Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Let us be clear what this is about. This is not about saving the family farm. This is not about protecting small business. This is about over a 10-year period giving $160 billion in tax relief to the richest 2 percent of the population. Ninety-eight percent of the people get nothing. What these folks are trying to do by running up huge deficits and a huge national debt is to end up cutting back disastrously on Medicare, Medicaid, education, and veterans' protection. No money to ease the waiting lines at VA hospitals all over America, but $180 billion for the richest 2 percent of the population. This is an insult to the middle class and to the working families of this country. It should be defeated.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and applaud the gentleman for all of the work he has done on affordable housing for this country. Today we are considering legislation which encourages Members of Congress ``to participate in and support activities to provide decent homes for the people of the United States.'' I have no problem with this legislation. It would be very nice if Members of Congress worked together to build a few hundred units of affordable housing. The problem is that in the United States of America today, we have a housing crisis, and we do not need a few hundred units of new housing, we need hundreds of thousands of units of new housing. It is not acceptable for people to say it is so nice, we are volunteering our efforts. Madam Speaker, we have children sleeping out in the street all over America. We have working families working 40 hours a week living in their cars, and Members of Congress building a few hundred housing units might make for good press releases and photos in newspapers, but it does nothing to address the housing crisis in this country. While the affordable housing crisis in this country deepens, President Bush's proposed housing budget is 63 percent less than it was in 1976 during the last year of the Ford administration. While more than 3 million Americans will experience homelessness this year, including 1.3 million children, President Bush proposes to eliminate a $574 million a year program to revitalize public housing and recently refused to fully fund public housing operating expenses. While 4.9 million American families pay more than 50 percent of their limited incomes on housing, President Bush has proposed to block grant the Federal section 8 rental assistance program which would raise rents and jeopardize rental assistance for tens of thousands of families. While President Bush says he supports expanding homeownership, the reality is that his initiatives have not produced a single home buyer in 2.5 years, and since the President took office, housing foreclosures have increased by 39 percent and home loan delinquencies have increased by 26 percent. Last year the Bush administration care so much about affordable housing that they worked to defeat legislation that I introduced to provide the tools necessary to construct, rehabilitate and preserve at least 1.5 million affordable housing rental units over the last decade through a national affordable housing trust fund. Madam Speaker, we are not going to give up. Just a few months ago, I reduced the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund, a proposal that would not only provide real solutions to the affordable housing crisis, but would also lead to the creation of some 1.8 million new jobs and nearly $50 billion in wages. This legislation currently has 200 tripartisan cosponsors, including 11 Republicans. This bill currently has 200 tri-partisan co-sponsors, including 11 Republicans, and has been endorsed by over 4,000 groups representing labor unions, business leaders, religious organizations, environmental groups, bankers and affordable housing advocates. At a time when 4.9 million Americans families are paying more than 50 percent of their limited incomes on housing and at least 800,000 people, including 200,000 children, are homeless on any given night, the federal government has a responsibility to correct this crisis. If the Republican leadership and the Bush Administration truly wanted to ``participate in and support activities to provide decent homes for the people of the United States'' they would join me in supporting a National Affordable Housing Trust Fund and get this bill signed into law as soon as possible.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam Speaker, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) has long been involved in this issue, and we are pleased to have him with us this evening.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, the issue that we are now going to be discussing, which is the concentration of ownership in the media and the implication of more media deregulation as proposed by the Bush administration and passed today by a three to two vote by the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, is, to my mind, one of the very most important issues facing our country. The reason for that is very clear. Today, we have a handful of very large corporations who, to a very significant degree, control what we see, hear and read; and I think this chart tells the story, and it is a story that not a lot of Americans are totally familiar with. When people watch television they say, well, there is CBS, there is a company called CBS. Wrong. CBS is owned by Viacom, and Viacom owns not only the CBS network but UPN Network, MTV, Nickelodeon and many other television networks. Viacom owns Paramount Pictures, MTV Films, Nickelodeon Films. They own Simon & Shuster, Nickelodeon Books, Pocket Books, Scribner, Touchstone, heavy into publishing. Viacom owns not only television and film and book publishing, they own 180 Infinity radio stations; they own television stations. And that is the same story that we see with all of the major media conglomerates, whether it is AOL Time Warner, which is heavy into the Internet, cable TV, TV networks; whether it is Rupert Murdoch's news corporation, owning 22 TV stations, owning Fox, owning various other types of publications. Clear Channel radio now owns 1,200 radio stations. Disney, that is the Mickey Mouse company, owns ABC; they own many, many other aspects of media. And as bad as the situation is today with a handful, it is likely to become much worse as a result of the disastrous decision, three-to-two vote, by the FCC earlier today. In terms of national concentration as a result of this vote, a national television network, we believe, may now be able to acquire dozens of lawful broadcaster stations and control up to 90 percent of the national television market. As a result of the decision today, as we understand it, a single corporation may now acquire in one city up to three television station, eight radio stations, the cable TV system, numerous cable TV stations and the only daily newspaper. I come from a rural State, the State of Vermont, and what we are going to see in rural America, in small city after small city, town after town, is one company owning the radio station, the television station and the newspaper; and that does not to me seem and feel like the democratic Nation that we are supposed to be, because what democracy is about and what the framers of our Constitution had in mind is a strong First Amendment, a country where people had different ideas, and those ideas clashed, and we learned from the differing points of view. Today, increasingly, we are hearing one point of view, and that is the corporate point of view, the point of view of large multinational corporations like General Electric who owns NBC or Disney who owns ABC, who have deeply vested conflicts of interest; and we will talk more about that later. The key issue here is, do we think it is a healthy situation for a democracy to have a handful of huge, multibillion dollar conglomerates owning and controlling what the American people see, hear and read. I think it is not healthy. There are many conservative organizations who, like the National Rifle Association, spoke out against it; Bill Safire, conservative columnist for New York Times; Trent Lott, conservative Senator, spoke out against it. Progressives, moderates, conservatives understand and appreciate that democracy is not about a handful of corporations controlling the media. I am now pleased to yield to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen), and I want to thank him for all of his good work on this issue.

Mr. SANDERS. Madam Speaker, if the gentleman from Ohio could remain for a moment on this issue, because I want to dialogue with him on something that is interesting. I think there may be citizens of our country who think, well, yes, this is an inside-the-Beltway issue; it really does not affect me very, very much. But I want to mention to my friend from Ohio on issues that I know he and I share similar concerns just what the implications of concentration of media are. I know that my friend from Ohio is deeply concerned about our trade policy, a policy which now has over a $400 billion trade deficit, a policy which has cost this country millions of decent-paying jobs as large corporations throw American workers out on the street, move to China, move to Mexico. I would ask my friend from Ohio, how often has he seen discussions of the issue of the deindustrialization of America and the loss of good paying jobs on television or in the editorial pages of newspapers?

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman and some people in Seattle initiated a public meeting in Seattle.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, there is another aspect of this issue, and that is the aspects of localism. Vermont is different from Oregon, and we should pride ourselves on our differences and not see us become homogeneous. From 1981 to 1989, I was the mayor of the city of Burlington, Vermont, and when I was mayor, there were four or five local radio stations who covered the news. We would hold a press conference, and there would be four or five takes on what we said. Now, if we are lucky, there is one radio station covering the news, and that phenomenon has gone on all over this country. I remind my friends and colleagues that as a result of the deregulation decision today, there will be hundreds of cities and towns in America where there will be one company owning the local TV station, radio station and newspaper; and if anyone thinks that is not a dangerous situation, I would strongly disagree with that person.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, when people go to a newsstand and they see hundreds, if not thousands, of magazines, they say, Wow, look at the diversity of opinion. And we all know there are hundreds and hundreds of television stations out there. I would remind the gentleman that in the last days of the Soviet Union, which was a totalitarian society, some people had the impression that there was one newspaper and one television station and one radio station. Wrong. There were hundreds, if not thousands. The only problem was that all of them were either controlled by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union or the government of the Soviet Union. The gentleman's point exactly. All kinds of outlets; the problem is, controlled by, in that case, two institutions. Well, we do not have two institutions, we have more, six, eight, nine institutions. But every day, and as a result of this deregulation effort, that number is going to be smaller and smaller. So do not kid yourself when you say hundreds of television stations and radio stations; ask who owns them.

Mr. SANDERS. I thank the gentleman from Washington and the gentleman from Oregon for their very thoughtful remarks. This is an issue of huge consequences. We have got to go forward together to undo the damage done today.

Mr. SANDERS. I would say to the 750,000 people who communicated with the FCC, the 750,000 people who said do not deregulate the industry more so that a tiny handful of companies will control what we see, hear and read, I would say to those people and to the Members of Congress not to give up on this issue. We suffered a setback today which was not unexpected. I think we all knew what was going to happen. But the fact that so many people from the State of Washington or the State of Oregon or the State of Vermont and all the States in between, that so many people are now aroused about this issue, are upset at what happened, are going to fight for a more democratic media, is a positive thing. Clearly now the ball falls to the people in this Congress to undo the damage done by the FCC. I know that I will be working with my friend from Washington and my friend from Oregon and people from all political points of view to undo the damage done today so that we create a media that we are proud of, where the American people become not just the best entertained people in the world but the best informed people, where the media gives our democratic society the ideas and the information that people need in order to make informed decisions in a democratic society. We have got our work cut out for us. I have not the slightest doubt in my mind that the vast majority of the American people stand with us and do not want to see a few corporations controlling the media, and our job now is to take that support and to convert it into strong legislation.

Mr. SANDERS. I would just pick up on that point from my friend from Washington. If there is anything good about what has happened in the last few months, what has been good is that more and more people are now aware of what is happening in this issue than was previously the case. As my friend from Washington indicated, we are going to be introducing probably several pieces of legislation not only to undo the damage of today's decision but to create a situation in which we improve upon what existed yesterday. My friend mentioned earlier that hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people, progressives, moderates, conservatives, people in the NRA, people in the conservative President's Parents Television Council, people from all across the political spectrum have communicated with the FCC to the tune of some 750,000 communications. Yet despite the fact that the communications were overwhelmingly in opposition to more media deregulation, the FCC moved in that direction. My friend might be interested in knowing, why does that happen? How does it happen? I would point out one of many reasons and that is the power which is not limited just to the FCC but the power that the industry has over the regulators. Sometimes people think that the regulators regulate the industry. In truth, given the role that money plays in Washington, more often than not it is the industry that regulates the regulators. The Center for Public Integrity recently reported that over the last 8 years the FCC took staff and members on some 2,500 junkets that were paid for by the industry. Industry paid for trips for FCC commissioners and top staffers to be flown to hundreds of conferences, conventions, and broadcast industry events in Las Vegas, coincidentally Las Vegas, 330 trips to Las Vegas for FCC members and staff, New Orleans, New York, London, San Francisco, Miami, Anchorage, Palm Springs, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, all over the world. The industry was paying for the visits and the travel done by the members of the commission and the staff.

Mr. SANDERS. I would point out, my friend mentioned Clear Channel, which was the company that really sprouted after radio deregulation in 1996 and now owns some 1,200 radio stations. It is important to recognize that Clear Channel not only owns radio stations; they own a lot more. Clear Channel is the largest concert promoter in the country, selling 66 million tickets in 26,000 events in 2001. Why is that significant? It is significant because if you are an entertainer promoted by Clear Channel, obviously you are going to get a lot more air time on their radio stations than somebody who is not. You could be the greatest singer in the world; but maybe if you are not promoted by Clear Channel, you might not get the opportunity to appear on those radio stations. So I think the issue here is like anything else. We are living in a country where fewer and fewer large corporations own more and more of our Nation. That is a bad situation in general; but I think what we recognize when it comes to the media, it is not just bad from an economic sense in terms of stifling competition; it is bad in what it does to the clash of ideas and diversity of opinions. We have heard from people, for example, who are involved in African American broadcasting, and what they are saying is they are losing their stations being bought out by the large conglomerates. The same is true with Latino stations. Again, fewer and fewer large companies, homogeneous-type broadcasting one end of the country to the other, fewer ideas for the American people.

Mr. SANDERS. I think the gentleman is absolutely right in two regards. Number one, there is enormous concern over this issue from one end of this country to the other. Just a few days ago I was in San Diego, California, with the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner), who held a public meeting on this issue, and the problem was, he had rented a hall that could only seat 200 people and 400 people showed up, so half of the people had to be outside listening to the meeting via speakerphone. We held a meeting outside of Burlington, Vermont, we are a small city in a small State, and we had 600 people come out to hear Michael Copps, who has been one of the courageous commissioners on this issue, traveling all over the country. There is massive public concern, and your point earlier about the outrage that, on an issue of this significance, Mr. Powell did not have public meetings all over the United States; and if he had, no question, based on your experience and my experience, hundreds of thousands of Americans would likely have come out to say, No, we believe in a democratic society, and a handful of people controlling the media is not what a democratic society is all about. I suspect he knew that, which is why he held one public hearing in the daytime in Richmond, Virginia. I yield to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

Mr. SANDERS. I think my friend from Ohio put his finger right on the issue, and that is in our country today, there are tens of millions of families who are struggling hard to keep their heads above water. These are people in my State, and I am sure in Ohio, who are not working one job; they are working two jobs, three jobs. They are working 50, 60 hours a week. They are worried about their pensions, worried about their health care situation. It would seem to me that the media might want to focus on those issues. I have the feeling in the back of my head that truthfully General Electric is not particularly anxious to educate people on those issues; not to talk about the horrendously unfair distribution of wealth and income that we have in this country; not to talk about the fact that the United States is the only Nation in the industrialized world that does not guarantee health care for all people; not to talk about the fact that our pharmaceutical prices are by far the highest prices in the world because we are the only Nation that does not regulate the pharmaceutical industry. So the point that I am making here is that I do not want anyone to think this is some kind of abstract, obtuse, inside-the-Beltway issue that does not affect their lives. It does affect their lives. The media, to a significant degree, ignores the struggles and the needs of working families throughout this country, not giving them the information they need.

Mr. SANDERS. Just dealing with General Electric, the point here again is that sometimes people turn on the television and they say there is NBC. Well, no, it is not NBC. This is a subsidiary of General Electric. For many, many years, General Electric has been an anti-union company. The fact of the matter is that if you are a member of a union in the United States today, you earn approximately 25 percent more than an American worker doing similar work who is not a member of a union. That is just a fact. I would ask my friend from Ohio how often he has seen programs on General Electric's media or in fact any other media talking about the advantages of being a member of a union? Now, I myself have never seen a program like that. Maybe my friend has.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the subject of my Special Order this evening.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I am at a disadvantage. After hearing you and the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) and I am sure the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson) soon after, there is not much that I can add to what you have said. Let me reiterate a point that you made. I hope the viewers appreciate this. You are a Republican, the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) is a Democrat, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) is a Republican, I am independent, and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson) is a Democrat. Two Democrats, two Republicans and an Independent. And there are a lot more of us who are not here tonight. What that should tell the American people is that there is widespread anger, frustration and disgust with what the pharmaceutical industry is doing to the people of this country. Three years ago, I became the first Member of Congress to take a group of American citizens over the Canadian border in order to buy medicine. We went to Montreal. The reason that we did that is, I wanted not only to help hard-pressed Vermonters, mostly women, who are having a very difficult time paying for their prescription drugs, but I wanted to help show the country the absurdity of the situation, where the same exact medicine manufactured by the same exact company is sold in Canada for a fraction of the price that it is sold in the United States. As we have discussed, it is not just Canada. It is Europe; it is Mexico. The American people pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. In that trip to Canada, one of the moments that I will not forget is that we had women with us who were struggling with breast cancer, something I know the gentleman from Indiana (Chairman Burton) has a personal interest in. Women fighting for their lives were able to pick up Tamoxifen, a widely prescribed breast cancer drug, for one-tenth of the price that is being charged in the United States of America. Of course, it is not just Tamoxifen; it is drug after drug after drug sold for a fraction of the price. I think the gentleman said it well, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) made the point, too, and the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen), it seems to me we are looking at two separate things. On the one hand, we are seeing researchers who are making enormous breakthroughs; and the result of that is that we are saving lives, we are easing pain, we are prolonging life. That is the good news. All of us here have a great deal of respect for those researchers in the drug companies and in the United States Government, in universities, foundations who are doing that work. I thank them so much for what they are doing. But then there is another side of the pharmaceutical industry. Those are the people who sit at the heads of these corporations who are concerned about one thing alone, that is, making as much money as they possibly can. They do not lose a night's sleep if elderly people die because they cannot afford the medicine they need or if their health deteriorates. Of the many outrages that we have talked about here, the huge amount, hundreds of millions of dollars, that floods Washington or State capitals in order to maintain high prices, there is another outrage that I do not think has been mentioned tonight. While elderly people cannot afford the high price of medicine, the CEOs and the top dogs of these companies receive huge compensation packages. In 2001, C.A. Heimbold, Jr., former chairman and CEO of Bristol- Meyers-Squibb, ended up his compensation with $74,890,000. Not bad; but that is not all. Mr. Heimbold also received stock options that same year amounting to over $76 million. One year, one man, $150 million. Then they tell us they just cannot lower the cost of medicine so that seniors in Vermont or Indiana can ease their pain or protect their lives. Year after year while we continue to pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, year after year the pharmaceutical industry is the most profitable industry in the country. More profitable than media, more profitable than banks. The pharmaceutical industry leads the list. The issue here, and the gentleman has touched on this, I say to the chairman, the issue really here is will the United States Congress have the guts, and it is going to take some guts, to stand up to what I believe is the most powerful force in the United States of America. I was interested, Mr. Speaker, to hear the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) say they have already gone down to Indiana and tried to work against him because of his willingness to stand up on this issue. If I am not mistaken, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) told the same story, that they had gone to Minnesota, as well. The gentleman and I know that when Members of Congress fight hard for consumers, lots of money comes into a campaign, mostly against Democrats; but I am sure they will go after Republicans, as well. What we have to deal with now is to ask our colleagues in the Congress to have the guts to stand up to the campaign contributions, the advertising, the visiting of the editorial boards, the TV ads, all that we will see, the unlimited sums of money, hundreds of millions of dollars. Do we have the courage to say no to those people and protect the American consumer? I believe that if tonight is an example of the potential of what we can do, standing together, regardless of philosophy or party, we can protect the American people and take on this industry. I thank the gentleman very much for calling this Special Order.

Mr. SANDERS. If the gentleman will yield further, Mr. Speaker, I think the point the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) made and we all made is that over 1 million Americans now purchase their meds in Canada, and the number is growing every day. The chairman and I and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson), we said to the gentleman from the FDA who was before the subcommittee, okay, you tell us you are very concerned about the safety aspect. We have a million Americans. Tell us how many of them have been made sick by receiving adulterated or counterfeit medicine. Out of 1 million people, the answer is zero. Now, we are all going to sign or we are on a request to the GAO to do something a little different. I think that if the FDA is concerned about health and safety, they should do a study telling us how many Americans are dying or seeing a deterioration of their health because they cannot afford the prices that the industry is charging them today. I have the feeling we are going to see a number a heck of a lot larger than zero. So maybe the FDA should worry about health and safety in terms of prices, rather than hounding people who are buying affordable and safe medicines in Canada.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I thank my friend for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, this bill is a fraud. It will do devastating harm to this country. It is an embarrassment that the Republican leadership brings it up, and it should be defeated. Mr. Speaker, point number one. This bill is grossly unfair. My Republican friends, it is not the millionaires and billionaires who are struggling. It is the middle class. It is working families who are struggling. Yet your bill gives $93,000 a year in tax breaks to the millionaires, but 36 percent of the American people get nothing, and 53 percent of the households would receive a tax cut of under $100. So the people who need the help get nothing; the millionaires get the lion's share. Number two. When you give hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks, you endanger the middle class. This will lead to drastic cutbacks in education, in Medicare, in Medicaid, in Head Start, in the programs that working families depend upon. Shame. Cutting back on education and Head Start to give tax breaks to billionaires. Number three. What a legacy to leave to our children and grandchildren. The national debt now is almost $6 trillion, huge debt payments every single year. Your tax breaks for the rich will drive the national debt up by several trillion dollars. What a gift to give to our grandchildren. Fourth point. You talk about creating jobs. That is what you told us 2 years ago when you brought forth your tax breaks for the rich. You told America it was going to create jobs. In the last 2 years, we have lost 2 million jobs after your tax breaks for the rich. This proposal will do nothing more. If you want to create decent-paying jobs, build affordable housing. Protect workers right now who will lose their jobs at the State and city levels. Tax breaks for the rich do not create jobs. Lastly, and maybe most importantly, the American people are seeing through this fraud. The Wall Street Journal/NBC poll says today nearly two-thirds, 64 percent, of the people who were polled said there were better ways to boost the economy than tax cuts. Only 29 percent said tax cuts were the answer. These guys say, big government, terrible, terrible. What you are really saying is you do not want the elderly to have prescription drugs. You do not want the kids to have an education. That is what you mean when you rant and rave against the government. But here is what the people say. Fifty-five percent said they would prefer the government to spend more money on providing health care coverage, compared to 36 percent who said no.

Mr. SANDERS. But he is still losing. The polls are very clear. The people want health care and Social Security.

Mr. SANDERS. Here is my question. The Wall Street Journal poll today showed massive opposition to this tax proposal and that more than half of the American people, 55 percent, said they would prefer the government to spend more money on health care coverage. The people want health care. They want Social Security. Can my friend respond to that?

Mr. SANDERS. I thank my friend for yielding. I appreciate that.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, my friend says it cuts taxes for almost everybody. The last tax proposal the gentleman brought up here gave as much in tax breaks to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent, those people who are millionaires, as to the bottom 89 percent of the people. Does my friend think that is fair?