Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. What you are talking about are the millions and millions of people who are desperate, who have no place to go and that is what is going on in this country. There is one point that I want to add to what my colleague was saying. And that is my very great fear that the American people are not reading or seeing on their TV's or hearing on their radios much about this reality, which is the most important development that has taken place in modern American history. This is the story of the century, that the American middle class is shrinking, that the gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider, that people are working longer hours for low wages. But somehow when we turn on the TV in the evening, we do not see that story. We see O.J. Simpson and we see everything else in the world, but we somehow could not see that story. How come we do not see that story? It is tied into everything else that we are talking about. Who do we think owns the media? When we talk about sweatshops in desperate Third World countries, when we talk about companies downsizing and throwing American workers out on the street, we are talking about companies like Disney who, among other things, owns ABC. When we are talking about companies going to Mexico to pay people substandard wages or going to China, we are talking about General Electric, who happens to own NBC. And Westinghouse happens to own CBS, and Rupert Murdoch happens to own Fox, multibillionaire who is extremely right wing. So it is no great secret that the American people do not see the most important realities facing their lives on the television. They turn on the TV, they see everything else in the world except what is going on in their own lives. I think one of the issues that I would add to the discussion is the need to tackle the very important issue of corporate control over the media. It is not just television. It has to do with newspapers as well. Let me mention a very wonderful book written several years ago by a former journalist named Ben Bagdikian, the Media Monopoly. Let me quote from Mr. Bagdikian or paraphrase what is going on in newspapers in America. Eighty percent of the daily newspapers of this country were independently owned at the end of World War II. They were owned by people, not huge corporations. Today, 80 percent of daily newspapers are owned by corporate chains. Just 11 companies control more than half of the dailies, half of the Nation's daily newspaper circulation. And then we wonder when we have this NAFTA debate, gee, is it not a great shock that every major newspaper in America ends up being pro-NAFTA. In fact, 98 percent of the daily newspapers in America have a monopoly as the only paper in town. You have a one-newspaper town. Although there are more than 11,000 magazines published in the United States, today just two corporations control more than half of all magazine revenues. When you go to the newspaper stand and you see all of those magazines, what you end up finding out is that these magazines, many of them are owned by a relatively small number of corporations. Although there are 11,000 local cable television systems, only 7 companies have a majority of the 60 million cable TV subscribers. Three companies own more than half the television business, four companies own more than half of the movie business, five companies rake in more than half of all book revenues. So there is a reason why people do not feel engaged in the political process. There is a reason. My colleague mentioned, I think very perceptively, what has been going on politically around the world in the last month. The change in England with the victory of the Labor Party, the change in France with the victory of the Socialist Party, the fact that the NDP did very well in Canada. What we are seeing is people all over the world saying, no, we do not have to deal with the absurdities of the global economy which lower our wages. But in this country it is very hard for people to learn about what is going on because of corporate control over the media. I think that is one of the reasons why we end up having by far the lowest voter turnout. In England, I think they were disappointed. Their voter turnout was perhaps 70 percent. They were disappointed. It was a low turnout. Canada, it is usually above 70 percent. My guess is in the next congressional elections, probably 35 percent of the people will vote. Low-income people, working people have given up on the political process. One of the reasons I would suggest is that, when they read the papers and they read the magazines and they see the television, their lives and the pain of their lives is not being reflected in what they are observing. I think that is an issue we have to discuss.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. The issue that he is talking about is the most important issue facing our society, and that is that never before in American history, at least the modern history of this country, have the people on top had so much wealth and have had so much power. What they are doing with that wealth and power is using it to make themselves ever more rich while they are squeezing and shrinking the middle class and creating a new class, urban serfs.

Mr. SANDERS. The point the gentleman is making is that many people out there may say, well, that is too bad, but it does not affect me. But it does affect us, because what is going on, if an employer can hire somebody for $3 an hour, for $3.50 an hour, that means all wages will go down as well. That is what this effort is about. It is not only to save money by hiring people below the minimum wage, it is to push everybody's wages down in exactly the opposite way that when we raise the minimum wage working people's wages will go up. The gentleman before made an interesting point, and I want to pick up on that because, again, it is an issue that is not discussed very much on the floor of the House. He said, quite correctly, that the United States now has the most unfair and unequal distribution of wealth and income in the entire industrialized world. They used that dubious distinction that used to accrue to Great Britain, with all their dukes and queens and kings. The point is that today the United States has claimed what England used to have and that we now have, the most unfair distribution of wealth and income. When we talk about economics, ultimately, like a football game or a basketball game, it is about who wins and who loses. And what is going on in the United States today is that we know who is winning. We know the wealthiest 1 percent of the population now owns over 40 percent of the wealth, which is more than the bottom 90 percent. So we have 1 percent owning more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. When we hear about the booming economy, we should know that between 1983 and 1989, 62 percent of the increased wealth of this country went to the top 1 percent and 99 percent of the increased wealth went to the top 20 percent. Meanwhile, the middle class shrank and poor people were working at lower wages than for many, many years. And when we see the unfair distribution of wealth in general, we also see recently the outrageous situation that CEO's in the United States of America, the heads of large corporations last year had a 54 percent increase in their income while many working people saw a decline in their real wages. And CEO's now earn, on average, more than 200 times what the worker in their company earns, which is by far the largest spread in the industrialized world. So I think when we talk about the state of the economy, it is important to understand who is winning and who is losing, and the reality is that the people on top have never had it so good, the middle class is shrinking, and working people all over this country are working longer hours for lower wages and barely keeping their heads above water.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. In terms of human rights what I get a kick out of is not so many years ago we were told that China was a Communist authoritarian society where people did not have any rights, where people did not have religious freedom. Unless I am not hearing what is going on, not only have things not changed, they have gotten worse. The State Department last year announced that the situation in China in terms of human rights is worse. With over 1 billion people, they said there are no dissenters. In all of China, nobody, not one person, according to the State Department, is out on the street able to dissent against their authoritarian country. But what has changed in America? What changed in America is corporate America has said, gee, maybe that is not such a bad place to do business. Hey, why were we attacking these people? No unions, no freedom to stand up and fight back? Sounds like a good place to do business. So where 20 years ago we were told how terrible Red China is, suddenly these same corporations are now spending millions of dollars to convince us that it is really a very fine place and it is a wonderful place to do business. What better place can you have? You pay people 20 cents an hour. If they stand up and fight back they are fired, put in jail. You have slave labor over there in the prisons. What a good place to do business. Let us continue MFN with China, say our corporate friends. Fortunately, some of us do not agree with that.

Mr. SANDERS. Thank you very much, and I want to congratulate you on the leadership you have shown in fighting for a fair trade policy in this country over the last many years and for the rights of working people. I think the proof basically is in the pudding. If our current trade policy in terms of NAFTA, in terms of GATT, in terms of MFN with China was a success, then we would see it. We would see it, and how would we see it? Well, we would see that wages for middle class and for working people would have gone up. That is what we would have seen. That is what a success is. People would be making more money. But what is the reality? The reality is that in 1973 the average American worker earned $445 a week. Twenty years later, taking inflation into account, that same worker was making $373 a week. Real wages have declined precipitously. Now if this trade policy was working so well, then the working men and women of this country would be working fewer hours, they would have more time to spend with their kids and with their families. Family values; we all remember that expression. But I will tell you something going on in Vermont that I expect all over this country is that the working families in my State are working longer hours. In the State of Vermont we have many workers who do not have one job, who do not have two jobs; they have three jobs, and many women who would prefer to stay home with the kids are now forced to go out and work because the family needs two breadwinners. So where is the success of this trade policy? Is it working well? Well, we have to acknowledge, yes, it is working well for some. We were all delighted to read several weeks ago that the CEO's of major American corporations last year saw a 54-percent increase in their compensation. Hey, that is not too bad; a 54-percent increase. The average worker barely kept up with inflation, and some workers went below inflation, continue to see a decline in their standards of living. The average CEO is now making over 200 times what the workers in the company are earning, which gives us by far the most unfair distribution of wealth and income in the entire industrialized world. So I think there is a little bit of confusion when our friends in the corporate media tell us how good our trade policy is doing. They hang out at the country clubs with their other rich friends and they all talk to each other and say, ``Hey, how are things going, Joe?'' ``Pretty good. Made 60 percent more this year than last year.'' Write an editorial, things are going really good. But they forget to go into the small business community and they forget to go into the factories and into the plants. Talk to workers there and what do the workers say? They say, ``They cut back on our health care benefits, they lowered our wages, they are forcing us to work more hours for less pay.'' But that is the part of America that we do not see reflected here in this Congress very often, we do not see reflected in the editorial pages of America's newspapers. The whole issue of so-called free trade is not very complicated. Just imagine any community in America, any normal community, and just suddenly see the size of that community double and that the people who came in were prepared and forced to work for 20 cents an hour or 40 cents an hour. Now, what do we think would happen to wages and benefits in that community? It does not take a Ph.D. in economics to figure it out. Employers would much prefer to pay people 20 cents an hour or 40 cents an hour. I think in Vietnam now they have gone down to 6 cents, that Nike has finally reached the lowest of the low, that in Vietnam they can hire people at 6 cents an hour. So what do you think happens in a community with wages? They go down and benefits go down. So-called free trade that exists right now, whether it is MFN with China or NAFTA, is an effort by corporate America to take decent-paying jobs in this country to desperate Third World countries, exploit the people there, rather than pay American workers a decent wage. It seems to me that our challenge is not only to end the exploitation of Third World workers, but to develop trade policy and tax policies that say to the Nikes and the other major corporations in this country, ``Hey, come back to this country. If you want Americans to consume your products, how about giving them a chance to manufacture those products?'' I think this is the crux of the entire economic crisis that we are facing. We have to get a handle on this trade crisis, or else we are going to see the middle class continuing to decline and the standard of living of working people go down and down.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, if I may, the outrage, while all of this goes on, while they do not have enough money to clean up the environment, I was down in Mexico and we talked to women who were having miscarriages because they were working in such unhealthy environments. Children were being born with major birth defects. They do not have the money to do that, but they do have the money to pay their CEO's 54 percent more this year than last year. They do have the money to hire all kinds of lobbyists to come here to Washington to tell Members of Congress how good this policy is that makes the rich richer and everybody else poorer. They do have the money to put ads in newspapers all over America telling us how we have to cut back on Medicare and Medicaid and education and give tax breaks to the rich as part of a budget agreement several years ago. They suddenly have the money for those things, but when working people in this country and in Mexico ask for decent wages, gee, there is just no money available. I think this is the untold story of the last 30 years. What saddens me very much is the corporate media, which is owned by these very same people, is not going to tell the story, but what we are seeing is a situation of unparalleled greed in the modern history of this country, where the people on top are making huge amounts of money, pushing down the American workers, pushing down the Mexican workers, forcing people to compete against each other, destroying the environment so they can sit up with their billions and billions of dollars. It is an outrage, and it is an outrage that this Congress has not effectively dealt with that issue.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Drug Free Communities Act of 1997, legislation which supports communities across the Nation in their efforts to reduce rising teenage drug abuse. Studies show that teenage use of marijuana, inhalants, cocaine, methamphetamine, LSD, heroine, and other drugs is on the increase--and it is among children that we are seeing the greatest increase in use. The Drug Free Communities Act of 1997 is an important step toward empowering communities to fight the growing phenomenon of drug abuse among our Nation's youth. I would like to add that I very much appreciate that the original cosponsors of this bill, Mr. Portman, Subcommittee Chairman Hastert, Mr. Levin, and Mr. Rangel, as well as the subcommittee ranking member, Mr. Barrett, were very willing to work with me to mold this legislation so that rural communities, as well as urban communities, are given the same chance to benefit from this Federal program. Because of our discussions, this bill now provides that antidrug coalitions in rural communities, communities under 30,000 people, will be given the opportunity to receive up to $100,000 in Federal matching funds. This puts rural communities at the same level as urban communities for receiving Federal matching funds. Mr. Speaker, let me emphasize that drug abuse is not only an urban problem, but is also a problem in the rural communities of this country. Drug pushers find a market for their drugs, not only in the schools of urban areas, but also in the schools of our rural areas. We are beginning to see gang activity in our rural communities and these gangs are largely centered around drug use. Presently, it is our rural areas which are ill-equipped to handle an influx of drugs because rural areas do not have access to the local resources which urban areas enjoy. Because of bipartisan cooperation which has taken place, rural anti-drug coalitions will be better able to deal with drug abuse problems. Again, I thank the gentlemen for their cooperation and willingness to accept my input on this bill, and I urge passage of this important legislation.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to salute four outstanding young women who are being presented with the Girl Scout Gold Award by the Vermont Girl Scout Council. They are Melissa D. Jones and Tina M. Newell of Senior Girl Scout Troop 707 in Vergennes, VT and Jennifer R. Tobin and Vincenza Tortolano of Senior Girl Scout Troop 817 in Rutland, VT. They are being honored on May 29, 1997 for earning the highest achievement award in U.S. Girl Scouting. The Girl Scout Gold Award symbolizes outstanding accomplishments in the areas of leadership, community service, career planning, and personal development. The award can be earned by girls aged 14 to 17, or in grades 9 to 12. To receive the award, these Girl Scouts first earned four interest project patches, the career exploration pin, the Senior Girl Scout leadership award and the Senior Girl Scout challenge as well as designing and implementing a Girl Scout Gold Award project to meet a special need in their communities. As members of the Vermont Girl Scout Council, Melissa Jones and Tina Newell first earned badges in understanding yourself and others, child care, games, creative writing, and reading. The girls then combined their efforts in a project to combat illiteracy. They designed a series of three workshops for young children about the magic of books which they put on at their local town library. The workshops featured a magician, hired with moneys the girls raised themselves, magic tricks and crafts taught by the girls and wonderful stories featuring magic. They attracted a large number of youngsters. The girls reported ``Everything we did interested and excited the children; they wanted to read more books and they now know the library and are planning to come to their future children's programs.'' Jennifer Tobin and Vincenza Tortolano put their efforts into making a special place for some elderly members of their community. The girls designed and established a conversation garden to give nursing home residents and their guests access to sidewalks, shade and beauty, putting in two settees and planting bulbs and a flowering crabapple tree, all financed by the girls' sale of handmade cookbooks. To quote the nursing home administrator, ``These two young people have earned the respect and appreciation of 125 nursing home residents and 160 employees of Eden Park.'' These four Senior Girl Scouts have earned my respect and appreciation, too, and I believe all four of the girls should receive the public recognition due them for such significant services to their communities and their country.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, the good news is that Congress has made real progress in reducing the deficit in the last 4 years from $290 billion down to $65 billion. That is good. The bad news is that the budget agreement voted upon last night gives huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country, the people who do not need it, and at the same time lowers the quality of health care for our senior citizens by cutting Medicare over a 5-year period by $115 billion. That is wrong. Mr. Speaker, we must move this country toward a balanced budget, but in a way which is fair, in a way which helps the middle class and the working families of this country, and not just the wealthy. While targeted tax breaks for the middle class are appropriate, it makes no sense that over half of the proposed tax cuts go to the highest earning 5 percent. Not only is that wrong, but it is bad economics. With huge tax breaks for people who do not need them, we run the danger of going through the 1980's all over again and seeing the deficit explode. Let us move this country toward a balanced budget, but let us do it in a way that is fair.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, the amendment that I am offering is absolutely nonpartisan. There are many Republicans and Democrats who are increasingly frustrated about the lack of progress being made by the Department of Defense in solving the crisis of the Persian Gulf War syndrome. This amendment appropriates $10 million to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for emergency research of and treatment for the synergistic impact of chemicals on the soldiers who served in the Persian Gulf and who are currently suffering from gulf war syndrome. This amendment offsets this appropriation by reducing the amount to be appropriated for the Department of Defense, Overseas Contingencies Operations Transfer Fund, which is presently at $1.5 billion, by $10 million. Mr. Chairman, for over 5 years, the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration have been studying the heartbreaking issue of Persian Gulf War syndrome. And frankly, they have not been successful. That is the issue that we have got to acknowledge today. The truth is that the DOD and the VA have made virtually no progress in understanding the cause of Persian Gulf War syndrome or developing an effective treatment for it. This is a painful truth, but we should recognize it. Given that reality, I believe that the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs should no longer be solely trusted with the critical task of diagnosing and treating the up to 70,000 gulf war veterans who are suffering today. From the end of the war until this day, the Pentagon, the VA, and the CIA have not been forthright with the Congress, the public or our veterans about the causes of gulf war syndrome and how we can better treat the veterans who are suffering from it. Over and over again there has been denial. ``Is there an illness?'' ``Well, no. In the beginning there was no illness.'' Then, after tens of thousands of veterans came forward, ``Yeah, there is an illness, but it is stress.'' ``Were our soldiers exposed to chemical warfare agents?'' Absolutely. ``No, they weren't.'' Five years later, oh, yes, some of them. Well, maybe 500. A few months later, well, yes, maybe 20,000. Today, we do not know how many. There may be 130,000. We do not know. Mr. Chairman, the military theater in the Persian Gulf was a chemical cesspool. Our troops were exposed to chemical warfare agents, leaded petroleum, widespread use of the very strong pesticides, depleted uranium and the smoke from burning oil wells, and they were given a myriad of pharmaceuticals as vaccines. Further, as a result of the waiver from the FDA, they were given pyridostigmine bromide as an anti- nerve gas measure. Now, Mr. Chairman, the good news is that a number of studies, and I have them right here, study after study from the University of Texas, from Southern Illinois University, from Duke University, from the University of Texas in Houston, what these studies are telling us is these scientists believe that there is a direct link between chemical exposure and pyridostigmine bromide that our soldiers took. In other words, they have made some real progress. But what is the problem? The problem is that for whatever reason, and I do not want to cast aspersions today, but for whatever reasons neither the Department of Defense nor the VA has been vigilant in looking at that area. They will tell us they are, but they have not had any results, and the truth is they are not moving forward. Very simply, Mr. Chairman, what this amendment does is take $10 million, not a lot of money within the scheme of things, and puts it into an institute, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, who are interested in pursuing the link between chemical exposure and Persian Gulf illness. I think we owe it to the 70,000 men and women who are suffering today, who put their lives on the line in the gulf, to look at this and to go into those agencies of government who want to pursue this issue. Now, I know that my friends on the other side are not unsympathetic to this effort. I would hope that they would waive, that my friend the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], given the importance of this issue, would waive the point of order and allow us to proceed as rapidly as we can to address this important issue.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment. The Clerk will designate the amendment.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

Mr. SANDERS. I thank the chairman.

Mr. SANDERS. I do, Mr. Chairman. Just in an informal sense, I would choose not to challenge the gentleman from Louisiana if I could have some assurances that he will work with me in trying to get some money to an agency outside of the DOD so that we can really look at the impact of chemicals on our soldiers. Is that something he would be interested in working with me on?

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I briefly wanted to discuss an amendment which I will be introducing as soon as the rule on the supplementary appropriation is fixed, which deals with an emergency situation for gulf war veterans who are really not getting the attention and the understanding that they need in order to deal with the very serious crisis of Persian Gulf war syndrome. As we know, Persian Gulf war syndrome is right now affecting some 70,000 of the brave men and women who served this country in the gulf. Mr. Speaker, I am a member of the Subcommittee on Human Resources, which is chaired by the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Shays], who has done an outstanding job in bringing before the subcommittee some of the leading researchers in this country who are searching for an understanding of Persian Gulf war syndrome. We have also heard testimony from the Pentagon and the Veterans' Administration. I must say, Mr. Speaker, that the conclusion that I have reached is that, for whatever reason, and I say this unhappily, it is my view that neither the Pentagon nor the Veterans' Administration is going to come up with a solution regarding the problems and the cause of the problems that our Persian Gulf war veterans are suffering from. Nor in my view are they going to come up with an effective treatment. Mr. Speaker, there is some good news. The good news is that there have been some major scientific breakthroughs in allowing us a better understanding of Persian Gulf war syndrome. Mr. Speaker, the military theater in the Persian Gulf was a horrendous chemical cesspool. Nobody denies that. It is now acknowledged that our troops there were exposed to chemical warfare agents that had been denied for a while, but it is now acknowledged by all. In addition, they were exposed to leaded petroleum, a widespread use of pesticides, depleted uranium and the dense smoke from burning oil wells. In other words, all around them were very dangerous and toxic chemicals. In addition they were given various vaccines. Perhaps, most importantly, as a result of a waiver from the FDA, they were given pyridostigmine bromide for antinerve gas protection. Mr. Speaker, an increasing number of scientists now believe that the synergistic effects of these chemical exposures plus the pyridostigmine bromide may well be the major cause of the health problems affecting our soldiers. The truth is that after 5 years, there has not yet been, to the best of my knowledge, one significant study coming out of the Pentagon or the VA which shows the relationship between chemical exposure in the Persian Gulf and the Persian Gulf syndrome. On the other hand, and this is where the good news is, there have been a number of important studies done outside of the Pentagon and the VA which makes this important link. I will be introducing these studies into the record so that interested Members can study them. But let me just very briefly mention a few of them. Dr. Robert Haley of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, based on studies that he has done, believes the syndromes are due to subtle brain, spinal cord and nerve damage caused by exposure to combinations of low level chemical nerve agents and other chemicals, including pyridostigmine bromide in antinerve gas tablets, DEET in a highly concentrated insect repellant, and pesticides in flea collars that some of the troops wore. And Doctors Mohammed Abou-Donia and Tom Kurt, of Duke University Medical Center, found in studies that used chickens that two pesticides used in the gulf war, DEET and permethrin, and the antinerve gas agent pyridostigmine bromide, which was given to all troops, were harmless when used alone. However, when used in combination, these chemicals caused neurological deficits in the test animals similar to those reported by some gulf war veterans. Dr. Satu Somani of the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine states that based on recent experimental proof and historical evidence of symptoms, such as impaired concentration and memory, headache, fatigue and depression of workers in the organophosphate industry, he considers that gulf war syndrome may be due to low dose sarin exposure and the intake of pyridostigmine and exposure to pesticides and other chemicals. Drs. Garth and Nancy Nicolson of the University of Texas, Houston, found that gulf war veterans who are ill may eventually have their diagnoses linked to chemical exposures in the Persian Gulf, such as oil spills and fires, smoke in military operations, chemicals on clothing, pesticides, chemoprophylactic agents, chemical weapons, and others. Dr. Claudia Miller and Dr. William Rea of Texas also see a connection between the chemicals that our soldiers were exposed to and gulf war syndrome. Mr. Chairman, this is an important breakthrough. This research provides an important breakthrough which, in my view, may finally give us the information that we need to understand Persian Gulf war syndrome, which is affecting 70,000 veterans. This is why later this afternoon I will be bringing forward an amendment which asks for $10 million to go to the National Institute of Health and Environmental Science so that they can pursue this important area of research.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here with the gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur], the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior] and the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kucinich], who are leading the fight against NAFTA. The gentleman from Michigan makes an important point about wages, and let me ask my friends this question: Every day that we pick up the newspaper we hear about the booming American economy. Do we not? In fact there was an article in the paper about how we have to clamp down on the boom, it is just off the wall it is so fantastic. But if you read page 62 in the little print about the boom when they talk about the wages that middle-class workers are getting in the midst of this boom, what do you find? My goodness. The real wages for American workers are continuing to decline. Yes, the CEO's of major corporations saw a 54-percent increase in their compensation. Yes, the stock market is hitting off the wall. Yes, the rich are getting richer. But what about the average worker? Mr. Speaker, the front pages of corporate America's newspapers do not talk about it, but for the average American worker, despite all of the so-called boom, the real wages are going down, people continue to work longer hours for low wages, and one of the reasons why is precisely what the gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur] and the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior] are talking about. If our workers are forced to compete against desperate people in Mexico or in China who are trying to get by on starvation wages, if we merge these economies what is the ultimate result? Mr. Speaker, it does not take an Einstein to figure it out. If there is a employer over here who is going to pay somebody 50 cents an hour, why are they going to pay you $15 or $20 an hour? I would submit for the Record a remarkable article. Many of you must have seen it. It was April 27, 1997, the Associated Press, and what they talk about is Nike in Vietnam. Now Nike has a habit of going to wherever in the world wages are at rock bottom. Mexico is much too high wage for Nike. They are now in Vietnam. They have determined that wages in Vietnam are the lowest in the world. Let me quote this: In demonstrations on Friday workers burnt cars and ransacked the factory's office saying the company, Nike, was not paying them a $2.50 cents a day minimum wage. That is our competition. That is what, much of what, the global economy is about. American workers, you really want to compete? Are you ready to go below $2.50 an hour? Nike might come back to America and hire you if you are ready to go for $2 a day. Ready to do that? And that is, I think, the point that we are trying to make, and that is how it ties into the most important issue which is the declining wages.

Mr. SANDERS. That is about right.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I think the proof basically is in the pudding; is it not? Now, if the trade policies and our current economic policies are working well, then the proof is there. Then we will have an expanding middle class; right? Then the new jobs that are being created will pay people decent wages; is that not correct? Then we will have a society where the gap between the rich and the poor grows narrower. But what in fact has been happening since the development of these trade policies? What we now have in the United States is the wealthiest 1 percent of the population owning 42 percent of the wealth, which is more than the bottom 90 percent. Now I think we have not been totally fair tonight, because I think we should acknowledge that these trade agreements do do some people good.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, we have to be honest about it, yes, for the vast majority of workers, wages are going down. Yes, we have lost hundreds of thousands of jobs for our working people, but we have not been totally fair tonight; and that is we must acknowledge that some people are doing well. We have to say that, and we do have to point out that the CEO's of major American corporations last year, and I am sure everybody will be happy to hear this, especially if you are among the richest 1 percent, saw a 54 percent increase in their compensation. So some people are doing very well. The average worker has seen a decline in his or her wages, but the richest people in America have never had it so good. So that explains to us why they pour millions and millions of dollars into their lobbyist friends and their television ads and newspaper ads telling us why we should support NAFTA and GATT. The trade agreement is working for all of you out there who are millionaires and billionaires. In fact, over the last 15 years it is rather remarkable. While the real wages of American workers have gone down, we have seen a proliferation of millionaires. In 1982 there were 12 billionaires in the United States, 12 billionaires. Today there are 135. So in all fairness, these trade agreements are working very well for millionaires and billionaires. But for the vast majority of our people, they are resulting in significant job loss and the pressure to lower wages. Now, some people will say, I do not work in a factory, it does not affect me. What is my problem? It does affect you, it affects you because when UAW workers see their wages go down, then when your employer, even if you are in a nonunion shop, has to deal with you, what he will say is, hey, I do not have to pay you $15 an hour, I can pay you $12, I can pay you $8 an hour. If we have Mexican workers prepared to work for 50 cents an hour, I will start you off at $5 an hour. Mr. Speaker, one of the scariest aspects about the new economy is the decline in real wages of high school graduates. These are the young people who have never gone to college. What we are talking about is entry level jobs for young Americans graduating high school, for young men it is 30 percent less than what it was 15 years ago. For young women it is 17 percent less.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, for young people graduating high school, their entry level jobs are now paying 30 percent less than was the case 15 years ago. For young women, it is about 17 or 18 percent less. Furthermore, Americans at the lower end of the wage scale are now the lowest-paid workers in the industrialized world. Eighteen percent of American workers with full-time jobs are paid so little that their wages do not enable them to live above the poverty level. Welcome to the global economy. The point that the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior] made earlier, in many ways, what this economy is looking like is what Mexico is: a few people at the top, and millions of people struggling just to exist.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield for a moment, I remember during the NAFTA debate, one of the frustrations that we had is that virtually every major newspaper, without exception, every major newspaper in America told us how great the NAFTA agreement would be. Now I am wondering if anybody here tonight knows if there has been one of those newspapers yet that has apologized to their readers and has said, whoops, we were wrong. Are my colleagues aware of any newspapers that have made that statement?

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I regard it as an outrage that more and more pressure is being placed on the Bureau of Labor Statistics to change their approach of determining how the Consumer Price Index, the CPI, is being determined, with the goal of lowering it. Frankly, this is nothing more than a cheap, back-door way of balancing the budget on the backs of the elderly by cuts in Social Security, by not giving them an increase which honestly reflects the rate of inflation. In the State of Vermont, in my view, not only is the current CPI not too high, it is too low. Elderly people are more dependent upon health care and prescription drugs than the general population, and the cost of health care is rising much faster than the general rate of inflation. Mr. Speaker, in Vermont and throughout this country, millions of elderly people are trying to survive on $7,000 or $8,000 a year. Let us not cut their Social Security checks and make their lives even more difficult. Let us move toward a balanced budget, but let us not do it on the backs of the weakest and most vulnerable Americans, including our senior citizens.

Mr. SANDERS

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

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, let me offer a suggestion as to what I think underlies this. Mr. Chairman, I think that some of our friends over here on this side know that the American people, many American people are very angry and they are very frustrated. The reason is that, despite what we read in the newspapers every day about our, quote unquote, booming economy, what our Republicans friends know, some of our Democratic friends know, is that the ordinary American is working longer hours for lower wages. What our Republican friends know is that most of the new jobs that are being created are low-wage jobs, they are often part-time jobs, they are temporary jobs. So the average American today is frustrated and is angry, because his or her standard of living is in decline. They look around and they say, well, why am I in worse shape than I was 10 years ago? Why are my kids in worse shape than was the case in the previous generation? And instead of having the courage to look at the real causes of our problems, trying to understand that our jobs now are going to China and to Mexico, trying to deal with the fact that, while the richest people in America have never had it so good, the standard of living of working people is in decline, trying to understand that the minimum wage has not kept pace with inflation for 4 years, trying to really address the frustrations and the angers of the middle class when our Republican friends are saying, we know why they are hurting, and they are hurting because all of their money is going to those poor people. They are the ones who are taking the tax dollars. They forget to talk about the $125 billion a year that goes in corporate welfare, tax breaks and subsidies for the largest multinational corporations in the country, many of which are taking our jobs to China and Mexico. We do not talk about that. They do not talk about a housing policy through the home interest mortgage reduction program which allows billionaires to get checks from the Government when they deduct the interest on their mortgage from their mansions. We do not talk about that. But what we say, it is the poor people. And then if we are going to target the poor people, we have to figure out a way to humiliate them. So what we say is: If you are poor and you live in a housing project, you must work. Now, how do we have a volunteer program when we force somebody to work? I have never heard about that. Now, some people say well, we want to help these poor people. What about creating jobs that actually pay something? Are my colleagues going to work with me for having public works programs and get those people out so they can earn a paycheck? I have not heard that. What my colleagues are saying is: We want you to work, but we are not going to pay you. We are going to give tremendous power and authority to your supervisor, the administrator at the public housing authority, to tell you what you are going to be volunteering to do. I would suggest that what this entire process is really about is scapegoating; is having the middle class and the working people think that their problems are because of the poor, rather than looking at what the wealthy and the powerful are doing. Mr. Chairman, I would suggest, somebody here before said about upper- income people, you have upper-income people who are getting checks who do not work. We have not heard any suggestion that maybe those people might want to be forced to volunteer in order to get their checks from the government. I would suggest that this entire policy is one of an effort to humiliate poor people; to get the middle class in opposition to poor people, rather than to really look at what the causes of our problems are.