Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I will tell you what. We have only 35 minutes, and we have got four of us here. I would really love to do that. And if we do agree to do it sometime later this week or next week, I really would love to do that. But we have got four people. We do not have Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be joined tonight by several other Members who will be speaking in a moment. Mr. Speaker, most of the discussion today dealt with the need for welfare reform, of which there is not a whole lot of disagreement, but I was rather shocked at how superficial in many ways the discussion about welfare reform today has been. Illegitimate children and the problem of drug addiction and the very serious crime problem that we face as a Nation are not the causes of poverty and are not the causes of the need for welfare. Rather, to a large degree, it is the reverse, the opposite that is true. In many respects, our country is becoming a poorer and poorer Nation. And not to talk about the causes of poverty, the loss of millions of good-paying manufacturing jobs, the decline in the wages that our working people are receiving, the growth of low-wage jobs, not to talk about that reality when we talk about welfare is absolutely absurd. Mr. Speaker, between 1979 and 1992, the number of full-time workers earning wages under the poverty line increased from 12 to 18 percent. Eighteen percent of our workers now are earning poverty wages. Between 1990 and 1992, half of the women in the United States who found full- time jobs were earning the poverty wage.

Mr. SANDERS. Let us be fair. This was bipartisan leadership.

Mr. SANDERS. At the same time as we are talking about defunding public radio and public television. Ms. Kaptur, the relationship of campaign finance reform to our discussion.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, let's introduce just for kicks, as we say, a note of reality into this debate. Welfare reform and the end of food stamp abuse, yes. Everybody is for that. Increased pain and suffering for America's children, no, many of us are opposed to that. A little while ago, the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture stated that under his reform, no child in America would go hungry. Who are we kidding? Today in America, before cutbacks to food stamps or to WIC or to other nutrition programs, 5 million children in the United States are hungry. Today, in this country, we have by far the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. What kind of country are we when we are talking about more cutbacks for low-income kids, when we already have double the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world? Mr. Chairman, if we were serious about welfare reform, and I do not think we really are, but if we were, we would be talking about a Federal jobs program to create real jobs so that poor people could then have real work and earn a real income. If we were serious about welfare reform, we would be talking about raising the minimum wage so that when poor people work, they can escape from poverty, not abolishing the minimum wage as some would have. If we are serious about talking about welfare reform, we must talk about improving child care capabilities, so that children of working mothers and working families are provided for. If we are serious about talking about welfare reform, we must talk about job training and transportation so that welfare recipients are able to get to the jobs that are open for them. Last, today we are talking about welfare reform as it applies to the poor. I hope that in the future we will have the guts to talk about welfare reform as it applies to the rich and the multinational corporations. its huge deficit and its enormous social problems can no longer afford to spend tens of billions of dollars a year providing tax breaks and subsidies to the rich and the large corporations. I look forward to that welfare reform.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, the chairman of the committee made a point when he said no child would go hungry. I believe he just said that. Does the chairman deny that in America today, with the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, 5 million children are already hungry?

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

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, this is an extraordinary week for the House of Representatives and for the American people. What we are seeing on the floor of the House of Representatives constitutes a war on the poorest women and children in our country in order to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy. The Republican Party, which recently held a fundraiser and raised $11 million dollars in one night from some of the wealthiest people in this country are now, under the guise of welfare reform, savagely cutting back on a wide variety of programs which are desperately needed by the weak and defenseless--by children, by the elderly, by the hungry, disabled and the sick. Sixty-nine billion dollars are being cut back on low-income assistance programs over a 5-year period in order to serve as a down payment for tax breaks for the rich. Robin Hood in reverse. We take from the poor and give to the rich. We take away school lunches from hungry children and serve up two martini lunches to corporate bosses. What courage. At a time when this country, before these cuts, already has the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world it is clear that the major problem facing low-income children is that they do not fully understand the working of the entrepeurial system. If only the low-income children, who are going to see cut backs in nutrition programs, health care and child care--had the sense to pay $1,000 a plate for a Republican fundraiser, things would be different. The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 6 million children will be thrown off welfare as a result of the Personally Responsibility Act. Conservative estimates show that in the year 2000 close to 400,000 or 40 percent of disabled children will no longer receive SSI benefits; 14 million children would continue to receive some food stamps, but at a reduced level; over 2 million children would no longer be eligible for school lunches; 1 million children would no longer be fed in child care settings; close to 400,000 children would be denied child care; and 60,000 children would lose access to foster care and adoption assistance. In the year 2000 the State of Vermont will lose $10 million in cash welfare and education, training and employment programs for welfare recipients and 2,450 children will be dropped from assistance. In the same year, Vermont will lose $5.1 million in aid for blind from the rolls. Vermont will lose close to $1 million in school lunch funds and 4,100 children will no longer receive free or reduced price meals. Vermont will lose $1.6 million in child care funds and 990 children will be denied care. Vermont will lose $3.5 million in funds for the child and adult care food program and 4,150 children will lose their daily meals. Vermont will lose $9 million in food stamp funds and 25,386 children would receive reduced food stamp benefits. We all recognize that the current welfare system is not working well, but in reforming the system we do not want to punish some of the most vulnerable people in our society. This House just passed an unfunded Federal mandate bill and, as a former Mayor, I supported that bill. This welfare reform bill is one of the largest unfunded Federal mandates that the State of Vermont will ever experience. If we are serious about real welfare reform than we must be talking about a jobs bill which can employ those people who are leaving welfare. We must be talking about increasing child care, job training, and educational opportunities. If our goal is to get people off welfare and into jobs, then we must provide the infrastructure for that transaction. Not to do that is to simply punish poor people for being poor.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, we have heard a lot about waste and bureaucracy. Let us talk about waste. Do Members know what waste is? $10 billion on the space station. Helping senior citizens heat their homes in Vermont in the winter time is not waste. Do you know what waste is? Corporate welfare and subsidies for large corporations and wealthy individuals, that is waste. Drug prevention programs for high schools and elementary schools in this country, that is not waste. That makes good sense. Do people really think it is waste to put money into the WIC program so we can provide decent nutrition for pregnant women and their children? Is that waste? That is not waste. Keeping the CIA funded at almost the same level as in the cold war, that is waste.

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

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, what a terrible rule. Cutbacks for heating programs for low income, for senior citizens, cutbacks in education, cutbacks for veterans, cutbacks for WIC. But we are not allowed to discuss cutbacks in corporate welfare, cutbacks in military spending. Let us vote this rule down and develop a fair system of priorities for this country.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I thank my friend from New Jersey, as he opens up a whole area of discussion that I was intending to get to in a moment and I thank him for getting there earlier, and that is the whole issue of what some of us call corporate welfare. Now, at the same time as we are seeing massive cutbacks in heating programs for low-income senior citizens, cutbacks in drug prevention programs, cutbacks in programs for the homeless, does my friend from New Jersey or California or Virginia happen to notice programs that are providing tens and tens of billions of dollars of Federal subsidies and Federal aid and tax breaks for some of the largest corporations in the United States of America? Now, maybe they are there. I happen not to have seen them. I have a list of all of the programs. I did not see them. If I might for one moment, and there is a long list, the Progressive Policy Institute, I might say a conservative Democratic organization, suggested that there were tens and tens of billions of dollars of savings if the Congress had the guts to call for welfare reform on large corporations and wealthy people. we all know that. The savings can take place within the energy industry where there are huge tax subsidies for companies who are extracting oil, gas and minerals. There are special tax credits for producers of fuel from nonconventional sources. There are depletion cost allowances for oil, gas and nonfuel mineral firms. On and on it goes. My friend from New Jersey makes exactly the right point: We should have that debate right here on the floor in front of the American people as to how we proceed to save money. And reclaiming my time, I would say to my friend from Vermont, who truly is an Independent, not only the way he thinks, I have read the bill. There were 228 cuts in the bill. Virtually none of them cut out the kind of corporate welfare, the Wall Street welfare that you make reference to. So I would say to you that this bill, Mr. Speaker, demonstrates that the majority party of the Republicans are not against the welfare state at all. They are against the welfare state for those who tend to vote for the Democrats, but not for those who tend to vote for the Republicans. And this bill is ample evidence of that. Let me give you other examples of things we will not get a chance to vote on that some of us would prefer. This bill says that if you are a senior citizen living in what we call section 8 subsidized housing, what that means is you live in a senior citizens high-rise and your rent is limited to 30 percent of your income and a subsidy pays less. So let us say your income is $10,000 a year, you only pay $3,000 a year toward rent and if your rent is really $5,000, the Federal Government picks up the other $2,000 so you can rent a modest apartment in a senior high-rise. I have had senior citizens call me from around New Jersey scared to death that they are going to lose their apartments because of what is in this bill, because this bill eliminates $2.7 billion from that subsidy. You know what answer I could give them, Mr. Speaker? You just might lose your apartment, it is true. Some of us, instead of denying housing to senior citizens under this program, would like to stop building so many courthouses and Federal buildings around America. We would like to substitute a provision that says, Do not cut the housing for senior citizens to have an apartment. Stop building a courthouse everywhere that a certain Member of Congress who is well connected enough to get one built. Yes, we need courthouses in America, but I will tell you what. If we have to wait a few more years before we give a few more judges an elaborate place to sit and hear cases and save the money there and put it into keeping senior citizens in their homes and apartments, I think we should do that. And at the very least, Mr. Speaker, we ought to have that debate and we ought to have a choice, and this Republican rule will not let us do that. One more example. One more example. This Republican bill says we are going to take $105 million from the program that hires remedial reading teachers, speech therapists, child psychologists, and other educators that help young people with a learning disability get through their school years, and is going to take $38 million from a program that helps young children who do not speak English learn how to. If they come to this country from Vietnam or Cambodia or Mexico or Russia or Poland or wherever, $38 million so those teachers can help our children learn English first when they are in first grade. That is gone from this bill. Some of us would rather take the money from something called the Export-Import Bank, which is a program paid for, Mr. Speaker, by the people watching us tonight, that gives subsidies to major American corporations to help them underwrite the sale of their goods around the world. Now, let me say this. I hope that American companies are able to sell their goods around the world tenfold what they do right now because that is good for the country, but the people who will profit from selling those goods should underwrite the cost of selling those goods. The shareholders and investors of those companies ought to pick up the tab of this, not the American taxpayer. So let me summarize. I would like to see us vote on an amendment to substitute the cut that cuts heating assistance for senior citizens and instead cuts energy research that benefits oil companies. We will not get that chance. I would like to see us get rid of the cut that abolishes the summer job program for young people in urban and rural and suburban areas around this country, including my hometown, and give us a chance to get rid of some of the bureaucracy in the Department of Agriculture or the Commerce Department or the Department of the Treasury or wherever. We will not get that chance. I would like to see us restore the cut that would say to senior citizens, we are going to take away the subsidy that helps you get an apartment and instead stop building so many courthouses for so many judges and so many Federal buildings around America. We will not get that chance. I would like to restore the cut that says no more remedial reading teachers, no more education for children who cannot speak the English language as their first language, no more assistance for those children. I would like to get rid of some of the spending in the Export-Import Bank that helps IBM and AT&T sell their products around the world. We will not get that change. Now, my friends as a Democrat, I have been wanting to sponsor an initiative in the last Congress called the A-to-Z spending cuts plan. Any Member can come to this floor during a special session and propose his or her best idea to cut spending. There would then be a debate and a vote. When they were in the minority, my friends on the Republican side thought that was a terrific idea. The Speaker, the majority leader, the majority whip, all of them signed on to the bill and signed a petition forcing the bill to the floor that almost made it but did not. They thought it was a great idea that everybody's spending priorities could be brought here in debate. Now they are in charge. Now they have the majority. Now they can win any vote because they have a certain number of more votes than we do. Now they are not quite sure the idea is so good with the majority change in this House, Mr. Speaker, because the people are fed up with a system that is closed, that does not permit free and honest debate. We are going to have an opportunity to make a decision on Tuesday whether we have a free or honest debate about this rescissions bill. If you vote for the rule that Chairman Solomon wants, we are not going to have a free and honest debate. We are going to have a closed debate and a lousy bill. If you defeat the rule, give us a chance to offer these and other ideas and have the kind of discussion we are tonight, the public will be well served. I thank the gentleman from California [Mr. Becerra] for this time.

Mr. SANDERS. If the gentleman would yield.

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

Mr. SANDERS. Let us reiterate what all four of us have been talking about. No. 1, with a huge deficit, huge national debt, and terrible social needs in America, there are significant increase tax breaks for the rich, at the same time as the gap between the rich and the poor has never been wider. No. 2, despite the end of the cold war, increased military spending at a time, in my view, when we should be cutting back on the military. And then in order to move toward a balanced budget, savage cutbacks which go against low-income elderly people, including people in the northern part of America who will be cold this winter if our heat program is cut. Programs for homeless people; programs for children; cutbacks in the WIC Program. There is one program that Mr. Becerra touched upon earlier that I think we have not perhaps discussed enough and that is a $200 million cutback for the veterans of America. I do not apologize to anybody for being an antiwar Congressman. Yes, I voted against the Persian Gulf war. I think very often we can resolve international conflict without wars. But it seems to me that if the Government of the United States of America sends people off to war and asks them to put their lives on the line, and they do that, and then they come back to America and 40 or 50 years goes by, as in the case of World War II veterans and these veterans are sleeping down in VA hospitals throughout this country, it seems to me to be very, very wrong to say to those men and women who put their lives on the line, were wounded in body and wounded in spirit, that you say to them now, Hey, guess what? We have got a cutback on the VA hospitals. Thank you very much for putting your life on the line. Thank you for getting wounded, but now we have got a budget problem and we have to give tax breaks to the wealthiest people. We have to build the star wars. We have got to cutback for you. I think that this particular cut of $200 million is absolutely upcalled for. I fear very much that as the Contract With America progresses, and I had the opportunity of meeting with Jesse Brown, the very fine and excellent Secretary for Veterans Affairs, and he shares this fear, that in the months and months to come there will be increased cutbacks on the needs of our veterans. So, I think the bottom line is that we have got to get our priorities right and that is we respect those people who put their lives on the line and we will not go forward with those cuts.

Mr. SANDERS. To the best of my knowledge, King Hussein is not exactly on the welfare rolls as well.

Mr. SANDERS. I just want to thank the gentleman from California [Mr. Becerra]. I think this is an enormously important discussion dealing with what the priorities of America should be. And I thank you very much for leading this discussion.

Mr. SANDERS. First I want to thank the gentleman from California for his wonderful presentation, because I think he hit the nail right on the head. Essentially what we are talking about tonight are priorities. That is what a government does, like every family in America. It has to make choices as to how it allocates money and where it saves money. What the gentleman said in terms of the rescission package is basically consistent with the whole thrust of the Contract With America. What that is about, as his charts have amply demonstrated, is that on one hand, despite all of the loud rhetoric about the terrible deficit and the $4.5 trillion national debt, the first point is our Republican friends are proposing massive tax breaks for the wealthiest people in America. Here we have a situation today where the gap between the rich and the poor in America has never been wider, the wealthiest 1 percent of the population own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. We have a terrible deficit. All kinds of very serious social needs in America. And our Republican colleagues are proposing massive tax breaks for the wealthiest people in America. Now, that may make sense to somebody, but not to the many people in the State of Vermont and around this country that I talk to who work for a living. That is point number one. The second point that the gentleman from California made, which is also absolutely appropriate, is that today at a time when the cold war has finally ended, when the Soviet Union is no longer our enemy, Russia wants to join in NATO, many of the Communist bloc, former Communist bloc companies want to join in NATO, at a time when we have the ability to significantly lower military spending, to help us deal with the deficit, to help us pump money into all kinds of enormous needs that this country faces, our Republican friends, if you can believe it, and I know that many people may have a hard time actually believing it, are proposing tens of billions of dollars more for the star wars program. So tax breaks for the rich, more money for star wars, and for other military programs. If you are going to do those things, which will cost us tens of tens of billions of dollars and if you want to move toward a balanced budget in 7 years, something has got to give. That is the equation. Tax breaks for the rich, more money for star wars. Well, what has got to give? And the gentleman from California mentioned a number of the areas that have been affected by rescissions, that is, cutbacks in money that has already been appropriated. Let me reiterate some of them as they apply to the State of Vermont. I was particularly outraged that one of the areas where we saw the most savage cutbacks, $1.3 billion, was for the Low Income Heating Assistance Program, also referred to as LIHEAP. The LIHEAP program provides heating assistance to low-income people, many of them elderly people who live in cold climates. In my State of Vermont, the weather gets down to 20 below zero to 30 below zero. We have many elderly people who are living on very fixed incomes. These are people who often have to choose between heating their homes or buying the prescription drugs they need to ease their pain. The LIHEAP program impacts upon 24,000 households in the State of Vermont. The Republican rescission package would cut back 100 percent, would eliminate the LIHEAP program. One of two things will happen as a result. Either elderly people will go cold or they will take the little money they have to put into heating and not have the food that they need or the medicine that they need. I do not know about other people's priorities, but it does not make a whole lot of sense to me to talk about spending billions of dollars more for Star Wars to cut taxes for the rich by tens of billions of dollars and then force tens and tens of thousands of elderly people in America to go cold in the wintertime. Every politician who gets up here talks about the serious drug problems that we have. It is a problem in Vermont, it is a problem in California, it is a problem in Virginia, it is a problem all over America. In my State of Vermont I was recently at a town meeting in Bennington and teachers there talked about how important the drug education money that comes into that community is in keeping kids away from drugs. Every sensible human being understands that an ounce of prevention is worth a lot more than spending billions of dollars throwing people into jail. People in Vermont and all over this country are working day and night to keep kids away from drugs, away from gangs. This rescission program cuts back significantly on money that goes to help teachers and educators keep kids away from drugs. And on and on it goes, cutbacks for education, for people who are homeless. I think what the rescission package talks about is the priorities that some of our Republican friends have, and I think that they are not the priorities that the ordinary American people have. And I hope that out of this discussion tonight people all over this country will stand up and say, now wait a second, that is not what the United States of America is supposed to be, it is not supposed to be making the elderly go cold in the wintertime, it is not supposed to be taking away educational opportunity from homeless people. I would simply conclude my remarks by thanking the gentleman from California very much for this extremely important discussion.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, let me just touch upon a few issues that are very rarely talked about in this Congress. We do a lot of talking about a lot of things but I am always amazed that sometimes the very most important issues that face the American people, the dynamics of our Nation seem to be ignored here in the Congress. So let me just touch upon a few points that I consider to be quite important. Number one, if we are to understand the dynamics of American politics, it might be appropriate to understand that in the U.S. Congress today approximately 20 percent of the Members of Congress themselves are millionaires. And everything being equal, until we get campaign finance reform, we can only expect that number to increase. A democracy is supposed to mean that ordinary people can run for office, ordinary people can get elected to represent their neighbors back home. Clearly, there is something wrong in this country today when at a time that perhaps one-half of 1 percent of our people are millionaires, 20 percent of the Members of the House and Senate of millionaires. We recently had a gentleman in California who took out his checkbook wrote himself a check for $25 million in attempting to buy the Senate seat in that State, and that is happening increasingly. So if we want to understand why the policies of the U.S. Congress so often work to reflect the interest of the wealthy and the powerful, it has something to do with who is in Congress and who funds people who go to Congress. Many of you may have seen in the papers that last month the Republican Party held a fundraiser. It was a nice little fundraiser. It was only $1,000 a plate. It was a good dinner. Nice dessert. It was a good bargain. The point is that the Republican Party on that night left with $11 million. Now, why do people go to a dinner at a $1,000 a plate? The food is good, that is true, but there are other reasons and the reasons might be that they are not donating, they are investing. Now, as the only Independent in Congress I would point out the Democrats are not far behind. They also have dinners of that kind. Wealthy people invest so that when this session, this Congress comes together, they vote tax breaks for the wealthiest people. They vote for trade policies which help large corporations export our jobs to Third World countries. That is a very, very serious problem. We desperately need campaign finance reform so that we can limit the amount of money that can be spent on a campaign and that we can really have democracy in this institution. Number two, another issue that we don't often talk about is the very, very unfair distribution of wealth in America. Very rarely is that talked about. It is important to point out that in the United States today the wealthiest 1 percent of the population owns more wealth, not that bottom 90 percent. We have a situation now where the chief executive officers of the largest corporations in America are earning 150 times what their workers are earning. Now, nobody thinks that everybody in America should all earn the same amount of money, but clearly there is something very wrong when so few people have so much money, while at the same time, the middle class is shrinking and at the same time poverty in America is growing. While the richest 1 percent of the population own 37 percent of the wealth in America, we have 18 percent of our workers, people who are working We have 22 percent of our children living in poverty. That is the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world by far. That is double the rate of any other country. And we have at a time that some of our friends are proposing to cut back on WIC and to cut back on food stamps, we have 5 million children in America who are hungry today. Let's talk about that issue. Tax breaks for the rich increased hunger for children at a time when we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. Let me talk about another issue. Our Republican friends talk about the mandate they received on November 8. Let me say a word about that mandate. What percentage of the people came out to vote in that mandate? Thirty-nine percent of the people came out to vote. Republicans ended up with a smaller percentage, a little bit larger percentage than the Democrats did. Thirty-nine percent of the people came out to vote. I am happy to say that in my home city of Burlington, VT on election day just this last Tuesday a progressive was elected mayor. We had 50 percent of the people coming out in a local election. Why is it that so few people participate in the Democratic process in America? Why is it that poor people in America virtually don't vote at all, many working people don't vote at all? And I think the reason is that the people are basically giving up on the political system.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, at a time when the congressional leadership is proposing spending and major cutbacks in a wide variety of programs which tens of millions of low and moderate Americans desperately need, I am happy to tell you about the results of the municipal election yesterday in Burlington, VT--the State's largest city. Peter Clavelle, a Progressive, won the mayoral election with 5,055 votes. Peter Brownell, the Republican incumbent, came in second with 4,815 and Paul Lafayette, the Democrat, came in third with 1,793. Further, Progressives and Independents held their seats on the city council which will give the Progressives more voting power than they have ever had before. Mr. Clavelle, in opposing the Republican and Democratic candidates, called for property tax reform and a progressive tax system which is based on ability to pay. He also called for keeping Burlington's waterfront open for all the people--not just the wealthy. He indicated that the goal of his administration would be to make government work for the average citizen--not just those who have a lot of money. Mr. Clavelle had the support of city unions, women's groups, environmentalists, and many low income citizens. I should also mention to you that Mr. Clavelle and the Progressives did their best in the low and moderate income wards of the city. In ward 2 he received 65 percent of the vote in the 3-way race, and in ward 3 he received 58 percent of the vote. The voter turnout was also significantly higher than the 38 percent by which the Republican's won their national mandate on November 8, 1994. While the results of this municipal election have almost everything to do with local issues and local personalities, I do believe that national politics played a role. In Burlington, VT, as in other communities across America, middle income and working people are becoming increasingly concerned about the class warfare which is going on in Washington. They want to see government represent all the people--not just big money interests. They want to see government protect the elderly, the children, women, and the poor--rather than just those who make large campaign contributions.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I am very distressed about some of the proposals that have been considered and passed by the House recently. Although one in three Americans will get cancer and one in four of us will die from it, the proposals we have been passing under the Contract With America are making it substantially easier for big corporations to pollute our environment and bodies with toxic chemicals with complete immunity. They make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the Federal Government to protect the public health and take away the financial incentives for private industry to use care when manufacturing products. Forces who think its appropriate to ignore the public health successfully defeated important amendments I offered to the unfunded mandates reform and the regulatory moratorium bills which would have allowed the Federal Government to protect the public health--especially from cancer-causing toxic exposures. On Monday, under the guise of attorney accountability, these same forces successfully passed a provision that would make it extremely difficult to win a suit against a company that manufactures products that cause toxic injuries. It will likely prohibit evidence of newly discovered injuries that we are discovering in the toxic tort area like chemical sensitivity and immune deficiency syndrome. Obviously, attorney accountability only demands accountability to corporate interests and not accountability to the consumer. But those of us who want to protect the public health are beginning to win the fight. This legal reform bill was amended so consumers harmed by toxic products like the Dalcon shield, DES, breast implants, and asbestos, can sue for compensatory damages. The bill does not allow suits 15 years after purchase of the product. Yet, in committee the time limit provision was changed to exclude injuries that do not ordinarily appear within 15 years of exposure. Although this provision addresses latent injuries like cancer and asbestosis, it is badly written and could leave many seriously injured consumers without legal recourse. Which injuries ordinarily appear more than 15 years after exposure? Which types of cancer? How about AIDS? And chemical sensitivity? What if an injury usually arises within 10 years, what happens to the victims who were lucky enough to have a longer latency period? Will they not be able to sue? Clearly this bill does not adequately protect consumers from cancer-causing and other toxic products. Mr. Chairman, there is one other serious flaw in this bill I would like to address. It is extremely regressive. The cap on punitive damages is based, in part, on the victim's income. Not only does this allow wealthier victims to win larger recoveries, but it also creates an incentive to use less care when developing and manufacturing products that are typically used by low-income consumers. This bill is a badly written bill that puts consumers' rights in serious jeopardy and I strongly urge you to vote ``no'' on final passage.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, as cosponsor of the original Kaptur resolution and as somebody who offered I think a very important amendment as a part of the Committee on Banking and Financial Services markup for this bill, I strongly support this resolution. There are three basic points that I would like to make: No. 1, at a time when Members of Congress are proposing cutbacks in School Lunch Programs, in Breakfast Programs, in programs which hurt the most vulnerable people in our society, because the claim is we do not have enough money to provide those programs, it seems to me to be absolutely irresponsible to put one penny at risk in attempting to bail out the unstable Mexican economy and the unstable Mexican Government. We have more than enough problems here at home. Let us pay attention to those problems. Second of all, not only is the concept of the bailout wrong, it is an absolute outrage that the President and the Republican leadership would suggest that they can make the bailout going through the Exchange Stabilization Fund and not come to the U.S. Congress for a debate and a vote. It is no secret why they did not come to Congress for a vote, and the reason is, they would have lost that vote. The third point that I would want to make is, as important as this resolution of inquiry is, it is only, and must be understood to be only a first step. We have got a long way to go. My sincere hope is that the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Leach] will allow my legislation, H.R. 867, to be considered by the Committee on Banking and Financial Services and come to a vote on the floor. What that bill would require is that this bailout package and other uses of the Exchange Stabilization Fund must be approved by the U.S. Congress and the people before one penny could be spent.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. What particularly outrages me is that there is no country in the world where the gap not only between the rich and the poor but between the chief executive officers of the large corporations and their workers is as wide as it is in the United States. The last figure that I saw was that at a time when the CEO's are seeing tremendous increases in their incomes and workers incomes are declining, the gap is now 150 to one. I do not think, you used the words economic democracy a moment ago, I do not think that is what this country is supposed to be. It is not supposed to be an oligarchy. It is supposed to be a country in which we have a solid middle class where people who are working for a living are able to earn enough money to pay the bills and to raise their kids with a little bit of dignity. I think we should also point out, because the media does not do this terribly often, that one of the reasons that European and Scandinavian companies are coming to the United States today is that they find in America today the opportunity, unbelievable as it may sound, to hire cheap labor. For the same reason that American companies go to Mexico and China, some of the European companies are coming to America where you can get skilled, hard-working people who will work for 7 bucks an hour, $8 an hour, with very limited benefits. And clearly in Europe, workers earn a lot more than that. I think another point that I want to make, there was an article in, I think it was Newsweek recently, maybe it was Time, where they talked about the stress that the average American family is under. People are working longer and longer hours, having less vacation time. I think that is an issue that we should address as well.

Mr. SANDERS. I agree. And there is no question that with a $150 plus billion trade deficit, what that translates into is millions of decent manufacturing jobs that should exist in this country but that do not. When we talk about the global economy, I think what we have got to deal with is the fact that major corporations would much prefer to go to China where they could pay workers 20 cents an hour in an undemocratic society where workers cannot form free unions, where the environmental conditions or the workers' conditions are very, very bad. Obviously what has happened is companies have invested tens of billions of dollars in China. They have invested huge amounts of money in Mexico, in Malaysia, in countries where desperate people are forced to work for starvation wages, and at the same time they have thrown American workers out on the street. We must demand and create a process by which large American corporations reinvest in America and put our people back to work at good wages. Clearly as you indicate, current trade policy is doing exactly the opposite.

Mr. SANDERS. I think we should point out that one of the additional reasons why we need to raise the minimum wage is that many, many of the new jobs that are currently being created are, in fact, low-wage jobs. They are often part-time jobs. They are jobs without any health care or any other benefits. And it seems to me that if anyone is going to talk about welfare reform or anything else, we must make sure that in this country that those people who are working for a living have the right to live in dignity, have the right after 40 hours of work to keep their heads above poverty. I think you and I are going to go forward as vigorously as we can to demand hearings here in the House and in the Senate and pass the minimum wage. The President's bill does not go as far as I would like to see it go, but it is a step forward which would impact not only on those workers making $4.25, but obviously those workers making $4.50, $5 or $5.20 an hour as well.