor and say that I am wrong, but I do not suspect that will be the case. During his campaign for the White House, Donald Trump said over and over again to the American people, quote after quote, day after day, that he would not cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Well, I say to the President: For once in your life, keep the promises that you made, and tell the Republican leadership now that you will veto any legislation that cuts Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. I suspect we will not be seeing a tweet from the President on that issue. Moving toward passing this very unfair piece of legislation, the Republican leadership--which controls the House and the Senate--will move soon to shut down the Congress and head home for a holiday break. After massive tax breaks for the rich and large corporations, they believe their work is done, and they are ready to head home. Well, I respectfully disagree. Maybe, just maybe, before Congress adjourns for the holidays, we should start paying attention to the needs of the working families of this country, to the middle class of this country, and not just the billionaire class. We need to address the crisis that faces some 800,000 young people who are currently in the DACA Program. Without the legal protections afforded by the DACA Program, these young people today are living in constant fear and anxiety that they may lose their legal status and, in fact, be deported from the only country they have ever known. Imagine somebody who is 20 or 25 years of age, has lived in the United States virtually his or her entire life, went to school here, now has a job, now is in college, now is in the military, and because of Trump's disastrous attack on DACA, repealing DACA, 800,000 young people are worried about whether they are going to be able to even stay in this country. The American people are very clear about how they feel about this issue. I believe just today there was a Quinnipiac poll that appeared on this very issue, and this was the question: Which comes closest to your view about undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children? A) They should be allowed to stay in the United States and to eventually apply for U.S. citizenship. B) They should be allowed to remain in the United States, but not be allowed to apply for U.S. citizenship. C) They should be required to leave the U.S. That was the question asked of the American people. Here is the answer. Seventy-seven percent of the American people--77 percent--say that these young people should be allowed to stay in the United States and move toward citizenship. Seven percent say they that should stay in the United States but not gain citizenship. Twelve percent say that they should be forced to leave the United States. Republicans, by overwhelming numbers, say that these young people, these Dreamers who have spent their entire lives in this country, who know no other country, should be allowed to stay in America and apply for citizenship. Ninety-one percent of Democrats say that, and 81 percent of Independents say that. As we speak, young people are losing their legal status. We have to act on that and act on that now, before we adjourn for the holidays. Put yourself in the place of a 20-, 25-year-old person living in extraordinary anxiety. We have to act now to address those concerns. We have to do what the American people want us to do. As I think most people know, the Koch brothers are the major funders of the Republican Party. They have probably given billions of dollars over the years. Even Charles Koch acknowledges that the right thing to do is to provide legal status for the Dreamers. Let me quote from a recent op-ed in the Washington Post by Charles Koch and Tim Cook, the head of Apple: The United States is at its best when all people are free to pursue their dreams. Our country has enjoyed unparalleled success by welcoming people from around the world who seek to make a better life for themselves and their families, no matter what their backgrounds. It is our differences that help us to learn from each other, to challenge our old ways of thinking and to discover innovative solutions that benefit us all. To advance that prosperity and build an even stronger future, each successive generation--including, today, our own--must show the courage to embrace that diversity and to do what is right. We have no illusions about how difficult it can be to get things done in Washington, and we know that people of good faith disagree about aspects of immigration policy. If ever there were an occasion to come together to help people improve their lives, this is it. By acting now to ensure the dreamers can realize their potential by continuing to contribute to our country, Congress can reaffirm this essential American ideal. This is from Charles Koch. He funds the Republican Party. They might want to listen to him as well. But it is not just the need to address the crisis facing our Dreamers. As you know, community health centers providing health insurance, healthcare, for 27 million people have not been reauthorized or refunded. We have to address that issue, and we have to address it now. Nine million children are in the Children's Health Insurance Program. While we are busy giving tax breaks to billionaires, we have not had time to reauthorize a health insurance program for the children of this country. We should be ashamed of ourselves. We have disaster relief out there. Folks in Congress will go home to celebrate the holidays, and will light up our homes. In Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, they can't light up their homes because many of them still don't have electricity as a result of the recent disasters they have experienced. We need to do disaster relief. We need to do it now for the people of Puerto Rico, for the people of the Virgin Islands, for the people of Texas, and for the people of Florida. There are 1.5 million workers who are about to lose the pensions they were promised, and those pensions, after a lifetime of work, will be reduced by 60 percent if we don't address the multiemployer pension plan crisis. We have to do that. Over 40 million people in this country are dealing with student debt. They leave college deeply in debt. Many of them are in despair because of their financial situations--because of their outrageous levels of student debt. We have to address that. We have an opioid epidemic that is killing people from coast to coast. We have to start investing in treatment and prevention. We have 30,000 vacancies in the VA today. Our job is to make sure that every veteran in this country gets the quality healthcare he or she needs. They don't get it with 30,000 vacancies in the VA. We have to invest in the VA. There were 10,000 people on disability who died last year while waiting for the Social Security Administration to act on their applications; 10,000 people died last year because the Social Security Administration is greatly understaffed--massive cuts to the Social Security Administration. The elderly and the disabled in this country are entitled to have prompt process when they apply for benefits. They are not getting that. We have to pay attention to that, and on and on it goes. The bottom line is that the U.S. Senate should be doing more than providing 83 percent of the benefits in a tax bill to the top 1 percent. We cannot go home unless we address the very serious crises facing the working families and the middle class of this country. With that, I yield to my colleague from Oregon.

Mr. SANDERS. Absolutely. It is not only that mistakes are made; it is that when you don't open the doors to the American people, to economists, to mayors, to Governors, to businesspeople, and to leaders in the labor movement to see what do you want in tax reform--when you don't do that--and when you conduct your business behind closed doors, you end up with legislation that represents the needs of the billionaire class, which also makes a number of mistakes. In that regard, I would tell my friend that this afternoon, the Senate Parliamentarian advised that certain provisions of the Republican tax legislation violate the Byrd rule, including a provision allowing for the use of 529 savings accounts for home schooling expenses; the short title--the Tax Cut and Jobs Act--and part of the criteria used to determine whether the endowments of private universities are subject to the legislation's new excise tax. These provisions may be struck from the conference report absent 60 votes. With that, I raise the following points of order against the pending conference report: That subsection 11000(a) violates section 313(b)(1)(A) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974; that subparagraph (B) of section 11032, starting on page 75, line 17 and all through page 76, line 9, violates section 313(b)(1)(D) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974; and that the phrase ``tuition-paying'' as it appears on page 309, line 12, and page 309, lines 14 through 15, violates section 313(b)(1)(D) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. SANDERS. Let me translate that into English. In other words, as I understand what the Senator is saying, billionaire campaign contributors could then legally put money into churches, which would then do the political work that they otherwise would have been doing.

Mr. SANDERS. It impacts every person in America. Would he mind telling the American people just how many public hearings there were to hear from economists, to hear from the business community, to hear from labor, to hear from senior advocates, to discuss this rather long and complicated bill?

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, as everybody knows, the Republican Party now controls the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate, and the White House. We also know that unless a budget agreement is reached by December 22, the U.S. Government will shut down, which will cause serious harm to our country, including the men and women in the Armed Forces and our veterans. I do not know why the Republican Party, which controls all the branches of government, wants to shut down our government. I think that is wrong, and I think a shutdown will be very hurtful to people from coast to coast. Earlier this year, President Trump tweeted: ``Our country needs a good shutdown.'' I strongly disagree. I don't think we need a good shutdown; I think we need to reach an agreement on a budget that works for the middle class of our country and not just the wealthiest people. It is no great secret that we are living in a nation that has almost unprecedented income and wealth inequality, at least since the 1920s. We have the top one-tenth of 1 percent owning almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. I don't believe that now is the time to give massive tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country in a horrific tax bill and then at the end of 10 years raise taxes on 83 million middle-class families. I think that makes no sense. I don't think it makes much sense to be passing a tax bill that gives 62 percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent. Apparently it is not good enough for my Republican colleagues that corporate America today is enjoying recordbreaking profits and that the CEOs of large corporations are earning more than 300 times what their employees make. What the tax bill would do is give over $1 trillion in tax breaks to large, profitable corporations at a time when already one out of five of these major corporations is paying nothing in taxes. That is apparently not good enough--we need to lower taxes for large corporations even more. Right now as we speak, legislation is being written behind closed doors by the House Freedom Caucus and other Members of the extreme rightwing to provide a massive increase in funding for the Pentagon for the rest of the fiscal year, while only providing temporary and inadequate funding for the needs of the working families of this country, including education, affordable housing, nutrition, environmental protection, and other vital programs. What we have seen over the last year is a Republican effort to throw 30 million people off of health insurance. What we then see is a Republican effort to give $1 trillion in tax breaks to the top 1 percent and large corporations and at the end of 10 years raise taxes on middle-class families. Now what we are seeing on the part of the Republican Party is an effort to increase military spending by $54 billion while ignoring the needs of a struggling middle class. We have to get our priorities right and maybe--just maybe--we have to start listening to what the American people want, not just what wealthy campaign contributors want. In terms of the Republican so-called healthcare bill, the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, there is massive opposition from the American people. In terms of this tax bill, in case you haven't seen the last few polls, there is massive opposition to a tax bill that gives incredible tax breaks to people who don't need it and raises taxes on the middle class. Maybe--just maybe--we should start paying attention to the needs of working families. For a start, let us be clear that since the passage of the Budget Control Act of 2011, Democrats and Republicans have agreed to operate with parity, which means if you are going to increase military spending, you increase programs that meet the needs of working families, domestic spending. There was parity in 2011 and parity three times after, and parity must continue. It is not acceptable to be talking about a huge increase in military spending and not funding the needs of a shrinking middle class, which desperately needs help in terms of education, in terms of nutrition, and so many other areas. Furthermore, the American people are quite clear that they want us to move toward comprehensive immigration reform. They understand that it would be a terrible, terrible, terrible thing to say to the 800,000 young people who have lived, in most cases, their entire lives in the United States of America: We are ending the DACA Program. You are going to lose your legal status. You are not going to be able to go to school. You are not going to be able to hold a job. You are not going to be able to be in the military. We are taking away the legal status that you now have, and you will be subject to deportation. That is not what the American people want. They want to continue the DACA Program, and, in fact, they want comprehensive immigration reform--and now. Now is the time to deal with that. I am happy to say that on this issue, there are a growing number of Republicans in the House and in the Senate who understand that in America, you are not going to throw 800,000 of our brightest young people, who are serving in the military and holding important jobs, out of this country by withdrawing their legal status. I have been deeply involved, as have Senator Blunt and others, in the Community Health Center Program, which is so important for the people of our country. Twenty-seven million Americans today receive their healthcare through community health centers, which provide primary care, provide mental health counseling--so important today--provide dental care, and provide low-cost prescription drugs. While my Republican colleagues have been busy trying to throw 30 million people off of health insurance, while they have been busy trying to give a trillion dollars in tax breaks for the rich and for large corporations, somehow they have not had the time to extend the CHIP program or the Community Health Center Program. How in God's Name can we be talking about tax breaks for billionaires and not extending a health insurance program for the children of our country? If the CHIP program is not reauthorized, 9 million children and working families will lose their health insurance. Let us get our priorities right. Let us immediately pass legislation extending and funding the CHIP program and the Community Health Center Program. In the Midwest, as you well know, and all over this country, we have a major crisis in terms of pensions. So many of our older workers are scared to death about retiring because they have very little or nothing in the bank as they end their work careers. If Congress does not act soon, the earned pension benefits of more than 1.5 million workers and retirees in multiemployer pension plans could be cut by up to 60 percent. People who have worked their entire lives, people who have put money into a pension program, people who have given up wage increases in order to gain decent pensions now stand the possibility of seeing their pensions cut by up to 60 percent. How can we do that? How do you tell someone who has worked their entire life, who is looking forward to a decent retirement, that we are going to cut their pension by up to 60 percent? We cannot do that. When a worker is promised a pension benefit after a lifetime of hard work, that promise must be kept. Congress needs to act before the end of the year to make sure that no one in America in a multiemployer pension plan will see their pension cut. Yes, I also think that is more important than tax breaks for billionaires. We need to make a downpayment on universal childcare. In my State of Vermont and all over this country, it is increasingly difficult for working families to find high-quality, affordable childcare. We must, in my view, double the funding for the Childcare and Development Block Grant to provide childcare assistance for 226,000 more children and move toward universal childcare for every kid in America. What the social sciences tell us is that there is no better investment than early childhood education. Every dollar we invest there is paid back many times over by kids doing better at school and by kids getting out, getting jobs, and becoming taxpayers. There is another crisis in this country that has to be dealt with. Ten years ago, Congress passed the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program to support Americans who enter public service careers-- teachers, nurses, firefighters, police officers, social workers, and military personnel. One of the absurdities that exists in America today is that we have tens of millions of Americans who are paying outrageous interest rates on their student debt. People who have done the right thing by trying to get the best education they could are now being punished because they went to college, went to graduate school, and are having to pay a significant part of their income back to the government in terms of their student debt. Congress must address this issue, and there is legislation to make sure that, at the very least, if you are prepared to go into public service work--if you want to be a teacher, a nurse, a firefighter, a police officer, a social worker, or want to go into the military--we will forgive your debt. That is an issue that should be dealt with before the end of the year. We have a crisis in terms of our rural infrastructure, and I come from a rural State. In the year 2017, soon to be 2018, how does it happen that in rural communities all over America there are inadequate broadband capabilities? How do you start a small business in a small town if you don't have good-quality broadband? How do the kids do well in school if they can't gain access to the internet? This is the United States of America, and we should not be trailing countries all over the world that have better broadband access at lower costs than we do. If we want to grow rural America, if we want our kids to stay in rural America, we have to deal with the collapsing infrastructure in this country, especially in rural America. Mr. President, I don't have to tell you--because Ohio has been hit hard, as has Vermont, New Hampshire, and all over this country--that we have a terrible, terrible epidemic in terms of opioid addiction. I am trying to deal with this issue in the State of Vermont, and I know it is severe in Ohio. We have to be adequately funding programs that focus on prevention, making sure that our young people do not get trapped into a life of addiction. We have to provide the kinds of treatment people need. We cannot ignore this. This is an epidemic that is sweeping this country. More people will die this year from opioid overdoses than died during the entire war in Vietnam. We have to adequately fund treatment and prevention for the epidemic that we are seeing in terms of opioids. We ought to keep our promises to our veterans. We now have tens of thousands of positions at the Veterans Administration that have not been filled, and we need to make sure they are filled so that the veterans of our country, when they go into the VA, get high-quality care in a timely manner, which they are entitled to. There was an article, I think it was in the Washington Post, a couple of weeks ago that talked about the fact that 10,000 people died in the last year, waiting for a decision on Social Security disability benefits. In other words, you have people who desperately need these benefits; they have applied for these benefits through the Social Security Administration, and they wait and they wait and they wait. Unbelievably, in the last year, 10,000 people died while they were waiting for a decision from the Social Security Administration. This has everything to do with the fact that there have been budget cuts in recent years that have been significant and have resulted in the loss of more than 10,000 employees in the Social Security Administration, the closing of 64 field offices, and reduced hours in many others. In Vermont, one field office has seen its staffing cut by 30 percent. We have to adequately fund the Social Security Administration so that our elderly and our disabled can get due process in terms of the benefits for which they have filed. In 2016, the National Park Service recorded over 330 million visits to national parks and over $11 billion in deferred maintenance. In other words, our national parks are very, very popular, but they are not getting the maintenance work they need. Meanwhile, the President wants to double fees for people visiting our beautiful national parks. This is an issue we must deal with. The bottom line is that we are coming toward the end of the year, and we have a lot of work to do, but the work we do has to start reflecting the needs of the working people of this country, not just the billionaire class. We cannot give $54 billion more to the military and ignore the needs of our children, our elderly, our sick, our poor. We have to come up with a budget proposal that works for all of us and not just wealthy campaign contributors. As a member of the Budget Committee, I expect to be very active in that process. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I would like to congratulate and honor an exceptional Vermonter, Dora Spaulding, who this year is celebrating 50 years of dedicated service to the students at the Marion Cross Elementary School in Norwich, VT. Ms. Spaulding has been the administrative assistant at the Marion Cross School for the past 10 years and was secretary to the principal for 40 years prior to that. Her story is all the more impressive when one considers that Dora Spaulding attended Marion Cross School herself, from first to eighth grade. It is hard to imagine today, but Dora was the only girl in her entire first-grade class. As the school's administrative assistant, Ms. Spaulding is responsible for the payroll, purchasing, bus transport arrangements, facility rental schedule, and other administrative tasks for the school, but more than that, she is, in many ways, the face of the school. In fact, several members of my staff grew up in Norwich and attended the Marion Cross School and speak highly of her many contributions to the students, school, and the community. Dora Spaulding embodies the spirit of dedicated public service. I applaud her for helping to steward countless young people over the past 50 years and for her tremendous commitment to education and community.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, President Trump and the Republican leadership, as we just heard, are talking every day on television, at news conferences, telling the American people how this tax bill that was passed here at 2 o'clock in the morning on Saturday--without any hearings, with no serious debate--how this tax bill is designed to help the middle class and how it was written for the middle class. Unfortunately, I suspect that I will not shock too many Americans by suggesting that what President Trump has been saying is not truthful. This legislation, according to numerous independent studies, will provide 62 percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent--62 percent of the benefits will go to the top 1 percent--while increasing taxes on 83 million middle-class households by the end of the decade. Why? The reason is that the tax cuts for middle-class families expire by the end of 2025, while the tax breaks for large corporations are made permanent. We are living in a moment in American history where we have an unprecedented level of income and wealth inequality, where the top one- tenth of 1 percent now owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, where the top 1 percent owns almost twice as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, and, if you can believe it, where three of the wealthiest people in this country--Mr. Gates, Mr. Bezos, and Mr. Buffett--three people own more wealth than the bottom half of the American population. That is where we are right now. Yet, in the midst of this incredible level of income and wealth inequality, my Republican colleagues believe that this is a moment when 62 percent of the benefits of so-called tax reform should go to the top 1 percent and 42 percent of the benefits should go to the top one-tenth of 1 percent, while at the same time tens of millions of middle-class families will end up paying more in taxes. How crazy is that? So we have a situation in which the wealthy, who need tax breaks the least, will benefit the most, and the working class and middle class of this country, who need the most help, will benefit the least. The President of the United States and my Republican colleagues tell the American people that trickle-down economics--giving huge tax breaks to the wealthy and large corporations--will expand the economy. We just heard Senator Thune talking about that. They will create new jobs and will bring in so much revenue that it will pay for the deficit it creates. Every independent expert who has taken a look at this tax bill has said it will substantially increase the deficit, even after accounting for the possibility of increased economic growth. The Joint Committee on Taxation has told us that this bill will increase the deficit by $1.4 trillion over the next decade. Why is that important? First of all, it shows, if I may say, the hypocrisy of my Republican colleagues who, year after year after year on this floor, lectured us about the dangers of a $20 trillion national debt and growing deficits. We heard this time and time again. But somehow, when it comes to the need to provide tax breaks to billionaires, that concern about the deficit seems to have disappeared. Secondly and more immediately, there is no doubt in my mind that if the Republicans are able to pass this bill, which will soon go to a conference committee--this bill that gives huge tax breaks to the top 1 percent and raises the deficit by $1.4 trillion--there is no doubt in my mind that they will suddenly rediscover their great concern about deficits and the debt and move directly within the next few months to begin the process of cutting programs desperately needed by the working families of this country--the elderly, the children, the sick, and the poor. This is not just Bernie Sanders speculating. This is what the New York Times said in a front-page article a few days ago: As the tax cut legislation passed by the Senate early Saturday hurtles toward final approval, Republicans are preparing to use the swelling deficits made worse by the package as a rationale to pursue their long-held vision: undoing the entitlements of the New Deal and Great Society, leaving government leaner and the safety net skimpier for millions of Americans. Speaker Paul D. Ryan and other Republicans are beginning to express their big dreams publicly, vowing that next year they will move on to changes in Medicare and Social Security. President Trump told a Missouri rally last week, `We're going to go into welfare reform.' Let me take this opportunity to translate into English what phrases like ``entitlement reform'' or ``welfare reform'' really mean. What they mean in reality are massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, nutrition programs, affordable housing, and other programs desperately needed by a declining middle class. It means that after they pass this so-called tax reform bill, which would provide a $200,000 tax break to CEOs who make over $16 million a year, they will come back to the floor of the Senate and fight for cuts to Social Security for senior citizens trying to survive on $12,000 or $13,000 a year. So there are massive cuts for millionaires and billionaires in their taxes at the same time as they want to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for struggling seniors. ``Entitlement reform'' means that at a time when millions of seniors are splitting their pills in half because they cannot afford the outrageously high cost of prescription drugs, Republicans want massive cuts to Medicare. It means that when two out of every three nursing home residents in this country rely on Medicaid to pay for their long- term care, the Republicans want to make massive cuts to Medicaid. We do not know exactly what form these cuts will take. I think that is not yet clear. There has been discussion among Republicans about raising the retirement age for Social Security to 70 years of age, forcing older workers to work years more before they can get their earned retirement benefits. Maybe they will cut back on cost-of-living increases through a so- called Chained CPI--a new formulation that means lower benefits not only for seniors but for millions of disabled veterans. They apparently believe, for those of you on Social Security now, that the COLAs you have been getting in recent years are just too high. That zero percent increase you got a couple years ago? It is much too high; we have to change the formula and lower benefit increases. Maybe they will go back to their long-term dream of privatizing Medicare and converting it into a voucher program, which will say to the elderly in this country: Here is a check for $8,000. You go out and find private insurance on your own. I would say good luck to any elderly person in this country who is struggling with heart disease or cancer. You see what kind of insurance program you are going to get with a check for $8,000. I would remind my colleagues that many of these proposals were included in the budget resolution the Republicans voted for right here on the floor of the Senate. This is not speculation; these are issues and items that Republicans already voted for. They already voted for a $1 trillion cut to Medicaid, which would throw some 15 million Americans off of health insurance. They have already voted in the budget to cut Medicare by $473 billion. In my view, the last thing we should be doing is giving tax breaks to billionaires while cutting programs for the most vulnerable people in our country. During the campaign, Donald Trump, as a candidate, promised he would not cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. He made that promise over and over again. I have some charts. Let me quote some of the tweets and some of the things Donald Trump said on the campaign trail. This is what he said: ``I was the first & only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid.'' On another occasion, he said: I'm not a cutter. I'll probably be the only Republican that doesn't want to cut Social Security. That was January 24, 2015. It's my absolute intention to leave Social Security the way it is. Not increase the age and to leave it as is. That was Donald Trump on March 10, 2016. Here is another quote: You know, Paul [Ryan] wants to knock out Social Security, knock it down, way down. He wants to knock Medicare way down. And, frankly--well, two things. Number one, you're going to lose the election if you're going to do that. . . . Now, I want to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse. I want to do a lot of things to it that are going to make it much better, actually. But I'm not going to cut it, and I'm not going to raise ages, and I'm not going to do all of the things that they want to do. But they want to really cut it, and they want to cut it very substantially, the Republicans, and I'm not going to do that. Before I go on to the next quote, I want to tell Donald Trump that, as a candidate, man, he was exactly right. This is what he said on March 29, 2016. He said that the Republicans wanted to cut Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. Well, Candidate Trump, you were exactly right, because that is now what we will see in a few weeks or a few months. Another quote from Donald Trump as a candidate: Social Security faces a problem: 77 million baby boomers set to retire. Now, I know there are some Republicans who would be just fine with allowing these programs to wither and die on the vine. The way they see it, Social Security and Medicare are wasteful `entitlement programs.' But people who think this way need to rethink their position. It's not unreasonable for people who paid into a system for decades to expect to get their money's worth--that's not an `entitlement,' that's honoring a deal. Well, there it is. Candidate Donald Trump said over and over again that he would not cut Social Security, that he would not cut Medicare, that he would not cut Medicaid. In fact, quite correctly, he predicted that the Republicans would try to do exactly that. Now I would like to talk directly, if I might, to the President of the United States. Mr. President, on the campaign trail, over and over again, you said that you would not cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. Today, I am asking you nothing more than to keep your word. Don't lie to the American people. Millions of people voted for you because you said you would not cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Keep your word. Tell Senate Leader McConnell and tell House Speaker Paul Ryan that you will veto any legislation that cuts these programs. With that, I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, it is no secret that I am strongly opposed to this disastrous, unfair, and destructive piece of legislation that we are debating today that will give massive tax breaks to the wealthiest people in our country, to the most profitable corporations, and to billionaire campaign contributors. What really concerns me is that we are debating, as everybody acknowledges, a very complicated and confusing piece of legislation that is over 500 pages long. Here we are a few hours before we are going to be voting on this legislation, and nobody has seen it. Nobody even knows what is in this legislation. It is probably being written as we speak right now. That is not a very effective or intelligent way to deal with legislation that impacts every American and trillions of dollars. One of the concerns I have as we look at this bill is that there are provisions in it that nobody really understands in terms of whom it impacts and whom it benefits. As one example, buried in this legislation, on page 503, section 14504, is a paragraph entitled ``Modification to Source Rules Involving Possessions.'' That is the title of that section. What does that mean? As best we can understand, it means that if you are a hedge fund manager who is a resident of the Virgin Islands, you will be able to get a major tax break on capital gains and a 90-percent reduction in tax liability on your income. It has been estimated that corporations and the wealthy are avoiding over $100 billion each and every year by stashing their cash in the Caribbean and other offshore tax havens. It appears that this provision will make a bad situation even worse. In adding insult to injury, it appears that this provision may help only a handful of wealthy hedge fund managers who have claimed residency in the Virgin Islands. It has been estimated that this provision alone--one provision in a 500-plus page bill--will cost over $600 million in lost revenue in the next decade--$600 million in lost revenue when we have a $20 trillion debt and 40 million people who are living in poverty. Now, I see no Republican Senators on the floor, but I am sure that staff is watching this discussion. I have a question that I would like to discuss with Senator Wyden but, more importantly, with some of our Republican colleagues. What I would like to ask my Republican colleagues is whether there has been a hearing on the need to provide tax breaks to wealthy hedge fund managers who have established residency in the Caribbean. I would say to my friend from Oregon that there are a lot of problems facing our country--a declining middle class, 40 million people living in poverty, 28 million people having no health insurance. I am not aware that one of the great crises facing this country is the need to provide tax breaks to wealthy hedge fund managers who have established residency in the Caribbean. It may be one of those great national crises that I have missed, but I don't quite perceive it as being an issue that the American people seem to be deeply concerned about. I hope that my Republican colleagues--maybe Senator Hatch or others-- will come to the floor and tell us who this provision benefits. Are we talking about one hedge fund manager? Are we talking about two? Are we talking about three hedge fund managers who are going to divvy up some $600 million in tax breaks over the next decade? I ask my colleague from Oregon, who is the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, his thoughts on the issue.

Mr. SANDERS. You have 62 percent of the benefits going to the top 1 percent. Meanwhile, by the end of the decade, my good friend, Senator Wyden from Oregon, there is no question but that tens of millions of middle-class Americans will be paying more in taxes; is that correct?

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I would like to enter into the Congressional Record the scores produced by the Congressional Budget Office for section 20001 as it appears in Senate amendment 1618; and the score of section 20001 as it appears in Senate amendment 1855. In Senate amendment 1618, CBO estimates that opening the coastal plain for oil and gas leasing and managing ``it in accordance with requirements of the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act of 1976 (including regulations)'' will result in net Federal receipts of $1092 million from 2018 through 2027. In Senate amendment 1855, CBO estimates that managing lease sales ``in a manner similar to the administration of leases under the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act of 1976 (including regulations)'' will result in net Federal receipts of $910 million from 2018 through 2027, a decrease of $182 million compared to the language in Senate amendment 1618. I ask unanimous consent that the following CBO tables be printed in the Record.

Mr. SANDERS. I will.

Mr. SANDERS. Pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive all applicable sections of that act for purposes of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, could we have order, please?

Mr. SANDERS. I thank the Senator very much. I would just say, according to a number of independent studies, despite what President Trump and the Republican leadership are saying, the overwhelming bulk of the tax benefits in this legislation goes to the top 1 percent. I believe the number is 62 percent that goes to the top 1 percent.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, as I think about what is going on here today, I think this is in many ways a historic day, a day that historians will look back on--December 1, 2017--and they will conclude that today is the day of one of the great robberies, of criminal activities, if you like, in the modern history of this country. The Federal Treasury is being looted tonight. As we speak, there are lobbyists all over Capitol Hill, writing down in handwriting, amendments to this bill to give hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in tax breaks to large corporations. As we speak, they are probably still writing those amendments. Meanwhile, this Senate, this Republican-led Senate has been unable to reauthorize the CHIP program, the health insurance program for low- income children. They didn't have enough time to do that. We have been unable to reauthorize the Community Health Center Program, providing 27 million people with health insurance. We don't have the time to do that. But tonight we are presumably going to pass legislation when, at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, 62 percent of the tax benefits go to the top 1 percent, and 10 years from now, millions and millions of middle-class Americans will be paying more in taxes. I have not the slightest doubt, as I have said before, that after the Republicans pass this huge tax giveaway to the wealthy and large corporations, they will be back on the floor of the Senate, and when they come back, they will say: Oh, my goodness, the deficit is too high. We have to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, and nutritional programs. In other words, in order to give tax breaks to billionaires and to launch profitable corporations, they are going to cut programs for the elderly, the children, the working families of this country, and the poor. This legislation will go down in history as one of the worst, most unfair pieces of legislation ever passed. I say to my Republican colleagues, as you saw on November 7, the American people are catching on. They are demanding a government that does not simply work for corporate lobbyists but works for the middle class. They are demanding a tax system that says to the wealthy and large corporations: You are going to start paying your fair share of taxes, and, no, we are not going to cut Social Security; we are going to expand Social Security. We are not going to cut Medicare; we are going to move to a ``Medicare for all'' healthcare system. The American people are catching on. While Republicans may get away with this act of looting tonight, history is not on their side. The day will come, and it will come sooner rather than later, when we are going to have a government here that represents all of us, not just the Koch brothers, not just the billionaire class, not just wealthy campaign contributors. I yield.

Mr. SANDERS. Thank you. Madam President, tonight is chapter 1 of the Republican Party Koch brothers plan. Tonight, the Republicans provide $1 trillion in tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country and to the largest corporations, while raising the deficit by over $1.4 trillion. Part 2 of their plan--probably coming in a few months--will be to call for massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in order to pay for their tax breaks to the rich. For those of us who don't want to cut these vitally important programs that the American people have paid for, this amendment establishes a 67-vote threshold to make those cuts. If you don't want to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to give tax breaks to millionaires, support this amendment.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me conclude my remarks. I would urge my Republican colleagues to come down to the floor of the Senate and explain to the American people what section 14504 is about and who benefits from some $600 million in tax breaks over a 10- year period. Is it two hedge fund managers? Is it five hedge fund managers? What is it? That is my request, and I hope we can get a response to that quick question as quickly as possible. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS. I would just say that I would be delighted to gut and destroy this legislation, but pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974--I am sorry.

Mr. SANDERS. Let me make two points as I wind down here. One, yesterday, I challenged my Republican colleagues, after this bill is passed, to tell us and tell the American people that when they rack up a deficit of $1.4 trillion, they are not going to come back and cut Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, education, nutrition. Tell the American people that you are not going to balance the budget and compensate for your huge tax breaks to the rich and large corporations by going after the middle class and working class of this country. I challenged my Republican colleagues yesterday to come to the floor and tell the American people that they would not do that. They have not responded to that challenge. The second challenge today is to tell us what is in section 14504, page 503. This is a provision that would provide $600 million in tax breaks to my Republican colleagues. Who is going to get those tax breaks? We believe--and tell us if we are wrong; maybe we are--that we are talking about a handful of hedge fund managers. Who are they? How many of them are there? I would ask, respectfully, that Senator Hatch or any other Republican come down to the floor and tell us who benefits from section 14504.

Mr. SANDERS. I will.

Mr. SANDERS. So here we have a nation today that has a grotesque level of income and wealth inequality--worse than at any time since the late 1920s. The top one-tenth of 1 percent now owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, and 62 percent of all new income is going to the top 1 percent. The Republicans' solution is to make this grotesque inequality even worse by giving 62 percent of the tax benefits to the top 1 percent. I want to get back to this one point. I suspect that when you rush a bill of this magnitude through the U.S. Senate when there have been virtually no hearings, no experts, no real ability to have significant debate and discussion at the committee level, what you are going to find the day after this bill is passed are absolutely outrageous provisions. I suspect--I don't know, and I would like my Republican colleagues to help us here; I cannot verify because we don't have the information-- that on page 503, section 14504, there is a provision that will provide $600 million in tax breaks over a 10-year period that will end up in the pockets of a handful of Wall Street hedge fund managers. That is what I suspect. Maybe I am wrong. Therefore, I hope that some of the Republicans who put this provision in the bill will tell us how this is going to benefit the people of the United States or the Virgin Islands or anyplace else. Again, I am speaking to the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, who knows something about this. Is this an issue, Senator Wyden, that has been discussed for 1 minute?

Mr. SANDERS. Absolutely. That is absolutely what they will do. They will talk about saving Social Security; they will talk about entitlement reform. What they mean is cutting Social Security, cutting Medicare, and cutting Medicaid. As the Senator has indicated, it is not some kind of an abstract, theoretical idea. That is what Speaker Ryan is already talking about. More to the point, that is exactly what was in the budget that was passed here several months ago.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I am reclaiming my time--reclaiming my time.

Mr. SANDERS. He just let the cat out of the box--or whatever the phrase is. He just told you he is going to cut Social Security. That is it, my friends. He will not cut it--what he just said is that he will not cut it for people on Social Security right now. I hear that. But if you are 50 years of age or if you are 55 years of age, they just told you--my friend from Pennsylvania just told you that they may go forward to raise the retirement age; they may cut your cost-of-living adjustment. That is what he just said. So there is a plan, and that is exactly what they intend to do. That is why I hope we can get strong support for this amendment, which will require a two-thirds vote to prevent any cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. With that, I yield the floor.