Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Well, I think while it is certainly not fair, it is understandable. Because once again we have got to deal with the reality that the wealthiest one-quarter of 1 percent of the population make 80 percent of the campaign contributions. Unless I would be very mistaken, and I do not think I am, when these guys kick in $50,000 or $100,000 or $1 million, and their corporate friends kick in huge sums of money to both political parties, maybe that is the reason that they are making those contributions. After all, imagine just trying to live on a couple hundred million dollars a year when one can get a tax break and earn even more money. My guess is that when they go to these $50,000 a plate dinners, they are not sitting there saying, raise the minimum wage, that is why we contributed $50,000; expand the Pell Grants; provide health care to all people; cut the cost of pharmaceuticals so that ordinary folks can afford it. My guess would be that people who contribute huge sums of money to the political parties are not quite so interested in the needs of the middle class and working families of this country but rather their own interests. And one of their own interests is to pay less and less and less in taxes, and that certainly has happened in recent years.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman touches on an issue I know both of us have worked on, and that is veterans' rights, and this gets again back to the issue of the so-called booming economy and the priorities being established in the Congress. Now, it seems to me that in terms of veterans, these are men and women who have put their lives on the line. They did what their government asked them to do. They signed a contract, sometimes in blood, with the United States Government. And I regard it as completely unacceptable that the government reneges on the contract that it signed with those people. And when we talk about priorities and we talk about the so-called booming economy, I find it hard to understand how any Member of this Congress could support on one hand huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country, who in recent years have seen extraordinary increases in their wealth, and then with the other hand say to the veterans of this country, well, gee, I guess we are having problems with prescription drugs, we just do not have the money to help. We may have to downsize the VA hospitals. We may have to cut back on the quality of care that we give. Now, what a sense of priorities it is to say to millionaires and billionaires, oh, we hear your pain, we are going to give you huge tax breaks; but to the veterans of this country, to the senior citizens of this country, to the working people of this country, gee, we are sorry, we just do not have the funds to help in your hour of need. Now, we have talked about health care, we have talked about prescription drugs, we have talked about the Federal Reserve, and we could go on and on, but the bottom line is that what goes on in this country increasingly is that the people on the top are doing extraordinarily well, the people in the middle are working longer hours for lower wages, and the people down below are hurting very severely. I find it basically wrong, and there is no other word that I can use, that in the United States of America today we have the most unfair distribution of wealth and the most unfair distribution of income in any industrialized society. We have a situation in which the wealthiest 1 percent of the population now own 40 percent of the total wealth of this Nation, which is more than the bottom 95 percent. We have just 1 percent or more wealth from the bottom 95 percent. As the gentleman knows, in recent years, we have given huge tax breaks to upper income people at the same time as we have cut back on the needs of our veterans and we have cut back on the needs of many, many other people. So when I go back to Vermont, people say to me, middle class people say, gee, we cannot afford to send our kids to college; how can you be in a Congress which can provide huge tax breaks for those people who really do not need it? So I think we have to get our priorities right. And what our priorities should mean is that we should join, in my view, the rest of the major countries in this world and say that health care is a right of citizenship, not a radical idea; that every man, woman, and child should be entitled to health care because they are citizens of this country; that we should be putting more money into higher education so that middle class families do not have to go deeply into debt to send their kids to college; so that the young people do not have to get out of college $20,000, $30,000, or $40,000 in debt. So I would suggest that maybe the Congress would want to start focusing on the needs of ordinary people rather than just those people who make the campaign contributions.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. The gentleman has led us in an interesting direction, and he talks about families making ends meet. But wait a second. I looked at the newspaper this morning, and I watched television. We are in the greatest economic boom in the history of this country. Is the gentleman suggesting that not all of the people in Oregon or in Vermont are doing extraordinarily well? Gee, that is what I saw on television. What is the reality of this great economic boom? As my colleagues know, when I speak in the State of Vermont, I go from one end of our State to the other, and I talk to a lot of middle class audiences and working class audiences, I talk to family farmers. I always ask one question. I start off, and I would like to ask the people of America this question, and that is you see on the television and you read in the newspaper that the economy is booming. So my question is: Is the economy booming for you? And in the State of Vermont you ask that question of 300 people in an audience, one or two people raise their hands. What does a booming economy mean? A booming economy for you means that you are making more money and working fewer hours; that is what a booming economy is. You have better health care, you are better able to send your kids to college. Your housing situation is better. What is the reality? Well, let me say first the good news, and we have to be honest about this. The good news is that last year Bill Gates had a very good year, and I mean a very good year. Bill saw his wealth increase by $40 billion, increase up to 90 billion. What is 40 billion? Let me put it in a context. In my State of Vermont, which is a small State, we have our entire state budget which covers all of the needs of the people of 580,000 people in the State of Vermont. It is a little over $1 billion. That means that in Gates' increase in wealth in 1 year, could run the State of Vermont for 40 years, which brings him to a total, by the way, of 90 billion. So Gates had a good year; what about the average American? Let us go over some facts here. During the period of 1979 through the present, the growth in income has disproportionately flowed to the top. The bottom 60 percent of the population actually saw their real income, that is inflation-accounted income, decrease in 1990 dollars. The top 20 percent saw modest gains, but the wealthiest 1 percent saw their incomes explode over 80 percent. In other words, when we talk about the great economic boom, most people today are worse off in terms of what they earn than they were in 1979. People are working longer hours for lower wages, and a lot of that reason has to do with the absurd trade policy that the gentleman described. We have 43 million Americans with no health insurance. And, here is a fact that is not very much discussed: today, the average American is working 160 hours a year more than was the case 20 years ago. We had hoped as we entered the 20th century, and remember, the unions were saying 40 hours, they wanted a 40 hour work week 100 years ago; that is what workers were fighting for. Today we are lucky to find the workers only working 40 hours. People are working 50 and 60 hours; people are working two jobs, three jobs. So how do we have an economy booming when people are forced to work 50 or 60 hours at wages less than was the case 20 years ago; when they do not have health insurance and they cannot afford their basic needs.

Mr. SANDERS. Now, Mr. Speaker, that sounds like a pretty good proposal to me, and let us see how many of our colleagues here who tell us day after day how the Social Security system is going bankrupt, which certainly is not true, let us see how many of them are going to join us in that type of an approach.

Mr. SANDERS. The gentleman forgets one very important point. China is a very good place to do business. It is a wonderful place to do business. Why would you want to pay an American worker $15 an hour or $20 an hour? Why would you have to live up to and obey environmental standards and work safety standards? Why would you have to deal with workers who might actually be members of unions? Why would you want to deal with workers who have the freedom to vote and to elect or un-elect their officials when you can go to China and pay workers 20 cents an hour, 25 cents an hour, where workers cannot form unions, where workers cannot go out on strike, where workers cannot protect their safety on the job? It is an absolutely outrage, prima facie, right on the surface, that you have tens of billions of dollars being invested in China by the largest American corporations who at the same exact time have laid off millions of American workers, and they are going there because they can pay desperate people slave wages. And that is the essence of our trade policy which is what? Two hundred billion dollars deficit this year? And yet when you hear the administration or you hear the Chamber of Commerce or the National Association of Manufacturing, they tell us about all the jobs that we are creating by exporting, and, as you just indicated a moment ago, they forget to tell us about the millions of jobs that we have lost. Not only have we lost jobs, but another very important factor is taking place, and that is that if an employer has the option to run to Mexico and pay a desperate person there 50 cents an hour through NAFTA or runs to China and pays a worker there 20 cents an hour, what do we think this does to the wage structure in the United States? All over this country workers are given a proposition. They say either you are going to take a wage cut, take cuts in your health insurance, or we are going to move to Mexico, we are going to move to China. So our whole trade policy has not only cost us jobs, it has lowered wages in the United States.

Mr. SANDERS. I thank the gentleman. The bottom line is very simple. The taxpayers of this country have spent, appropriately, billions of dollars in research through the National Institutes of Health to develop very important anticancer drugs, anti-AIDS drugs and many other types of drugs. We have had a good result. What the outrage is, is that after the taxpayer pays for the development and the research of that drug, what we have right now is the government then simply gives over that product to the private pharmaceutical company which can charge any price it wants. So the taxpayer gets screwed twice. After you pay for the research, then you have to pay some outrageous price to purchase that product. We are going to continue on that legislation, and we are going to bring it up as soon as we can on the floor of the House. But I want to mention another piece of legislation that we have recently introduced, and that is that given the reality of what goes on right now, that the price for American prescription drugs are sold in Canada and Mexico far, far cheaper than the United States, I have legislation which would do a very simple thing. We are going to talk about trade in a minute, and a lot of the folks here think, oh, free trade is a great idea. You and I have problems with certain aspects of, quote-unquote, free trade. But here is something very interesting. If a prescription drug distributor in the United States wanted to do business with a distributor in Canada and wanted to purchase a prescription drug there at the same price that the Canadians are able to purchase it from American companies, that is currently illegal. The theory of free enterprise is that a businessperson can go shopping around and get the best price and the consumer benefits and everything else. It is a nice theory, I guess, except it does not apply, NAFTA notwithstanding, to prescription drugs. So right now an American distributor cannot negotiate with a Canadian distributor to purchase a prescription drug at the same price as the Canadians are getting it. So we have very simple conservative legislation in that says: Let the free market work, and when you have exactly the same product approved by the FDA, let American prescription drug distributors get the best price, sell it to the pharmacist, and as the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) indicated a moment ago, the problem is not with the pharmacist in the United States; he or she is paying significantly higher prices than pharmacists all over the world, and we are saying: Hey, let us have a level playing field, let us have a little free trade when it comes to protecting the American consumers. So this is a piece of legislation that we look forward to bringing to the floor of the House and passing.

Mr. SANDERS. I know the gentleman shares with me the outrage that people throughout this country are suffering and dying and are forced to take money out of their food budget or their heat budget in order to pay for the outrageously high cost of prescription drugs. What we have learned is that in terms of the drugs that seniors use, I do not know that it is different for the general population, but in terms of seniors' needs, in my State of Vermont, the most commonly used drugs by seniors cost 81 percent more in the State of Vermont than they do in Canada, same exact drugs, manufactured by companies, American companies, and they cost 112 percent more in Vermont than they do in Mexico. Let me also mention some other information. You mentioned about how the cost of drugs in India, at least one particular drug, was significantly cheaper, the same exact product, in the same exact bottle, than you purchase here in the United States. In terms of the drugs most commonly used by seniors, if we use a figure of $1 for a drug paid in the United States, in Germany that same product would cost 71 cents, in Sweden 68 cents, in the United Kingdom 65 cents, in Canada 64 cents, France 57 cents, and Italy 51 cents. Half price in Italy. Meanwhile, the drug companies are experiencing record-breaking profits and they spend that money very freely here in Washington in campaign contributions and in lobbying.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, if I could interrupt the gentleman, what he is suggesting is that his proposal would lower taxes for 95 percent of the American people and in fact would provide a very substantial tax break for lower income working people, and at the same time, we would be able to extend the life of Social Security for the 75 years that the actuaries think we need; is that what the gentleman is saying?

Mr. SANDERS. You are not suggesting that we should interfere with, quote, unquote, free trade just because we are importing products made by children who are virtual slaves; the gentleman is not suggesting that, is he?

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, it makes a lot of sense to me, but unfortunately, those people who make $10 or $12 an hour are not making the huge contributions to both political parties and to their Members of Congress, or to the United States Senate. The gentleman a moment ago, and maybe we can get back to this point, touched on a very important issue that I do not think is very widely known by the American people. That is when some of our friends talk about taxes, talk about income taxes, two points to be made. Number one, when we hear somebody on television saying, let us have an across- the-board reduction in income tax, it sounds pretty good. But please understand that the bulk of those tax breaks are going to go to upper income people. Now, the gentleman a moment ago touched on the FICA tax and Social Security. It seems to me that if we want to make our tax system a bit fairer and protect middle income and working families, we might want to take a hard look at the Social Security tax, which is extremely regressive. As the gentleman said a moment ago, somebody makes $1 billion a year, somebody makes $72,000 a year, who contributes more into the Social Security system? Answer: they both contribute exactly the same. A worker making $20,000 a year pays 6.2 percent; somebody making $1 million a year pays 6.2 percent on the first $72,000. Very regressive system. I know that the gentleman has brought forth a proposal which is far more progressive, and maybe he might want to say a word on it, which not only protects middle and low-income workers, but it does something else very interesting. When we hear all of our friends telling us how Social Security is falling apart, the gentleman's approach would extend the life of Social Security for many years.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, it has always seemed to me that the major crisis that we face as a country is not that we do not know the answers to the most serious problems that we face but rather, for a variety of reasons, we refuse to ask the right questions. As the only independent in the Congress, I want to raise some issues that are usually ignored by most of my Democratic colleagues and most of my Republican colleagues and are often ignored by the mass media, as well. Let me start off with one question that I think is the most important of all; and that is, why is it that tens and tens of millions of people in our country, most especially the young people, are giving up on the political process? Why is it that virtually every day we become a less and less democratic and participatory society? Why is it that in the last election, in November of 1998, only 36 percent of the American people bothered to vote, which was the lowest turnout that we have had in many years? And this compares, as my colleagues know, Mr. Speaker, with the recent election that took place in Israel, where 90 percent of the eligible people voted, compared to 36 percent in the United States. It is not uncommon in Canada, in Europe, in Scandinavia to have elections in which 70 or 80 or 90 percent of eligible voters participate. Why is that? Why is that that so many people say, ``oh, democracy, oh, voting, oh, participating in the political system, do not be silly. I would not think of doing that.'' Now, as bad as the general situation is, as bad as a 36-percent voter turnout is, what is even worse and more frightening is that, in the last election, if my colleagues can believe it, only 18 percent of the young people under 24 years of age voted. That means 82 percent of people 24 years of age or younger did not vote. And that in itself is a very serious situation. But what is even more frightening is that we know that, by and large, if people do not vote and participate when they are young, they are much less likely to vote as they age. So that means that, everything being equal, as low as our voter turnout is right now, it is likely that in years to come it will become even lower. Now, not only is the voter turnout among young people distressingly low, but what is also very frightening is that polls indicate that young people know very little about the political process. There was a poll recently done by the National Association of Secretaries of State, and what they discovered when they asked young people three questions. They said, very hard question, ``Can you name the vice president of the United States?'' Pretty hard question. ``Can you name the governor of your States?'' Pretty hard question. And lastly they said, ``How long is a congressional term?'' ``How long do Members of Congress serve?'' Those are not very hard questions. Those are questions that we would hope that kids in the sixth grade would know. And yet, three-quarters of the young people 24 years of age and younger were unable to answer that question. Poll after poll shows not only that young people but people of all ages have very little understanding of what our budget is about, of how appropriations are made, of how they can participate in the political process. I go to many, many schools in the State of Vermont because I think it is important for a Member of Congress to do that. What we find is that people in Vermont, young people, and people all over this country, they know the rules of basketball. They know that when you throw a ball through a hoop you make two points. They know all about football. You score six points when you make a touchdown, one point an extra point, two points if you throw a pass. They know all about that. Field hockey. They know hockey. They know all of these things. And yet they say, ``Tell me something, young people. Are you concerned about the high cost of college?'' And young people say, ``Oh, yeah. Twenty, thirty thousand dollars. My family cannot afford that.'' And then you say to them, ``Okay. From a democratic political perspective, how do you change that? How do you make your voice heard? How do you make sure that the Federal Government helps middle class and working families better able to go to college and to pay for college tuition?'' ``Gee, I do not know. I have not got a clue. How do you do that? We do not know how to do that.'' Well, the reason is, if young people came together on this issue and they said to the United States Congress, ``get your priorities right, put more money into Pell grants, put more money into higher education so that middle class and working families can afford to get to college, and if you do not do that, Members of Congress, we are not going to vote for you,'' and that if a few million young people said, ``you know what,'' just like that suddenly Members of Congress would wake up and say, ``Oh, golly gee. College education is very expensive. We are going to deal with that. Maybe we are going to cut back on corporate welfare. Maybe we are going to cut back on tax breaks for the rich.'' But that is not going to happen unless young people participate in the political process. So the first point that I want to make is that I consider the most serious problem facing this country is the growing alienation of the American people and especially the young people from politics and government. And not only does that alienation mean that working people and young people are going to be less able to achieve their goals through the political process, it means something else. In my view, it is an insult to the men and women who have put their lives on the line defending American democracy that people are not utilizing our democratic system. Clearly, we are not going to have a democratic system if people do not utilize it and participate in it. And if ordinary folks, if working people, if low-income people, if young people do not participate in the political process, who do you think is going to fill the gap? The answer is quite clear. The people who have the money. The people who have the power want nothing more than for the American people and for working people and young people and elderly people, they want those people not to participate in the political process. Why is that? Well, because then their money can have an even greater impact over the political process than it has right now. Today we have the outrageous situation that the wealthiest one- quarter of one percent of the American population makes 80 percent of the campaign contributions. And then we combine that with the fact that only 36 percent of the people vote and we end up with a Congress that does exactly what this Congress does, and that is to represent the interests of the wealthy and the powerful. It seems to me, if young people are serious about education, what do they think education is? It means learning how to participate, learning how to use their ideas to make this country and their community and this world a little bit better place. So they are cheating themselves and they are demeaning the education that they have received if they are not participating. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that I am being joined this evening by the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio). I am proud that I chaired the Progressive Caucus here in Congress, which now has some 55 members, for 8 years. I am delighted that the gentleman from Oregon is now chair of the Progressive Caucus, and he has been a valiant fighter for working people and the elderly and people who do not make the $50,000 contributions to both political parties. I am delighted that the gentleman is with us this evening. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Mr. SANDERS. Before you do, because trade is certainly an issue that you and I have worked together very hard on, I wanted to pick up on a point that the gentleman made. When we talk about campaign contributions, let us be demonstrative and very clear what we mean when we talk about the wealthiest one-quarter of 1 percent making 80 percent of the campaign contributions. One of the issues that I have been working on very hard for the last several years and is an issue of great, great concern in my State of Vermont among the elderly, among almost the entire population, is the outrageously high cost of prescription drugs. In the United States today, we have by far, it ain't even close, the highest cost for prescription drugs of any country in the industrialized world. Many of those drugs are manufactured by American companies. They sell it to Canada far cheaper than they sell it to Americans. They sell it to Mexicans far cheaper than they sell it to those of us in the United States. They sell it throughout Europe. Now, how is that? One of the answers lies in the fact that the pharmaceutical industry spends more money on campaign contributions and lobbying than any other industry in the United States. In the first 18 months of the last election cycle leading up to the 1998 campaign, they spent over $83 million on lobbying and campaign contributions. Today, in a Washington publication, there is an article which says that the pharmaceutical industry is becoming very nervous. They are becoming very nervous because all over this country, people are saying, ``We can't afford to pay these outrageously high prices for prescription drugs.'' It is obscene that elderly people have to choose between food and prescription drugs. Here in Congress many of us are now saying, let us have Medicare include prescription drugs, so that elderly people do not have to make that choice. Well, what do we read in the paper today? We read that the pharmaceutical industry is now prepared to spend between 20 and $30 million on TV ads and on lobbying so that Congress does not protect the elderly and the sick in terms of prescription drugs. That is how life goes and will continue to go until we have real campaign finance reform. So at a time when the pharmaceutical industry last year had the biggest increase in profits of any industry, over 18 percent, when the top 10 pharmaceutical companies had an average increase in profits of over 26 percent, what they do is they take those profits, they put it into lobbying, they put it into campaign funds of Members of Congress so that their interests are protected, and we continue to have the highest price for prescription drugs in the world.

Mr. SANDERS. Compared to a dollar.

Mr. SANDERS. Is the gentleman actually suggesting that we should look at both sides of the equation? Now that is a radical concept.

Mr. SANDERS. Well, we have actually worked with the Customs people, and in fact I am planning to do just that. We border on Canada, and already we had a hearing in Montpelier, Vermont, well attended, and a number of folks were coming up and they say, ``You know, Bernie, we go over the border. We have a particular problem. The drug there is 50 percent, so we are going to organize a little bit of a trip to our neighbors to the north and bring back some prescription drugs.'' And the goal of all of that is to highlight the absurdity, the outrageous situation, and let us reiterate this once again in case people get confused. We are not talking about generics, we are not talking about look-alikes. We are talking about the same exact product often in the same exact bottle sold all over the world at significantly lower prices than the United States, and we are going to do something to change that situation. I am tired of seeing we are also asking for a study. Can you imagine how many folks, in fact, have died in this country because they cannot afford the prescription drugs? Can you imagine the absurdity of elderly people or sick people in general not being able to pay relatively small sums for their prescription drugs; what happens when they are ill? They end up in emergency rooms, they end up in the hospital, and Medicare kicks in thousands of dollars that could have been saved if these folks had their prescription drug in the first place. Bottom line of this situation is that people are dying, people are suffering while pharmaceutical companies are enjoying record breaking profits and spending their cash all over Washington trying to prevent the Congress from doing the right thing, and the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) and I are going to do our best to turn the tables and finally give the American health care consumers a break, and we are going to save lives, and we are going to ease suffering, and we are going to finally help lead the effort in standing up to this very, very greedy industry.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, we are running out of time, and I want to thank the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for joining me this evening. The bottom line of this discussion is the following, that unless ordinary people, working people, middle-income people, young people, get actively involved in the process and fight and stand up for social justice, what will happen is that the people who have the money, the people who make the campaign contributions, they will continue to call the tune here in the Congress and in the administration. What will happen is that the policies, whether they are trade policies, health care policies, prescription drug policies, labor policies, environmental policies, whatever, those policies will be heavily influenced by the interests of those people who have the money, and they will work against the interests of the vast majority of the people. The bottom line of this whole discussion is that we are a great and wealthy Nation. If we all stood together and became actively involved in the political process, we could create a society where every man, woman, and child had a decent standard of living. That is not utopian vision, that is concrete reality. That is what we could do. We could join the rest of the industrialized world and provide health care to every man, woman, and child, including prescription drugs. We will not do that unless people stand up and be prepared to fight for what is right. I just want to thank the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for joining me this evening.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, my friend obviously misses the main point about what the function of the United States Congress is supposed to be. Does the gentleman not think that the function of the Congress is to represent the interests of the large banks and the rich? Does he really have the radical idea that the United States Congress is supposed to represent the vast majority of the people, the working people, the elderly people, the people who are struggling? Ah, he forgets. Those are not the people who contribute $50,000 a plate at fund-raising dinners, so those are not the people who are going to get a fair shake. If my friend will allow, I want to quote something from a very interesting book. It is called Shifting Fortunes, the Perils of the Growing American Wealth Gap by Chuck Collins and some other people, and it touches on an issue that we very rarely talk about, and that is the fact that the United States has by far the greatest disparity of wealth and income in the industrialized world; that we now have the obscene situation where the wealthiest 1 percent of the population owns more wealth than the bottom 95 percent. And in the book, and let me quote it, he says, ``The top 1 percent of households have soared, while most Americans have been working harder to stay in place, if they have not fallen further behind.'' Now, this is not income, this is all together what you own. Well, since the 1970s, the top 1 percent of households have doubled their share of the national wealth at the expense of everyone else. The top 1 percent have doubled their share of the national wealth. Using data from the Fed, Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances, economist Edward Wolf of New York University says that 40 percent of the Nation's household wealth as of 1997, the top 1 percent of households have more wealth than the bottom 95 percent. And in fact, what we are seeing today is a greater concentration of wealth than at any time in the modern history of this country.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield further, I would comment that those banks that he is referring to I presume are not losing money, they are making money and they are making money the right way, by reinvesting in their communities. I think, not to wander away from the subject at hand, there is a real concern throughout this country about the loss of decent paying jobs and the fact that big money interests are much more interested in investing in China or Mexico to help companies make a quick buck exploiting cheap labor in those countries rather than reinvesting in the United States, rather than reinvesting in our community. What CRA is about, which is so essential and so right, it says reinvest in our communities, create new jobs in our communities, start small businesses in our communities, give people affordable housing in our communities. And you know what, banks? You can make money doing that. You do not have to just help people invest in China. So I think the gentleman and I are in agreement, the CRA is a success story. And I hope very much that no one in Congress wants to come forward to dismantle it or to weaken it. And if they do, I hope that the President will do the right thing and inform them that any legislation which weakens CRA will be vetoed.

Mr. SANDERS. I would concur with what my friend from Minnesota said. But the bottom line for me is that in this great and wealthy country, we should be outraged that so many millions of families are still not latching on to the American dream despite the fact that they are working long and hard hours. Clearly an essential part of what the American dream is about is to have a decent house in a decent community. We should also understand that, if my memory is correct, the banking industry right now is enjoying record-breaking profits. And I think, as the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce) made very clear, because of acts of the United States Congress, banks have certain benefits, among other things, the FDIC, which guarantees the money that is in those banks. And banks, therefore, have a responsibility to their communities and many banks understand that. But essentially, if this institution, the Congress, is to mean anything, we have got to stand up for those people who are not earning huge sums of money, those people who are not living on the mansions on the Hill. We have got to address the needs of senior citizens and working families who are paying 40, 50, 60 percent of their limited incomes for housing. As my colleague the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Vento) indicated, the CRA in fact has been an extremely successful program. It has done what it is supposed to do. It has created affordable in Vermont and throughout this country. It has helped small business create decent paying jobs. We must stand firm against anyone in this institution who wants to weaken a program that has worked so well for working families in this country.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Vento) very much for organizing this special order, and I want to go on record in agreeing with the remarks that the gentleman has made, as well as the comments of the ranking member of the committee, the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce), and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski). I think what they had to say is appropriate, and I am in agreement with it. Mr. Speaker, we see on the television virtually every night and we read in the newspapers that the economy is booming, and some people say it has never been so good. But when I speak to working families in the middle class in the State of Vermont they have a slightly different interpretation of what is going on in the economy. Because for many of those people, they are working longer hours for lower wages than they were 20 years ago. And while we are all delighted that Bill Gates saw a $40 billion increase in his wealth last year, that is really not the case for most the people in the State of Vermont. They are struggling hard to keep their heads above water. One of the major problems we face in the State of Vermont has to do with affordable housing. If anything, that crisis is becoming more acute not only in my State but in States throughout this country. So it is very clear to me that one of the important tools that we have to build affordable housing, and to have the banks throughout this country play a responsible role in their communities is what we have done through the Community Reinvestment Act, which, in fact, is working extremely well in this country today and which must not be weakened. I would agree with the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce) in his remarks of a few moments ago that if CRA is weakened, we should not pass any banking legislation that does that, and I would strongly urge the President to veto any legislation which weakens CRA. Mr. Speaker, I recently took part in a ribbon cutting celebration to commemorate the successful redevelopment of the Applegate Housing Development in Bennington, Vermont. The successful redevelopment project involved the efforts of many good people and organizations, including the residents, who in fact came together through a strong tenants' association. A nonprofit housing developer, civic leaders, the people in Bennington and their local government played a very positive role in this effort, as well as government officials and local banks. And the CRA was a vital part of that effort. Until recently, Applegate was an apartment complex where the plumbing water backed up into the bathtubs, vacancy rates exceeded 50 percent, and crime was a serious problem. Today, Applegate is a completely renovated community where families can live in peace and comfort and children have the kind of opportunities to which they are entitled. The truth of the matter is that the State of Vermont has a network of excellent community banks that is working with local nonprofit housing developers to build and rehabilitate housing for the benefit of low- and moderate-income families. CRA helps them make an important part the American dream, a decent and safe place to live accessible to all Vermont. The CRA encourages federally insured financial institutions to provide deposit and credit services throughout the communities in which they do business, including low- and moderate-income areas, and it is working. I think that there should not be major disagreement in this body that we simply do not want to see banks lend to institutions and businesses that are running off to Mexico or China and investing in those countries. We want to see banks reinvest in our communities. And that is what the CRA process is about. The CRA is helping to rebuild the economies of the stressed communities. It is making homeownership accessible to more Americans. It is helping to start small businesses and to create decent paying jobs. Since it was passed in 1977, CRA is credited with lending $1 trillion in loans to low- and moderate-income communities. And this is a significant achievement. CRA is good for consumers, and it is good for communities. It is also good for the banking business because it encourages financial institutions to look for business opportunities they might otherwise miss. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned earlier, not everyone in our society is benefiting from the growth in our economy. An estimated 10 million Americans lack decent, affordable housing. It is not uncommon in the State of Vermont and, I dare say, in Minnesota to find families paying 40, 50 or more percent of their limited income for housing. That is not affordable housing. In rural America, more than 9 million people are living in poverty. Rural communities across the country cannot get the development funds or the consumer credit they need, and in urban areas the lack of affordable housing leaves more and more working Americans without homes. Instead of dismantling the CRA, as some in Congress would have us do, we must strengthen it. Congress is once again considering a bill to quote, unquote modernize the financial services system. But that bill fails to modernize the CRA to preserve its effectiveness in the changing financial system. The changes taking place in today's financial marketplace threaten to make it even more difficult for low- and moderate-income families to get the bank services they need and deserve. Without access to private capital that the CRA provides for low- and moderate-income consumers and communities, homes will not be renovated, small businesses will not be started, new jobs will not be created, and neighborhoods will not be rebuilt. We need to save the CRA from those in Congress who would tear it down. I urge my colleagues to resist any effort to weaken the CRA. Again, I want to thank the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Vento) for his leadership role in this.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend for yielding time to me. The current situation regarding U.S. troop presence in Europe is very strange, because many countries in Europe are now far wealthier than the United States and are more than able to defend themselves. They do not need us. In Europe, because their countries invest in health care, almost all Europeans have free or inexpensive health care. Yet in our country, 43 million Americans lack health care. In Europe, almost all young people are able to go to college free or very inexpensively. In our country, young people and their families are going deeply into debt. It seems to me absolutely appropriate that Europe provide more funds for their own defense. If they do that, maybe we can join them and provide health care to all of our people, and free and inexpensive college education to our young people.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. SANDERS. I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio.

Mr. SANDERS. I thank both the chairman and the ranking member very much for their support. The bottom line is that we are all fighting very hard to see that our family farmers survive. Agritourism is one way we can get some cash into the pockets of our family farmers. I thank both the chairman and the ranking member for their support.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, this Nation already has the most unfair distribution of wealth and income in the entire industrialized world. Given that reality, it is absurd that some in Congress are talking about giving huge tax breaks to some of the wealthiest people in this country while at the same time they are talking about raising the eligibility age of Medicare to 67, charging a 10-percent copayment fee for home health care, and voucherizing Medicare, which would mean more out-of-pocket expenses for seniors in this country. Mr. Speaker, 111 members of Congress have written to the President. We have urged him, do not raise the eligibility age of Medicare to 67, do not charge a 10-percent copayment fee on home health care to some of the weakest and most vulnerable people in this country, and do not force seniors to pay more out-of-pocket for their health care costs. I urge all Members of this body to join us.