Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. It seems to me to be very sad to be contemplating the likelihood, the reality that if these trends continue, that higher education in America, which at good schools today costs $25,000, $28,000 a year, that if the Federal Government is not helping out middle class, the working-class families, higher education will simply be an avenue open only to the very wealthy. That seems to me to be a terrible thing not only for millions of families but a terrible thing for this country as well. Let me shift for a moment. We have talked about the impact of the Contract With America on those families hoping to send their kids to college. What about veterans? I find it interesting and I just this morning actually met with Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jesse Brown, who I think is doing an excellent job in advocating for the rights of veterans, who is deeply concerned about the rescission, the cutback of money already appropriated, which took place just last week, of some $200 million for veterans already. He and I think many of us share the concern that next year under the Republican proposals there will be major cutbacks in veterans programs, including programs and money needed by the VA hospitals. It seems to me that we can disagree about the wisdom of this or that war. But if you are going to ask a young man or woman to go to war, to put his or her life on the line, you are signing, talk about a contract, there is not a deeper contract than you can sign. When the government declares a war and says, go out, you have made a contract in perpetuity, I think, with that individual. They cannot do more than put their life on the line. And it seems to me in absolute disgrace that anyone would contemplate, when the elderly now in our VA hospitals who fought in World War II, who fought in Korea, who need the help, to say to those people, we have a real deficit problem here, guys, we are going to have to cut back on your needs. Thanks for putting your life on the line. But now you are somewhat disposable. That seems to me to be very wrong.

Mr. SANDERS. I think the gentleman is exactly right. He has characterized the WIC program exactly right. It is not only the right thing to do, it is the cost-effective, sensible thing to do. How much more sensible it is to keep low-income pregnant women healthy so they can give birth to healthy babies rather than have them give birth to low-birthweight babies and spending thousands of dollars to keep those babies alive. The WIC program has been shown time and time again to be a very successful and fully effective program. I must say that to understand fully what goes on in this Congress, we should examine the decency, the propriety of people who contribute or accept $50,000-a-plate contributions and then go out and cut back on programs for low-income pregnant women and hungry kids. We have talked about the impact of the Contract With America on the elderly, on children. But there are other constituencies who are also going to be affected by the Contract With America. One of the areas the contract is pointing its ugly finger at right now is at the young college students in America. Time and time again we hear on the floor of this House, we hear the leading business people of this country, we hear the President, we hear anybody who knows anything about what is going on in the international global economy, make the sensible and correct point that this country will not survive economically unless we have a well-educated workforce. The competition in Europe, in Asia, against as is very, very powerful. We need to have a well-educated workforce. Everybody agrees with that. Second of all, what everybody agrees with is that if young people are not able to get a college education, if they simply go out into the workforce with a high school degree, it is increasingly difficult to make a living. The new jobs that are being created for high school graduates are paying significantly lower wages than they paid 15 years ago. So, given that reality that we need a well-educated work force, that the jobs out there for high school graduates are low-paying, what sense in the world does it make to be cutting back drastically on the student grants and loan programs that enable millions of middle-income and working-class and low-income families to be able to afford to send their kids to college? We are talking about cutbacks in the Pell Grant program, cutbacks in the Stafford Loan Program, cutbacks in the work-study program, all of which will make it extremely hard for young people to go to college because the cost of higher education today is very high. Imagine how difficult it would be if we did not have the Federal assistance which currently exists. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

Mr. SANDERS. That is right. I think we should be very clear about what is going on. In this instance, we are not being rhetorical or cute by saying that literally we are talking about food coming out of the mouths of hungry children in order to provide tax breaks for some of the wealthiest people in this country, and I think that is, you know, there has been a whole lot of discussion about family values. I do not think that cutting back on school breakfast programs, school lunch programs, and in my State of Vermont, the WIC Program, which is the women and infants and children program by which low-income pregnant women are provided good nutrition and little kids are provided good nutrition, to eliminate that program and put it into the block grants is, to me, just incomprehensible. Furthermore, I think, as you know, and I know this affects your district which also has some cold winter as my district does, as the State of Vermont does, last week one of the subcommittees on Appropriations proposed, voted to, to eliminate the LIHEAP program, which is a program that provides fuel assistance for low income people in our districts where the weather gets 20 below zero. This is a serious matter. It is a question of whether people stay alive or not. Many of the recipients of that program in the State of Vermont are elderly people. So once more, tax breaks for the rich, increases in military spending, and star wars, and cutbacks for the most vulnerable people in our Nation.

Mr. SANDERS. In a few moments, I hope we can get to the issue of trade and our current trade policy, because I think that relates very much to the circumstances you are talking about. [[Page H2388]] Let us get back to the Contract With America. It seems to me that the essence of what the Contract With America is about are several things: No, 1, our Republicans want to provide very, very substantial tax breaks, primarily for the wealthiest people in this country. People earning over $100,000 a year would get at least half of the tax breaks, and as I understand it, people earning $200,000 a year or more would get about one-third of the tax breaks. These are the people whose incomes have soared during the last decade, who, in many instances, are already not paying their fair share of tax, but these are the people who are targeted for the major tax breaks under the Republicans. The second point that I think we should consider in the Republican Contract With America is that these folks who are talking about the need to move toward a balanced budget, balanced budget in 7 years, first, they are talking about huge tax breaks for the wealthy and, second of all, they are talking about a major increase in military spending, tax breaks for the rich and increase in military spending. Last week we had a rather vigorous debate here right on the floor of the House when our Republican friends suggested they wanted to bring back the star wars program; again, no one is clear about how much more money they want for it. We were not specific about the dollars. I think the estimate is another $30 or $40 billion for star wars alone, let alone for some other military programs.

Mr. SANDERS. If I may, I think the major point that we should be discussing on the floor of this House every single day and that should be discussed at length on the television and on the radio is why it is that over the last 20 years we have become a significantly poorer country, why the standard of living of working people has declined, why the gap between the rich and the poor has grown wider, why we have lost some 3 million manufacturing jobs as large corporations throw American workers out on the street and head to Mexico or to China, why it is that more and more people lack health insurance or are underinsured, why it is we have that. I wonder how many Americans know this. We have in the United States today by far the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. Over 22 percent of the children in America are living in poverty. Many of our elderly people are living in poverty. The new jobs that are being created are significantly lower-wage jobs than was the case even 15 years ago, especially for the young men and women who are just graduating college. Why is all of this happening? Clearly those are the issues that we should be discussing, but unfortunately, we spend very little time doing that.

Mr. SANDERS. I found it interesting that in the last month, as you know, the Speaker of the House, who is leading the effort to defund public television and public radio, held a fund raiser for his own private television network, and do you recall how much it cost a plate to attend that fund-raiser?

Mr. SANDERS. If I may. There are some writers who have pointed out that increasingly the media, the corporate media, is owned by fewer and fewer larger multinational corporations. It is of concern to me, for example, that NBC is owned by the General Electric Corp., a company which is a major manufacturer of military hardware, a company which has a very poor labor relations record, a company which for a period of time under the Reagan administration paid very, very, little in taxes. The Fox network is owned by the huge international media corporation run by Rupert Murdoch who runs and controls media in several countries around the world. I think there is increasingly a danger not only in the United States but around the world that the people are getting their information from fewer and fewer people who will not tell people I think the truth, but will use their ownership of the media to protect their own private interests. As the gentleman knows, there has been a lot of discussion about the November 8 election in which the Republican Party took control of both the House and the Senate, but what is not often I think pointed out enough is that in that election 62 percent of the American people did not bother to vote. And that all over this country we have tens and tens of millions of people, primarily working people and low-income people, who are feeling enormous pain these days; they often do not have health insurance, they are working for low wages, their kids are unable to afford to go to college. For the first time in the history of the modern United States their children will have a lower standard of living than they do, yet with all of these problems, people do not go out and vote, because, I think, to a large degree they have given up on the political system, they do not see politics and government as it is presently constituted as a mechanism for them to improve their lives. Is that something the gentleman observes in his district?

Mr. SANDERS. Let me ask you, you have been here now for over 2 years, I have been here for over 4 years. Is it your impression that if you were to turn on the television tonight and watch CBS or NBC that you would get an accurate understanding of, in fact, what is taking place in the U.S. Congress?

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be joined by Representative Maurice Hinchey of the 26th District of New York State. Mr. Speaker, I think that one of the problems in our democracy is that we have a tendency not to address some of the most sensitive and important issues. We seem to get a little bit consumed with O.J. Simpson and soap operas and the baseball games and so forth. Yet the country faces enormous pressures, enormous problems, and we really do not get into them very often in any great depth. Let me begin the discussion with Representative Hinchey by raising a question, if I might, and, that is, many people in this country are concerned today about the degree to which in fact this Nation remains a democracy in which ordinary people are able to control their lives and control the future, as opposed to big-money interests which have such a profound impact on the political and economic life of this country. Representative Hinchey, do you have some thoughts on that?

Mr. SANDERS. Fifty thousand dollars a plate. It must have been a really good dinner for $50,000, but this is money that came from obviously some of the very wealthiest people in America who wanted to give the Speaker and his friends the opportunity to communicate with America, with their particular point of view. But at the same time, by accepting that money, they are in the process of trying to shut down the public broadcasting system. I suspect that that is not just a coincidence.

Mr. SANDERS. When I turn on the television and I sometimes go surfing as they say with the flipper and I am amazed that you can have a cable network, not a network but cable system with 20, 30, 40 channels and how little there is of value on any of those stations. We get a great deal of violence, we get our share of soap operas, we get old movies, we get all kinds of stuff, but it is amazing to me how little of television today is actually reflecting the reality of the lives that tens and millions of working people are living. The truth of the matter is in our country today we just do not talk about the pain that so many people are going through, just trying to get through the day. I think that one of the reasons that so few low-income people participate in the political process is that literally they almost do not have the energy to do it. If you go out and you work for 40 or 50 hours a week, if you have kids to take care of, if you have a car that you have got to keep running, if you have to worry about the electric bill and the telephone bill, you know, you do not have a lot of free time to participate in the political process. And I think the more that people are hurting, the more they are obliged to pay attention to their own most basic needs and the needs of their families. Meanwhile, our wealthy friends can go flying around the country to go to meetings, they have large staffs of people. I find it very interesting and very alarming, when you talk about the role of money in politics, just some of the events that have taken place in the last month or two. We talked for a moment about the fact that Mr. Gingrich was able to have a fund-raiser for his television network for $50,000 a plate. Several weeks ago the Republican Party had a fund-raiser, they brought people together and in one night they raised $11 million for the Republican Party. Senator Phil Gramm who is one of the candidates seeking the Republican nomination for President held a fund-raiser, and on one night be raised over $3 million. One does not have to be a genius or a great political scientist to figure out why people are throwing so much money at political candidates. They are not donating that money, they are investing that money. They feel that if they can elect certain people, they will benefit from the decisions that those people make once they are office. And I think we are beginning to see that in terms of the Contract With America that we are debating virtually every day on the floor of the House. Representative Hinchey, how do you see the relationship between big money and the Republican Contract With America?

Mr. SANDERS. If the Contract With America is going to provide tremendous tax breaks for the wealthy, and if it is going to provide enormous profits for military contractors and the others who are involved in star wars, and if we are to move toward a balanced budget within 7 years, clearly it does not take a Ph.D. in economics to figure out something has got to give. You cannot move toward a balanced budget, give tax breaks to the rich, expand military spending without making savage cutbacks in a wide variety of areas. And in the last week or two, we have finally begun to get some of the specifics as to where those rather savage cuts are going to come. Do you want to say a word on that?

Mr. SANDERS. You and I are members of the Progressive Caucus. The Progressive Caucus has brought forth a number of alternative ideas to the contract, and maybe it would be useful if we talked about some of the ideas and some of the legislation that we are working on. Recently, as you know, the president has come out to increase the minimum wage. You and I have supported legislation for several years which would raise the minimum wage to an even higher level. I introduced legislation 4 years ago which would raise the minimum age to $5.50 an hour. It seems to me that at a time when the purchasing power of the minimum wage today is 26 percent less than it was in 1970, in other words, our low-wage workers are significantly poorer and worse off than they were 25 years ago, that the time is long overdue, that we should be saying that if you are going to work 40 hours a week in the United States of America, you should not be living in poverty. Does that not make sense to you?

Mr. SANDERS. Maybe when we talk about the decline in the standard of living of working people and the shrinking of the middle class, I think it ties, and we might want to end our discussion on this note, it ties into the whole issue of trade which has gotten a lot of attention recently in terms of the passage of NAFTA and GATT. NAFTA was passed some 14 or 15 months ago. We were told that with the passage of NAFTA, many new jobs would be created here in the United States. It would improve the Mexican economy. Fifteen months have come and gone. What is your impression about the impact of NAFTA?

Mr. SANDERS

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

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. I am proud to be a cosponsor of this amendment that saves human lives and I strongly urge its adoption. In its current form, the moratorium does not apply to regulations that protect against imminent threats of serious illness, severe injury, or death or substantial endangerment to private property. As Mr. Waxman described, this is an absurd provision that gives greater protection to private property than to human life. I think this is a absurd set of priorities that needs to be changed. Furthermore, the bill is misleading because it does not allow regulations that protect public health and safety. In fact, it threatens regulations implemented last year that: Promote safer meat, poultry, and seafood; Establish standards for water quality; Set standards for disposal of nuclear and other hazardous waste; Set motor vehicle safety standards for brake systems; Amend performance standards for children's life jackets; Set safety standards for baby walkers and children's toys; and Standardize aviation rules. Under the current definition of ``imminent threat of human health and safety,'' regulations that protect against activities that cause cancer, AIDS, or any other illness that has a latency period cannot be implemented. Today 1 in 3 of us will get cancer, and tragically 1 in 4 will die of it. Over 60 different occupations are at a documented risk of cancer, including farmers, petrochemical workers, asbestos workers, plastics manufacturers, and radiations workers. If this amendment is not adopted, the administration will not be able to respond to this expensive and debilitating health care crisis by implementing regulations that prevent cancer. For instance, regulations that provide certification standards for mammography that are required by law will not be implemented unless this amendment is adopted. Regulations that prevent breast cancer and save lives should be implemented. Indoor air regulations that protect against toxic exposures that ultimately cause asbestosis, lung cancer, or other serious respiratory illnesses, will also be prohibited if this amendment is not adopted. OSHA has been considering a rule banning smoking in workplaces nationwide, the FDA is considering to regulate cigarettes as a drug, and the Department of Health and Human Services is working on regulations that limit smoking in schools and other places where children congregate. All of these plans will be put on hold unless this amendment is adopted. Lung cancer is the No. 1 cancer killer. The immediate implementation of regulations like these could save many lives. Also, nuclear safety standards for waste disposal, like the regulation allowing nuclear wastes to be transferred from sites in Idaho, Colorado and other States to a WIPP facility in New Mexico, will be retroactively canceled. Thus, more Americans could potentially be exposed to toxic substances that cause serious illness and death. I simply do not see the sense in the current language which allows regulations that protect against deaths in 1995, yet prohibits regulations that protect against deaths in other years. If the drafters of this bill intended to protect against cancer and AIDs, then this intention should be made clear in the plain meaning of the definition of ``imminent threat to human health or safety.'' I strongly urge you to support this amendment which clearly states that we care enough about human lives to permit regulations that prevent serious illnesses, severe injuries, and death in any year and gives human lives as much protection as the bill gives to private property.

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

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman, is reiterating the point I was making. Yes, there are regulations which are silly; yes; there are regulations which are useless and should be gotten rid of, but the scope of what the gentleman is talking about is not amusing. Yes, holes in buckets is very funny, gets good laughs, I agree with the gentleman. But cancer and breast cancer, particularly, are very serious problems in America. AIDS is very serious. It is not a laughing matter. What the gentleman's legislation does is it may deal with the holes in the buckets, fine, but is also preventing the Government from taking measures that will save people from getting cancer. That is not so funny.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot about family values lately, but what kind of family values are contained in the Contract With America, which proposes massive tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country, billions of dollar increases on military spending, including the discredited Star Wars Program, and at the same time cutbacks on programs desperately needed by the weakest and most vulnerable people in our society? I was especially outraged yesterday by a subcommittee's elimination of the LIHEAP Program, which provides low-income people, including many senior citizens, heating subsidies in the wintertime. In my State of Vermont, over 20,000 households, including many senior citizens, take advantage of that desperately needed program. Tax breaks for the rich, increases in military spending, and cutbacks on heating programs for the elderly and the poor. What family values.

Mr. SANDERS

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

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman of the committee very much, and I thank his staff for their support as well.

Mr. SANDERS. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, this amendment was brought up at the committee level. I believe it now has the support of the majority. Mr. Chairman, my amendment is entirely consistent with the overall purpose of updating and revising the Paper Work Reduction Act. It is time for us to revisit and strike a new balance between the collection of vital information and the increased costs of doing business in the global marketplace. At the same time, I think we need to focus the attention and the limited resources of OMB and other Federal agencies on reducing burdensome paperwork on those it is hurting the most--the smallest businesses that can least afford the time, personnel, and additional costs associated with meeting all of the Federal Government's regulatory and reporting requirements. My amendment does just that. It requires the Director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs within OMB to make it a priority to first consider the adverse effects on the smallest of small businesses--those employing 50 or fewer employees--when directing and overseeing efforts to cut Federal paperwork and information reporting. Currently, the Small Business Administration typically defines a small business as one that employs 500 or fewer employees. This amendment also makes helping the smallest of small businesses a priority for voluntary pilot projects when OMB, other Federal agencies and non-Federal entities test alternative policies, practices, regulations, and procedures to reduce the Federal paperwork burden. A few weeks ago I met with small business leaders from all across Vermont where most businesses have 10 or fewer employees. Repeatedly they expressed two overriding concerns: First, SBA and other Federal agencies don't appreciate the different problems and comparative risks confronting different-sized small businesses, and second, Uncle Sam does not pay his bills on time, thus making it very hard for small businesses with limited cashflow to sell goods and services to the Federal Government. With this amendment and other provisions in this bill we can tackle both of these problems. In conclusion, we live in a time when the Federal Government must learn to do more with less. Therefore, in setting out to cut Federal regulatory costs and paperwork for American businesses, we should first strive to help the truly vulnerable small enterprises who operate mush closer to the margin and whose survival is always in greater jeopardy. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I thank the gentleman from California for yielding this time to me. Mr. Chairman, this is in fact a very strange debate, and I can fully understand why 62 percent of the American people did not bother to vote in November and why millions and millions of Americans have so little respect for this situation. Mr. Chairman, as we discuss today spending ten's and ten's of billion dollars more on star wars and other military gadgetry, there are congressional leaders in this building today who are talking about major cutbacks in nutritional programs for hungry children, who are talking about cutbacks in Medicare for the elderly, in Medicaid for the sick, who are talking about cutbacks in veterans programs. I sincerely hope that my friends who are proposing billions more for star wars tell the veterans of this country why they want to cut back on their programs so that the quality of service in the VA hospitals will deteriorate. Have the courage, get up here and tell the parents of kids who are attending the Head Start Program that we do not have enough money for them but we have more money for military spending. Mr. Chairman, I have a startling revelation to make which will clearly change the nature of this debate. I am hereby announcing to my friends who have not yet heard about it, the cold war is over. I know you did not know that. The Soviet Union does not exist. China is now our trading ally. Mr. Chairman, we are now spending 17 times more than all of our enemies--so called enemies--combined. Enough is enough. Let us defeat this bill.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Schroeder amendment. There are some Members in Congress who are pro-choice, and I am one of them. There are others who are anti-choice, but there should be no Member of Congress who is tolerating the kind of outrageous violence that is taking place all across this country against doctors, nurses, and personnel in clinics that are performing abortions. Mr. Chairman, this legislation is terribly important because it sends a signal to the entire country that the U.S. Congress will not tolerate for one moment the calculated and organized reign of terror which is existing today against those people who are helping women take advantage of their constitutional rights to choose abortion. That is what this issue is about. Let us send a message loud and clear, Mr. Chairman, throughout this country that we will not accept this violence, and we will protect a woman's right to choose.