Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is simple. It is straightforward and, in fact, it should be supported by every Member of this House, especially those who are concerned about our national debt and the deficit situation. This amendment is about honesty. It is about consistency, and it is about national priorities. It is about whether the Members of this body, many of whom have voted to cut programs which will be very negative, which will have a lot of pain, cause a lot of pain for some of the weakest and most vulnerable people in this country, programs for our kids, programs for our senior citizens, programs for our young people, whether the Members who have voted to cut those programs now have the courage to take on the very powerful intelligence community and to say that with a $5 trillion national debt, we should not be increasing funding for intelligence when we cut back on so many programs that tens of millions of Americans depend upon. Mr. Chairman, this amendment cuts the intelligence budget by 10 percent from the level authorized for fiscal year 1996, and that is approximately a $3 billion cut. Mr. Chairman, there are three basic reasons why this amendment should be supported. First, major sections of the intelligence community are fiscally irresponsible and need to be held accountable for their hugely inaccurate reports to Congress and for their wasteful habits. Second, like every other agency of Government, the intelligence community must bear its burden in balancing the budget. We cannot say to pregnant women, we do not have the funds to provide health insurance for you, we cannot say to senior citizens, we do not have the money to make sure you get your prescription drugs, we cannot say to young working-class families, we do not have the money to make sure that your kids can go to college, we do not have the money to adequately fund Medicaid or Medicare, but, yes, we have more than enough money to put into the intelligence agencies despite the fact that the cold war has ended. Mr. Chairman, let me read for my colleagues an article that appeared in the May 16 New York Times. I am going to read this slowly, because I want the Members to appreciate what we are talking about today and why it is totally irresponsible for any Member to be talking about a 4.9 increase in funding. Let me quote for the article: ``In a complete collapse of accountability, the government agency that builds spy satellites accumulated about $4 billion in uncounted secret money, nearly twice the amount previously reported to Congress, intelligence officials acknowledge today.'' Mr. Chairman, let us repeat what was in the New York Times so that every Member understands what this debate is about. I quote from the New York Times; ``In a complete collapse of accountability, the government agency that builds spy satellites accumulated about $4 billion in uncounted secret money, nearly twice the amount previously reported to Congress.'' Let me continue from the New York Times: ``The agency, the highly secretive national reconnaissance office, said last year that the surplus money totaled no more than about $1 billion. Congressional intelligence overseers in December said the amount was about $2 billion. They were misinformed. The secret agency was unaware until very recently exactly how much money it had accumulated in its classified compartments.'' Listen to this, to put the $4 billion in perspective, still quoting New York Times, ``what the national reconnaissance office did was to lose track of a sum roughly equal to the annual budgets for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the State Department combined.''

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

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of my colleagues I would like to have printed in the Record this statement by Kevin Gannon, a high school student from Brattleboro, VT. Kevin was speaking at my recent town meeting on issues facing young people. (By Kevin Gannon) Years ago when someone wanted to tell you not to waste a resource, you might have said, ``Hey, it doesn't grow on trees.'' Today, you don't have to be a tree-hugger to see the irony in that. Century-old forests are disappearing, and dwindling timber isn't our only environmental concerns when it comes to building materials. Landfills are fast becoming ``landfulls,'' and countless other resources are either becoming scarce or are hazardous to process. But now a new generation of building products offers alternatives, and as concern grows about the environment a vanguard of builders [and] architects * * * around the country are setting new standards for resource-efficient home construction. Housing developments for conservation-conscious consumers (as shown on the poster) are being built around the country. To identify resource-efficient building material, you must ask the following questions: Do the products use virgin resources efficiently? Do they make reasonable use of recycled materials? Will they offer high quality durability over the life of the house, and will they help ease pollution? Engineered wood products can use as little as half the wood fiber of sawed lumber, while delivering superior performance. Made from wood chips and veneers, they help to preserve large trees and reduce demand for timber * * * Laminated veneer is now taking the place of massive beams. The latest efforts in manufacturing engineered lumber focus on making better use of fast-growing trees and combining them with adhesives that don't emit toxic, ureaformaldehyde * * * [Another] corporation makes a product * * * which uses cotton fiber. Since most paper comes from fast-growing pulpwood trees, reusing it in wallboard won't spare many big, slow-growing species; but there are other products that might. One is a floor-sheeting panel from the Belcom Technologies. The panels only need support at their corners, minimizing the number needed. On a national level, that's hundreds of thousands of joists--or trees--spared. If you really want to save wood, use steel. Using steel studs in your next framing job could reduce the amount of wood used in a house by up to 50%. Two-thirds of the steel that goes into structural components comes from building and bridge demolition, auto and industrial scrap. However, if for some reason steel framing doesn't appeal to you, you can buy some * * * double-dipped zinc-coated storm-guard nails [made] exclusively from remelted steel. Recycled glass bottles have become a prime source in fiberglass insulation, but an Indiana corporation has found a constructive use for scrap automotive glass; in fact, 70% of its new traffic tiles come from automotive glass manufacturing waste. CTE Glass Products makes * * * ceramic floor tiles with waste from its lightbulb manufacturing division. There are many ways to recycle wood. In San Jose, CA, New World Lumber rescues discarded redwood from the Gualdalupe landfill; after planing off the weathered surfaces, it assembles short sections between deducted rails to make fence-board, or they slice longer pieces into lattice. The firm also plans to make 24"-wide fence panels. Building structures to last longer is another responsible approach to building. In the '90's, inexpensive materials at this point don't lend themselves to that. Cheap building materials can also pose health hazards; for example, inexpensive particle-board releases ureaformaldehyde in your home. Time allowing, I would speak all day about this topic. Congressman Sanders: Kevin, that was a very thoughtful presentation. Can I ask you a very brief question? What impact do you think your ideas would have on the economy in terms of creating jobs, and what kind of jobs might be created? Answer. Well, right now the remodeling business alone is a $2 billion industry; that's just remodeling, not even construction, which is multi-billion. And one of my ideas is to create jobs. Subsidized housing is a problem in America, and if we could use recycled resources, I think we could kind of kill two birds with one stone. Congressman Sanders: So you think this idea could put people to work. Answer. Oh, definitely. Congressman Sanders: Good, Kevin, thank you very much.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Moakley] for yielding this time to me, and I thank the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon] for placing an order in the Committee on the Budget placing in order the Black Caucus/Progressive Caucus budget, which I think is the only real alternative that we are going to be hearing today and is the budget that speaks to the needs of ordinary working Americans. When we discuss the budget situation in America today, it seems to me to be imperative to ask how did we get where we are today, how did we end up with a $5 trillion national debt? Is it because we are spending too much on health care so that all Americans have health care? I do not think so. Is it because the Federal Government is spending too much on education so that all American families could send their kids to college? Is that the reason we have the deficit? Is it because we are spending too much on affordable housing so that we have no homelessness in America, so that people are not paying 40, 50, 60 percent of their income in rent; is that why we have a $5 trillion debt? I do not think so. Most economists understand that the reason we are in the deficit crisis we are today is that during the 1980's three things happened. First, we gave huge tax breaks to the richest people in America and to the largest corporations. Everybody knows that. What the Republican budget does today is it says, ``Guess what? Let us give more tax breaks to the richest people in America and the largest corporations. That makes a lot of sense.'' Second of all, during the 1980's, everybody knows this, this country spent huge amounts of money on the military, tremendous increases in defense spending. What the Republican budget says is let us spend more money today now that the cold war is over; let us spend more money, $13 billion more, on defense than the President wants. Let us build more B- 2 bombers that the Pentagon does not need. Let us go into that absurd star wars program, that is really where we have to go. Does that make sense? I do not think so. And the third reason that we had, we created the deficit situation today, is the tremendous increase in medical spending, health care spending. During the 1980's all health care spending went up, including Medicare. But the question that we have to ask is why is it that the United States of America, today we spend far more per capita on health care than any other industrialized nation on Earth? Is it because all of our people have health insurance? Is that the reason why? I do not think so. Forty million Americans have no health insurance, millions more have inadequate health insurance. So let us get to the root of the problem. What the Progressive Caucus and the Black Caucus say is, yes, let us move toward a balanced budget in 6 years, but let us not do it on the backs of the middle class, the working class and the low-income people in this country, and we are presenting a real alternative, and we hope to have the support of the Members in this body.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend from New York, Mr. Owens, and the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Payne, and say that it has been a pleasure for the Progressive Caucus to work with the Black Caucus in developing the real alternative budget. Mr. Chairman, yes, we should move this country toward a balanced budget, but we should not be balancing the budget on the backs of the weakest and most vulnerable people in this country. To my mind, it makes no sense to give huge tax breaks to the rich when we are living in a time where the rich are getting much richer and everybody else is getting poorer. One of the reasons we have a major deficit crisis today is that during the 1970's and 1980's we already gave huge breaks to the rich. The wealthiest 1 percent of the population now owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. They do not need more tax breaks. Corporate profits are soaring while workers' wages are in decline. We do not have to give large corporations more tax breaks. Mr. Chairman, I would submit that the vast majority of the people in this country do not believe, as the Republican leadership does, that we should force the elderly to pay double what they are paying today in Medicare premiums in 7 years and then spend $13 billion more on the military at a time when the cold war is over. Why do we make elderly people earning $8,000 a year from Social Security double their Medicare premiums so we can build B-2 bombers and star wars programs that the Pentagon does not need? Mr. Chairman, it is immoral and it is wrong to throw millions of young people off of Medicaid. These are the children of America. We should not be throwing them off of Medicaid because of disastrous cuts in Medicaid in order to give tax breaks to the rich, in order to increase military spending. If we are sincere about moving toward a balanced budget in a fair way, there are ways to do it, and that is what the Black Caucus and the Progressive Caucus budget does. We say no more corporate welfare for large corporations and wealthy people. Let us end the tax breaks and the subsidies that the large corporations are receiving. That is the way we can move forward a balanced budget. We say that now that the cold war is over, let us increase funding for education, let us protect the environment. We do not need to be spending tens of billions of dollars more on military spending. And, most importantly, what we are saying is that as America becomes more and more divided, with the rich owning a larger and larger percentage of the national wealth, we do not need to give tax breaks to the rich and then cut back on so many other programs that working people and the middle class need.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, let me begin by expressing my disappointment at the vote that took place in the House today regarding the defense budget. It seems to me that in a time when Speaker Gingrich and his colleagues are talking about the need to move this country toward a balanced budget and are talking about the crisis of our deficit situation, that it makes no sense for the Republican leadership to be proposing a defense budget which is $13 billion more than President Clinton has request. I find it especially hypocritical that at a time when the Republican leadership is saying that we have got to balance the budget and to do so we must make major cuts in Medicare, major cuts in Medicaid, major cuts in education and veterans' programs and environmental protection, in the fuel assistance program, and so many programs that the middle class and the working class of this country depend upon, low-income people depend upon that at the same time Mr. Gingrich says, well, it is OK that we spend billions more for B-2 bombers that the Pentagon does not want, that we start spending billions of dollars more for the star wars program. The budget of the U.S. Government is what this country is all about, and I think it is a sad day that we are saying that it is appropriate to spend billions more on the military, despite the end of the cold war, that we are prepared to put approximately $100 billion into defending Europe and Asia, although we do not even know who the enemy is now, but we do not have enough money to take care of our senior citizens who are in need, we do not have enough money to take care of our children. This country has by far the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, 22 percent of our kids in poverty. We do not have enough money to help them. We do have enough money to build B-2 bombers and star wars and things that the Pentagon does not even want. I think that is a very sad state of priorities that Mr. Gingrich and the Republican leadership are expressing. Mr. Speaker, what I want to concentrate on today is what I think is the most important issue facing this country, and that is the state of our economy and my very great fears that this country, in many ways, is moving toward an oligarchy, which is a nation controlled by relatively small numbers of very, very wealthy people. What is going on in this country today is that since 1973, 80 percent of all American families have seen their incomes either decline or at best remain stagnant. What is going on in my State of Vermont and what is going on all over this country today is that we are seeing working people work longer hours for lower wages. These families look to the future. They are extremely worried about what is going to happen to their kids because it appears very likely that for the first time in the modern history of the United States, our children will have a lower standard of living than we will have. Mr. Speaker, this, in my view, is the most important issue facing this country. I get very disappointed as an Independent, as the only Independent in the Congress, that we do not see enough discussion here on that issue, certainly from the Republican leadership. We must have more of that discussion. What is also going on in this country is, not only is the middle class shrinking, but we are seeing another phenomenon that should be of concern to all people. That is that the wealthiest people in this country are becoming much wealthier at the same time as the middle class is shrinking. We are looking at a schizophrenic economy. How bad is the situation today facing the working men and women of this country? Let me just make a few points. Again, these are points I think that should be made over and over again. Twenty years ago, the workers of the United States were the best compensated in the entire world. We were No. 1. Today, depending upon the study that you might look at, American workers rank 13 among industrialized nations in terms of compensation and benefits. In fact, one of the great ironies of the current economic period is that we are seeing companies from Europe and elsewhere come to the United States in search of, quote unquote, cheap labor. In my State of Vermont and throughout this country, you can get hard-working individuals who must work for $6 or $7 an hour. Those are wages that large companies cannot get workers to work for in Europe. So we are seeing for certain European companies the United States becoming what Mexico is for American companies. That is a very sad state of affairs. Mr. Speaker, adjusted for inflation, the average pay for four-fifths of American workers plummeted by 16 percent in the 20 years between 1973 and 1993. In other words, whenever you turn on the television or whenever you read the newspapers, they talk about the booming economy. The economy is booming for someone, but it certainly is not booming for the middle class or the working people of this country. Between 1973 and 1993, the average pay for four-fifths of American workers plummeted by 16 percent. People are working for significantly lower wages. In 1973, the average American worker earned $445 a week. Twenty years later, that worker was making $373 a week. That is the issue that should be debated here on the floor of the House, should be debated in the Senate every single day, should be debated all over this country. How did we go from 1st to 13th in the world in terms of the wages and benefits our workers received? How did it happen that the middle class is shrinking? How did it happen that real wages are declining? That is the $64 issue that should be addressed by the President, by the leadership of the Republican and Democratic parties. Mr. Speaker, as bad as the situation is for the middle class and middle-age, middle-class workers, the situation is far worse for young American workers. In the last 15 years, the wages for entry-level jobs for young men who are high school graduates has declined by 30 percent. Young families headed by persons younger than 30 saw their inflation- adjusted median income collapse by 32 percent from 1973 to 1990. Young families headed by someone between 25 and 24, these are young American families, had incomes $4,000 lower in 1991 than they did in 1979. Their entry-level wages were 10-percent lower in 1991 than in 1979. What all those statistics mean is that for young people graduating high school going out into the job market, the wages that they are earning are significantly lower than was the case just 20 years ago. So, as bad as the situation is for middle-age people, it is a lot worse for younger people. That is an issue that we must address and analyze and correct. Americans at the lower end of the wage scale are now the lowest paid workers in the entire industrialized world. One 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. Mr. Speaker, we hear a whole lot, we heard it from President Reagan, we heard it from President Bush, we are hearing it from President Clinton about all of the new jobs that are being created. The sad truth, however, is that the vast majority if the jobs being created are low-wage jobs. These are the jobs that pay workers $6 an hour, they pay workers $7 an hour. They often bring no health care benefits, no retirement benefits, and no time off for vacations or sick leave. Also, one of the frightening aspects of the new economy is that more and more of the new jobs being created are part-time jobs or temporary jobs. What we are seeing is that many employers would rather hire two people for 20 hours a week or for 30 hours a week rather than one worker for 40 hours a week because the employer does not have to pay any benefits. In fact, in 1993, one-third of the United States work force was composed of, quote unquote, contingent labor, and that is temporary labor. That means that you get a job for 4 months, for 6 months and then you have to go out looking for another job again. There was a time not so long ago in our history when a real job meant 40 hours a week with benefits, decent health care, perhaps retirement, that you moved up the ladder if you did your job well. You made more money. You had a certain sense of job security. It seems that those days are ancient history, as many of the new jobs that are being created are part-time jobs or temporary jobs. In the past 10 years, the United States has lost 3 million white collar jobs and 1.8 million jobs in manufacturing, just in the past 5 years. Five companies, Ford, AT&T, General Electric, ITT and Union Carbide alone have laid off well over 800,000 American workers in the last 15 years. Meanwhile, while the decent-paying jobs continue to disappear, the number of involuntary part-time workers tripled between 1970 and 1993. People might be surprised to know that the largest private sector employer in the United States today is not General Motors. It is not General Electric. It is not IBM. It is Manpower Incorporated. They are the leading supplier of temporary employees. Now, one of the tragic results of declining wages in America is that the average American worker is now working significantly more hours than used to be the case. The number of Americans working at more than one job has almost doubled over the last 15 years. So if the average American thinks, my God, I am the only person who has to work two jobs or three jobs, wake up. It is your neighbor doing that. It is people all over this country, because as real wages decline, people are just scrambling as hard as they can. Certainly in the State of Vermont, it is not unusual to see people working two jobs, three jobs, just to pay the bills. Furthermore, when we talk about things like family values, I think what many of us mean is the ability of a husband and a wife to spend some quality time with their kids. I remember seeing a constituent of mine in Burlington, VT, who told me--she was shopping at a grocery store, that she was working three part-time jobs. Her husband was working four part-time jobs. They hardly ever had a chance to be together or, let alone, to spend time with their child. That is what is happening all over this country. Not only are people working longer hours, in fact the average American is now working approximately 160 hours a year more than was the case just 20 years ago. But what we are also seeing is that more and more Americans are lacking adequate medical insurance. We had a major debate here on the floor of the House several years ago about the need for a national health care policy. Those of us who advocated the right of all Americans to have health care as exists in virtually every other industrialized nation on earth, we lost that debate. The result is that 3 years later, we are seeing more and more Americans not only without any health insurance, but we are seeing more Americans who have inadequate health insurance. By that, I mean very high premiums, large deductibles, large copayments. The situation is such that many people, even when they are sick, hesitate to go to the doctor because they just cannot afford the bill. In terms of home ownership, which is a key part of the American dream, that home ownership is also in rapid decline for the average American worker. As a result of lower and lower incomes, an increasing number of young Americans can no longer afford to purchase their own homes. In 1980, 21 percent of Americans under 25 owned their own homes. In 1987, only 16 percent did. The answer is obvious: If you are not making decent wages, there is no way you are going to be able to put a down payment or pay the mortgage on a home. Mr. Speaker, while the middle class is in decline or the real wages of American workers are going down, or while many of the new jobs are being created to pay people $4.50, $5 and $6 an hour, there is another aspect of our economy that must be addressed. That is, clearly not everybody is hurting. Some people are doing very, very well. This is an issue we just do not talk about enough. I think on this floor of the House, and certainly the media does not talk about it enough, today, the United States has the dubious distinction of having the most unfair distribution of wealth and income in the entire industrialized world. I think many of us used to think that in countries like England, where you have queens and dukes the lords and barons, that those were really class countries that you had a ruling class and an upper class and you had a lower class. But the truth of the matter is that the United States of America today has a much more unfair and unequal distribution of wealth than England. We have a much more unequal distribution than any other country on earth. Hardly ever talked about, this issue, but we should. What is going on now is that the wealthiest 1 percent of the population own 40 percent of the wealth in this Nation. That is more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. The richest 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent, and that gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider. But it is not only wealth. We also have the most unfair distribution of income in the entire industrialized world. The highest-earning 4 percent of our population make more money than do the bottom 51 percent. Mr. Speaker, from 1979 to 1995, household incomes in the United States grew by $800 billion in real terms. But 50 percent of that sum went to the wealthiest 5 percent of households, and 97 percent of it went to the wealthiest 20 percent. The remaining 80 percent of families scrambled for the crumbs, divvying up just 3 percent of all income growth between them. So, in other words, when we talk about the growth of the economy, what we should ask ourselves is who is gaining that income. And what is clearly going on is the lion's share, the overwhelming amount of the growth in income, is going to the very, very wealthiest people while the vast majority of the people are seeing a decline in their real incomes. Mr. Speaker, there are a number of reasons why the United States is seeing a decline in its standard of living for its middle class and for its working people, and I think one of them certainly has to do with the decline in our industrial base, a decline of manufacturing in the United States of America. I would urge Members of Congress just to go to their local department stores in virtually any part of America and check the labels on the products that they are observing, and more and more what we are finding is that products are not manufactured in the United States, but they are manufactured in the Far East, they are manufactured in Malaysia. More and more they are manufactured in China. And we are not just talking about cheap products, but we are talking about top-of-the-line products as well. And the reason that more and more products are being manufactured in China is that American companies are beginning, have invested tens and tens of billions of dollars in China, in Malaysia, in Latin America, in many other very poor Third World countries. So the good news is that corporate America is creating millions of new jobs every single year. The bad news is that they are not creating those jobs in the State of Vermont or the United States of America. They are creating those jobs in China, and in Malaysia, and in Latin America. Now, why are these companies running to these countries? Well, it does not take a Ph.D. in economics to figure it out. They are going to China because workers in China receive 20 cents an hour. There are workers in China who are 12 or 13 years of age making products that we in the United States are purchasing, and, Mr. Speaker, I might mention that I have introduced legislation which would prohibit the importation of products made in any country that is made by child labor. There are children in China, children in India, children in Pakistan, who are 10, 11, 12 years old who are working for minuscule wages, who are doing the work that American workers used to do. It is no secret that this year we will have a trade deficit of about $160 million. That means we are importing $160 billion more in goods and services than we export. That equates to about 3 million decent manufacturing jobs Mr. Speaker, in my view, we are not going to expand the middle class, we are not going to create decent-paying jobs for our young people unless we deal with the trade situation. I think the evidence is very clear that NAFTA has been a disaster, as many of us had feared it would be. I have very serious reservations about GATT. We need a trade policy that is a fair trade policy, a trade policy that protects American workers, that allows us to export as well as import. Mr. Speaker, if we are going to address the issue of raising wages in America, not only do we have to deal with the trade situation, not only do we have to become a country again which is building real products here in the United States of America, which is using our technology go create new jobs, producing real goods, but we also have to, in fact, raise the minimum wage, and I am delighted that more and more Members of Congress are beginning to understand that. A number of years ago I brought forth legislation that would raise the minimum wage to $5.50 an hour. It was my view and is my view that if somebody in this country works for 40 hours a week, that person should not be living in poverty. That person should not be more in debt at the end of the week than he or she was in the beginning of the week. And when some of us began that crusade to raise the minimum wage, President Clinton was not on board, and many Democrats were not on board, and virtually no Republicans were on board. I am happy to say that right now we have a majority support for raising the minimum wage in the House, I believe that is the case in the Senate as well, and I certainly hope that the gentleman from Georgia, [Mr. Gingrich] will allow a clean minimum wage bill to come up in the House so that we can vote it in and have the President sign it. The minimum wage today is at its lowest point in 40 years. If the minimum wage today was at the same level as it was in 1970, it would be over $6 an hour. So to raise the minimum wage to $5.50 an hour, as the President would have us do in 2 years, is a conservative effort, and it is something we should do immediately. Mr. Speaker, if we are going to turn this country around, I think it is important that we also address the tax situation in this country. The fact of the matter is that as the rich become richer, as the middle class is shrinking, and as poor people are just fighting desperately to keep their heads above water, I think what we need to do is take a hard look at progressive taxation, and that is to say that the largest corporations who are today contributing significantly less to our national coffers than they did 30 or 40 years ago, to the richest people in this country who have enjoyed significant declines in their real tax rates, that it is appropriate to ask those people whose incomes are soaring to start paying their fair share of taxes so we can provide some real tax breaks for the middle class and the working people of this country. Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons that wages in America have declined is that the trade union movement in America has also declined. I think it will not be a surprise to most American workers to understand that employers often do not, out of the generosity of their heart, pay decent wages. They pay decent wages because there are people who are negotiating with them to get them to pay decent wages. One of the concerns that I have right now in this country is that it is harder and harder for workers to be able to form trade unions. Very often, employers will harass those workers who are trying to develop a union, they will fire those workers under all kinds of pretenses, they will bring in high-falutin consultants to try to frighten workers, they will threaten workers that they will go to Mexico and Asia. I think we need a new set of labor law which says that any worker in this country who wants to join a union should have the freedom, without fear, to participate in that process, and I believe that as we strengthen the labor movement in this country, that is, more and more workers join unions, they will be stronger and be able to negotiate good contracts which will not only benefit them, but it will benefit the whole country. Nonunion workers benefit substantially when we have strong unions because unions drive wages up, and employers therefore must pay nonunion workers a decent wage as well. Mr. Speaker, I will soon be introducing a piece of legislation which I think is quite important. One of the concerns that I have increasingly in this country is the degree to which the taxpayers of our Nation are subsidizing large corporations through corporate welfare. Very conservative groups as well as progressive groups estimate that we spend about $125 billion every year on corporate welfare, which is tax breaks and subsidies that go to some of the largest corporations in America, and let me give you just one example of something that I and some of my colleagues are working on right now. It seems to me to be very wrong that when the United States Pentagon, when our Pentagon, negotiates with various defense contractors, that some of the CEO's of those defense companies end up making huge salaries, basically at taxpayer expense, at the same time as they are laying off tens and tens of thousands of American workers. We pay the President of the United States $250,000 a year, and it seems to me to be very wrong that the taxpayers of this country should be paying the CEO's of the major defense companies substantially more. I think the taxpayers of America should be concerned, for example that in 1994 James Miller, who is the CEO of General Dynamics, earned $11.3 million in compensation. Now, what is interesting is that General Dynamics, as a percentage of their business, does 100 percent of their business with the U.S. Government, which means that the U.S. Government is paying Mr. Miller $11.3 million in income, and I think that is wrong for at least two reasons: First, in terms of our deficit, I do not know why we are paying CEO's who are 100 percent dependent on taxpayer money over $11 million a year in compensation. That is wrong. But, second of all, it is wrong as an example, as a model of what this Congress should be doing. One of the more shameful aspects of the American economy at this point is that CEO's of major corporations today are earning about 200 times what their workers are making; 200 times. That is unheard of in the industrialized world. It seems to me that the U.S. Congress should not be encouraging and supporting that type of economic activity. So we have legislation, and I have introduced legislation along with several other Members, that would say to the CEO's of the major defense companies that they cannot earn from the taxpayers of this country more than $200,000 a year in compensation. I should point out once more that the head of General Dynamics receives $11.3 million, and as best we could understand, every single penny of that money comes from the taxpayers of this country. That does not make any sense. We are cutting back on so many programs that working people need and to say, yeah, we got $11 million to pay the head of General Dynamics makes no sense. And I should point out that this very same company has laid off over 35,000 workers between 1990 and 1995. So these guys are making more and more money from the taxpayers at exactly the same time as they are laying off tens of thousands of American workers. That does not make any sense to me at all. Mr. Speaker, I think you know sometimes Members of the Congress become a little bit obsessed with ourselves and we think that the end of the world is the Beltway around here. But we should pay attention to the fact that tens of millions of people are giving up on the political process, they are giving up on the two-party system. Again, it is an issue that we do not talk about too much, but maybe as the only Independent in the Congress I can raise the issue, and that is there is something fundamentally wrong with the politics of this country when in the last election, in 1994, only 38 percent of the people came out to vote. 62 percent of the people did not vote. Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of reasons for that. But I think the major reason has to do with the fact that large numbers of people who are hurting very, very badly no longer believe that the U.S. Congress represents their interests or is capable of responding to their needs and their pain, and they are saying, hey, politics, it does not matter, we do not care what is going on in Washington, we do not pay attention to what is going on in Washington because all these people are living in another world. I think, given the fact that so many men and women have put their lives on the line, have fought and died to defend freedom and democracy in this country, it is a very sad state of affairs that the United States has today by far the lowest voter turn out of any industrialized nation on earth. Now how do we turn that around? How do we create a vibrant democracy where we have 70 to 80 percent of the people voting rather than 40 percent of the people or 50 percent? I think, frankly, the answer is that this Congress has got to show the American people that we do feel their pain, that we do understand what is going on in their lives, and we are willing to respond to their problems. If we do not respond to their problems, people are going to say, ``It does not make any difference. Why do I have to get involved?'' It is a catch-22. Unless ordinary people begin to stand up and say, wait a second, the U.S. Congress, representing all of the people in this country and not just the very rich, in the United States of America we should be able to provide health insurance for every man, woman, and child, as most of the industrialized nations do; in the United States of America we should be able to make sure that every young person who has the ability is able to get a college education, as many of our industrialized neighbors do; that in the United States of America we should be able to create decent paying jobs; that unless the people make those demands on the Congress and start electing people to the Congress who are going to fight for the middle class, fight for the working people, the Congress is going to be unresponsive. That takes us to another issue in terms of how and why the Congress is unresponsive. That takes us to campaign finance reform. Clearly there is something very much amiss when increasingly we are seeing in Congress, in State houses all over America, very wealthy people taking out their checkbooks and writing themselves large checks and saying, ``Gee, I think I would like to run for President. It is kind of boring in business now, I have a midlife crisis, I would like to do something else. I will make out a check and then run for the Presidency. I will run for Governor, I will run for the Senate,'' so forth and so on. That is not what democracy is supposed to be about. A democracy is not supposed to be about the Democratic and Republican Parties holding fund-raisers here in Washington, D.C. I think last month, or a couple of months ago, the Republicans raised $16 million in one night, and recently the Democrats raised $12 million in one night, money which is coming from some of the wealthiest people in the United States of America, some of the largest corporations in the United States of America. Some of these guys contribute to both political parties. Is that what democracy is supposed to be about? I think not. I think we must move toward campaign finance reform, and the most important aspects of that is we have to limit the amount of money that people can spend in a campaign. If you limit the amount of money, you take away the advantage of the big money interests. They cannot outspend you 10 to 1. I think we have to move toward public funding of elections, combined with incentives coming from small donations, matching small donations. In that way we will have people who are serving in Congress who come from the ranks of ordinary people and simply are not hobnobbing with the wealthy and the powerful. Most importantly, what concerns me is that tens and tens of millions of Americans believe the political process does not matter to them. They have given up on the political process. That is very, very sad. I would suggest to people, and I say this as somebody who was the mayor of a city for 8 years and am now in my third term in the U.S. Congress, that the only solution, basically, to that situation is for ordinary people to begin to stand up and fight back and reclaim this country for the ordinary people, for the middle class, for the working people of this country, and inform the U.S. Congress that all of us have a right to a decent standard of living and a good life. All of our children have the right to a good future. That right should not just exist to the very wealthy and the very powerful, but that is not going to change unless people get involved in the political process, unless people understand what is going on at all levels of government. Mr. Speaker, let me just simply conclude by stating that in this great country, if democracy is to survive, if all of our people are to enjoy a decent standard of living, that is not a Utopian vision, that can happen, but people have got to be involved in the political process and have got to stand up and fight for their rights.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, this is really an incredible rule. What we have been hearing for the last year and what we will be hearing shortly is that the leadership here in the Congress thinks that we should make savage cuts in Medicare, force elderly people who do not have the money to pay more for premiums. Meanwhile, they are suggesting that we spend $13 billion more for the military than the President wants. Do not you think the American people are entitled to that debate on priorities? The Republican majority wants to savage Medicaid; 88 million people will no longer have health insurance. Children will be without health insurance. Elderly people will be unable to pay for their prescription drugs. Mr. Speaker, I ask, ``Don't you think we should have a debate as to whether or not we cut military spending, or we salvage Medicaid?'' I think the American people want that debate. Maybe they will agree with our colleagues. Maybe they think we should spend more money on star wars and B-2 bombers and less money on health care; maybe our colleagues are right. I do not think they are. But I think that is a debate that we should have. Mr. Speaker, all over America, middle-class families are desperate. In Vermont they are knocking their brains out trying to figure out how they can afford to send their kids to college. Meanwhile the Republican leadership is cutting back on loans and grants. I think the American people, the middle class of this country, has a right to decide whether we put more money into education or whether we continue to spend a hundred billion dollars a year defending Europe and Asia against a nonexistent enemy. Mr. Speaker, some of the cuts that have been advocated here by the Republican leadership are cruel, they are unnecessary. It seems to me that before we go after nutrition programs for children, we take a hard look at the military budget. We have a right to have that debate. Defeat this rule.

Mr. SANDERS

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

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I want to make two basic points. First of all, one of the great crises in America today is that millions and millions of low income and working people are spending 40, 50, 60 yes, 70 percent of their limited incomes on housing. Therefore, they just do not have the money available for the food they need, for the transportation they need and maybe to put away a few bucks for educational opportunities for their kids. That is a real crisis. The second point that I would make is to try to put this discussion in human terms. I called up a housing authority, senior citizen housing authority in Vermont this morning. They told me that many of the seniors in the housing earn $8,000 a year on average from Social Security. Right now they are paying 30 percent of their income for rent, $2,400 a year. Mr. Chairman, if this proposal that is in the bill goes through, what could very easily happen is that senior citizens bringing in $8,000 a year will now pay 40 percent of their income in housing. That is an additional $800 a year, when you are bringing in $8,000 a year. Ten percent of all of your income more now goes for housing. Second of all, if their Medicare proposals go into effect and we raise the Medicare premiums for senior citizens, in a few years time we will be talking about those same seniors paying $500 a year more for Medicare premiums; $800 plus $500, $1,300 a year more on a senior citizen earning $8,000 a year on Social Security. Meanwhile, we are talking about huge tax breaks for the wealthiest peole in America. Mr. Chairman, this proposal in the bill is unfair. It constitutes a war against many senior citizens.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, let me begin by thanking the Republican leadership here, because my understanding is that they will be accepting this amendment. In truth, this is a tripartisan amendment. It has support from the gentlewoman from New Jersey [Mrs. Roukema] and other Republicans, as well as many Democrats. Mr. Chairman, many Members of Congress have criticized public housing and believe that Americans should be able to decide for themselves how best to spend their housing allowance. These critics should be supporters of the Section 8 program, but this laudable program is not reaching everyone that is eligible for assistance. About 1.5 million people receive section 8 assistance, but close to that same amount are on the waiting list. In my home State of Vermont, the waiting list is over 3 years long. In some areas, applicants wait for more than 10 years. Unfortunately, this bill contains a provision that would make these waiting periods even longer. I am talking about the major cuts in fees for administering the Section 8 program. If the bill had been in place for fiscal year 1996, housing authorities would have received, on average, 23 percent less to administer the tenant-based Section 8 program. Nationally, according to HUD, we are talking about a $182 million cut in section 8 administration. In California alone, that cut amounts to almost $30 million; in New York, over $21 million; and in New Jersey, over $7 million. In my small State of Vermont, we would lose $318,000. Mr. Chairman, the simple fact of the matter is that this cut goes far too deep. If we believe in section 8 housing, then we must allocate enough money for the program to be administered effectively. Otherwise, we are killing this program through a backdoor method and I do not think that that is what the majority of Members want to do. There is widespread support for section 8, and I do not believe that anyone really wants to hurt it. This bill provides for a two-tier formula where public housing authorities get a fee based on 6.5 percent of fair market value for the first 600 units and 6 percent of fair market value for the rest. Mr. Chairman, this is a huge cut from the fiscal year 1995 and fiscal year 1996, when fees were based on 8.2 percent of fair market value. HUD estimates that over 90 percent of the agencies that administer Section 8 housing will lose more than 15 percent of their administrative funds. On average, it will be an estimated 23-percent cut per agency. Mr. Chairman, I am offering a compromise amendment that puts the fee level about halfway in between where the funds are today and where they would be under the provisions of the bill. The two-tiered formula would remain, but the 6 percent number would be raised to 7 percent and the 6.5 percent number would be raised to 7.65. It is a compromise between the 8.2 percent formula used today and the 6 and 6.5 percent levels recommended in the bill. Mr. Chairman, I should point out that that is the formula recommended by HUD and HUD supports this amendment. The National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials are also strong supporters of this amendment. Frankly, Mr. Chairman, many of us had believed that this amendment was going to be accepted as part of the manager's amendment and we were surprised that it was not. If it is adopted, fees would still be cut an estimated 10.5 percent. That is a big cut. That is a major cut. But it would not devastate the administration of the program as the proposed cuts do. This is a compromise position, and my hope is that it would be supported by all Members. Mr. Chairman, let me conclude by stating that every State in the country is severely affected by the provisions stated in this bill. It provides for an estimated 23 percent cut in Section 8 administrative fees. That is much too high. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to please support the compromise position and vote ``yes.'' Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I urge the passage of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, everybody agrees that the government cannot do everything. But some of us believe that in a civilized society the government, which is all of us, has the responsibility to make certain that every American enjoys a minimal level of decency. Yes; the government should make certain that no child goes hungry. Yes; the government should make certain that all children have access to education. And yes; relevant to today's debate, the government should make certain that all people can live in adequate and decent housing. Yes; we should be doing that. Mr. Chairman, today throughout this country millions of working people are spending 40, 50, 60 percent of their limited incomes on housing. That means they have barely enough money to feed their families, put aside a few dollars for education or health care needs. This legislation would simply add to that problem. There are elderly people today living on fixed incomes from Social Security who should not be asked to pay 50 or 60 percent of their limited incomes on public housing. This legislation would allow that to happen. There are millions of working people today who are earning $6 or $7 an hour. They are trying to improve the lives of their kids. They are trying to make it into the middle class. They should not be asked to pay 50 or 6 percent of their limited incomes for public housing, which is what this legislation would allow to happen. Mr. Chairman, we have a housing crisis in America today and this bill only takes a step backward.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, we are not only talking about inadequate housing without running water, with holes in the roof. We are talking about housing that is not affordable. Millions and millions of Americans today are paying 50, 60, 70 percent of their limited income for housing, and they have very little else to live with. And that is why the amendment offered by the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Watt's amendment, is important, and that is why it should be passed.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, let me pick up on a point. We are not only talking about housing which is slum housing.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, will the gentleman accept the words that have been inserted?

Mr. SANDERS. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. SANDERS. The gentleman from New York [Mr. Lazio] spoke of demolition of housing, the role of the private sector. He spoke about a lot of things, but he did not speak about the Watt amendment. The gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Watt] did not tell us how we can achieve the goal. He did not explicitly tell us the role of the private sector or the public sector. All that he said is that ``It is a goal of our Nation that all citizens have decent and affordable housing.'' It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that increasingly we are becoming a divided nation. On one hand, we have CEO's of major corporations who are making 200 times what their workers are making. We have people at the top who are seeing incomes that have never been seen in the history of this country. We are seeing a growing divide between the rich and the poor. We can have a whole lot of differences regarding the role of government, but I would hope that every Member of this body agrees that all Americans should have decent and affordable housing. That is not a radical statement. It does not say how that housing should be built. Mr. Chairman, there is something wrong in this country when we are building more jail units than we are building affordable housing units. There is something wrong when hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people are sleeping out in the streets. There is something wrong when millions of Americans are spending 50 or 60 or 70 percent of their limited incomes on housing and, therefore, not having enough money to provide food or clothing or educational opportunity for their children. All that the Watt amendment says is, ``It is a goal of our Nation that all citizens have decent and affordable housing.'' Mr. Chairman, I would yield to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Lazio] to tell us not about demolition, not about how we should build housing, what is your objection to the sentence, ``It is a goal of our Nation that all citizens have decent and affordable housing''?

Mr. SANDERS. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I think the gentleman from New York [Mr. Lazio] dug himself a hole he did not have to dig. His speech was a great speech, but it had nothing to do with the amendment of the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Watt]. As I understand the Watt amendment, it says very simply, ``It is a goal of our Nation that all citizens have decent and affordable housing.'' Am I correct?

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

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I would simply conclude by stating that I think the Watt amendment is simple and straightforward. What it says is that in the United States of America, we should not have children sleeping out on the streets, we should not have people paying 50 or 60 percent of their income for rent. I would strongly support the Watt amendment.

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

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, this debate centers on two issues. At a time when the gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider, when the real wages of American workers has declined by 16 percent over the last 20 years, when most of the new jobs being created are low wage jobs, part-time jobs, temporary jobs, we must raise the minimum wage so that, if somebody works 40 hours a week, they do not live in poverty. Second, given the struggle that so many working poor are experiencing today, why would anybody want to raise the rents that low-income people have to pay in public housing? Why would somebody tell the elderly poor, who are barely surviving on Social Security, that they must pay higher rents than they are paying today? This is a bad rule. Let us defeat it.