Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Reed-Wynn- Baldacci-Sanders amendment. Crime is not just an urban issue, it is a rural issue as well. And in the State of Vermont when people in small towns and villages need help they rely on the Vermont State Police to come to their assistance. There are no local police. Under the bill as it is written, moneys are allocated to municipalities under a formula. If a town's grant is less than $10,000 then that money goes instead to the Governor. He or she is then supposed to distribute that money to local communities but cannot use it for State police protection of those towns. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would correct this problem. Under the amendment the Governor would be able to use the multiple small grants that come to him or her to fund the law enforcement activities of the State police. I would like to have seen local police and State police be equally eligible for funding under this bill but I believe that this amendment provides some equity to small communities. This amendment also recognizes the dedication and bravery of State police officers in Vermont and across the nation. I also want to express my appreciation to Representative Reed. It is always a pleasure to work with him.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for yielding and congratulate him on his leadership, as well as that of the gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur]. It is nice to be here this evening with them. I share the concerns they have articulated. It seems to me to be rather incredible that at a time when we spend huge amounts of time right here on the floor of the House debating the appropriation for the National Council for the Humanities and the National Council for the Arts, and $100 million here and $100 million there, that this institution presumably which represents the American people has not been able to debate and vote on a $20 billion-plus package which puts taxpayers' money at risk. Maybe people agree with what the President and Mr. Gingrich are doing, maybe they do not. But I cannot believe that many Americans think it proper that the U.S. Congress does not debate that issue and vote it up or vote it down right here on the floor of the House. As the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Taylor] indicated, I have introduced H.R. 867. What H.R. 867 does is it says that the world has changed markedly since 1934 when the legislation that the President authorized was first enacted. A lot has changed. Under H.R. 867 loans from the Exchange Stabilization Fund would only be allowed, as the gentleman from Mississippi indicated, to the extent that Congress has previously authorized it in an annual appropriation bill. In other words, like all of the other appropriations in this Congress that come through this Congress, this fund also would have to be appropriated by Congress. I would point out to my colleagues that this would mean that the fund would be treated in the exact same manner that we treat the funds held by the Export-Import Bank. Both funds are self-sufficient and do not require annual contributions in appropriation bills. However, loans made by the Export-Import Bank are subject to congressional approval given under authorization and appropriation bills. This bill would simply subject the Exchange Stabilization Fund to congressional approval. We have just introduced this bill on Wednesday, and I am delighted that we have already received significant support for it of both the gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur] and the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Taylor], but also on board are the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DeFazio], the gentlewoman from Missouri [Ms. Danner], the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Klink], the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Traficant], the gentleman from California [Mr. Rohrabacher], the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Evans], the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Visclosky], the gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Maloney], the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Lipinski], and the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Metcalf]. Included in those Members are some who consider themselves pretty conservative and some who consider themselves pretty progressive. But I think the bottom line for all of us and for the American people is that at a time when this country has a $200 billion deficit, at a time in which Members of this Congress are talking about cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' programs, nutrition programs for hungry children, that before $20 billion-plus of taxpayers' money is put at risk, that issue must be discussed and must be debated and must be voted upon on the floor of the House, or else we as Members of Congress are not doing our job. I thank the gentleman for inviting me. I have to run, but I thank him.

Mr. SANDERS. If the gentleman will yield, and not only are a majority of Republicans against this bailout and a majority of Democrats, polls indicate that the vast majority of the American people are in opposition, and as the gentlewoman form Ohio [Ms. Kaptur] has pointed out on many occasions, a majority of the people in Mexico are in opposition to this bailout. So who is for it? I think we know who is for it, and that is the people who have the money, and that is the people who have the power in this country, our friends in the large commercial banks and in the investment houses on Wall Street. But we all and many of our colleagues are going to demand that this issue be debated and voted upon here on the floor of the House. We do not intend to abdicate our responsibility. Again I thank the gentleman for yielding.

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

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. And the rich get richer, and meanwhile with that money they can contribute huge amounts of money to both political parties. This institution itself, 20 percent of the Members at least are millionaires. We expect that with the high cost of elections more and more millionaires will write out their own campaign checks and run for office. The answer, I think, is that working people, middle income people, low income people all over America, have got to all the people and not just the very wealthy. You can't not vote. You can't not participate in the political process.'' The big money people are here every single day. I say, ``We need your help. Stand up. Fight back.''

Mr. SANDERS. It think maybe we all want to summarize our views, and the fear that I have is that this country increasingly is moving away from our democratic traditions into an oligarchy, and all that those tax breaks for the wealthy do is they make the people on the top that much wealthier, and with that money what they do is buy television networks. I understand that the Speaker last night was at a fund raiser, a nice little dinner, I guess, and it only cost $50,000 a plate to go to that dinner in order to contribute to a TV network which will further propagate the rich person's point of view.

Mr. SANDERS. If the gentleman will yield, a recent study showed that the CEO's of 23 of the Nation's 27 top job destroyers, these are the large corporations who are downsizing, who are throwing workers out onto the street, those particular CEO's received raises last year averaging 30 percent. So in other words, it is good for business. We are going to really reward you, give you a major increase for throwing workers out on the street. The more you throw out, the bigger the increase would be.

Mr. SANDERS. Are these the same group of people who are talking about cutting back on nutrition programs for hungry people and senior citizens because we have a terrible deficit? I just wanted to be clear. I was a little bit confused. Are these the same folks?

Mr. SANDERS. That is correct.

Mr. SANDERS. We are talking about people like Mr. Eisner of Walt Disney earning well over I believe $100 million in income a year. Let me mention something else, because the problem goes well beyond just the United States. There was a study also done recently, when we talk about the world economy, if you can believe this, that 358 billionaires worldwide have a combined net worth of $760 billion, which is equal to that of the bottom 45 percent of the world's population. That is 358 people who could sit, probably not so comfortably, but we could get them into this room right now, own more wealth than several billion people who constitute the bottom 45 percent of the world's population. Again, in our country the richest 1 percent of the population owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. Now I have not heard too much in the Contract With America about that. Maybe I missed it, but I do not think I heard that. Did the gentleman hear that?

Mr. SANDERS. If the gentleman will yield, let me just pick up on that perceptive point. We hear over and over again about welfare reform. We all agree that welfare reform is important. What we do not hear a whole lot is corporate welfare, the well over $100 billion in Federal subsidies that are going to large corporations and wealthy people. We hear about street crime, which is a very serious problem, but we do not hear a whole lot about corporate crime, about price-fixing, about monopoly power in this country. Right now, at a time when the wages, the real wages of American workers are in decline, interestingly enough, what is happening to the income of the CEO's? The reality is, of course, that the CEO's are earning significant increases in their income, at the same time as they are cutting back on jobs in America's major corporations. One of the interesting facts, to my mind, that we do not talk about enough is the fact that CEO's in America today, the heads of the largest corporations, are earning 149 times more than the average worker in their company. What about justice? What about family values? What about morality? In fact, there was an interesting study done recently which showed that some of the highest paid CEO's who received the most significant increases in their incomes were precisely those CEO's who laid off the most workers. They seemed to get more money, they get incentives to lay off workers.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here with my friend the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior], and my friend, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens]. We have heard a whole lot about the November 8 election and the so- called mandate. I would say that the most interesting aspect of the November 8 election is that 62 percent of the American people did not vote. We do not discuss that. Always, it seems to me that the more important the issues are, the less discussion takes place here on the floor of the Congress. With 62 percent of the people not bothering to vote on election day, Mr. Speaker, with poor people virtually not voting at all, many working people not bothering to participate, what that tells me, Mr. Speaker, is that the ordinary American is by and large giving up on the political process, does not have very much faith that the U.S. Government is capable of responding to the terrible pain and to the terrible problems those people have. What in fact the ordinary people see, I think, is a lot of talk going on here in Congress, the White House, the Senate, and meanwhile the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and the middle-class shrinks. Forty million Americans continue not to have any health insurance. As the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior] and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] said, the minimum wage in terms of real purchasing power continues to decline. More and more of our young people are unable to get a college education. We have the dubious distinction of having the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. Twenty-two percent of our kids are living in poverty. Five million of our children are hungry. We hear here on the floor of the House, at a time when the richest 1 percent of the population owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent, what we are hearing here on the floor of the House, we have to cut back on Medicare, we have to cut back on Medicaid, we have to cut back on veterans' programs, we have to cut back on nutrition programs for the elderly and for hungry children. That is what the Republican contract is about. In the meantime, as the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior] and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] have indicated, it is absolutely imperative that within that context, with the wealthiest 1 percent owning 37 percent of the wealth in America, obviously what we must do is give them more tax breaks. That is only fair. You cut back on nutrition programs for hungry children and you give the wealthiest people in this country more tax breaks, and of course, at the same time as we significantly expand military spending. That obviously makes sense to somebody, I am not sure to whom, but it must make sense to somebody.

Mr. SANDERS. Obviously, that is what Reagonomics was about. That is richest one-half of 1 percent owned 55 percent of the total wealth that was created in that period. In the midst of all of this discussion, however, what frightens me the most is that ordinary people look out, and they are hurting very, very badly, as both of you have already talked about. The new jobs that are being created are low wage jobs, part-time jobs, temporary jobs without benefits. Yet, I do not hear a whole lot of discussion about those issues on the floor of the House. We spend weeks and weeks discussing this, and we discuss that, but suddenly, somehow, we do not talk, in my view, about the most important issue. In my humble opinion, the most important issue facing this country is the role of big money. Big money, and I must say, in all due respect to my friends, controls not only the Republican Party, has tremendous influence over the Democratic Party, has tremendous influence over the mass media. Interestingly enough, when we hear about the Contract With America and how they want a citizen legislature, they forget to talk about campaign finance reform. To the best of my knowledge, and maybe my friends here can correct me if I am wrong, my understanding is that today, or before the last election, some 20 percent of the Members of Congress were millionaires. Does that sound right to my friends?

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

Mr. SANDERS. I would just like to make a couple of points. Our Republican friends raise important issues and I think good issues and they talk about values, and values, in fact, are a very important part of what human life is. Life is not just dollars and cents; it goes deeper than that. But I have to raise the question about what kind of value system are we operating under when the very wealthiest people become wealthier, when we see a growth of billionaires at exactly the same time as we see more children in America who are hungry. What about those values? I yield to my friend.

Mr. SANDERS. All of us are members of the Progressive caucus, and some of those issues have already been raised, some of the ideas we are bringing forth that we think this Congress must deal with. As both the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior] and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] have said, it is very clear we need to raise the minimum wage; $4.25 does not make it. We need to raise the minimum wage. The President has come out with a proposal raising it 90 cents over 2 years. I think that is the minimum we should do, but we have to move quickly and raise the minimum wage. The gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] has been talking about a very, very important issue. He points out we have billions of people who are unemployed. We have an infrastructure in this country that is crumbling. It makes no sense at all not to invest in our infrastructure, put over a million people to work rebuilding our physical and human infrastructure through a federally funded jobs program. We need to move in that direction. I think we four are in agreement that one of the reasons that the standard of living of working people is in decline has to do with our trade policy, which seems to be exporting jobs rather than product. We now have $150 billion in trade deficits this year which could equate to some 3 million jobs. Many of us in Congress are concerned about the impact of the NAFTA, GATT, most-favored-nation status with China. We want a fair trade policy, one that does not force American workers to compete against Chinese workers who make 20 cents an hour or the desperate people of Mexico who make $1 an hour. Further, at a time when there are some people who are talking about cutbacks in Medicare and Medicaid, most of us believe that it is absolutely insane now that the cold war is over to be talking about a $50 billion increase in military spending. We are now spending $100 billion a year defending Europe and Asia, and many of the countries in Europe are now wealthier than we are. Against whom? Whom? One hundred billion dollars a year. We must cut military spending, reinvest in America. And I think the last two points that I would make, and this chart deals with one of them, the Republicans have been very successful in making everybody antitax. The real question that we should be asking is, who is paying the taxes, who gets the tax breaks? Many of us support a tax cut for middle-income people. But we do think that the wealthiest people in this country who have gotten wealthier, we think that in terms of the corporate income tax, what you can see from this chart is that the percentage, the contribution, the corporations are making to the Federal coffers have declined precipitously over the last 50 years, and that means middle-income people are making up the difference. We want to make a progressive tax.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. I think the Fields amendment is eminently sensible. At a time when many of our friends are saying, get the big, bad Federal Government off the backs of local communities, what the Fields amendment says to judges and juries all over America, if they understand what the circumstances are in the case and if they want to rule for the death penalty, OK, they can do that, but if they want to rule for life imprisonment, they also have that right. It is flexible, it is consistent with local control. In a more general sense, Mr. Chairman, I get a little bit nervous with the fervor that we hear here about the death penalty. I would point out to my friends that to the best of my knowledge, the United States of America remains the only major industrialized nation on Earth that allows for the death penalty in all circumstances other than war crimes and in treason. Our friends in Canada do not have the death penalty. Our friends south of us in Mexico do not have the death penalty. What the amendment of the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Fields] says is, give juries and give judges the option. I think it is a sensible proposal.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is correct, I think, in saying that polls in America support the death penalty. People want judges and juries to have the option to use the death penalty. I think the gentleman will not disagree with me that polls and studies also indicate that the public wants judges and juries to have the option to use the death penalty or not to use the death penalty to allow for life imprisonment. That is precisely what the Fields amendment is.

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

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, all over this country, working people and elderly people and those people who do not have a lot of money are wondering about what is going on in Washington with regard to the bailout of Mexico. We have always been told that if people want to invest their money, especially making risky investments, sometimes you win but sometimes you lose. Investors in Mexico over the last several years have received very high rates of return on their investment, and that is fine. But recently some of those investments have turned sour. It seems to me and, I believe, a majority of the Members of this House that the U.S. Congress and the taxpayers and the President and the Republican leadership should not be bailing out those investments. Members of Congress demand the right to vote, to debate, to discuss, to learn about the bailout of Mexico. The gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Taylor] will soon be introducing a privileged motion to begin that process. I would urge our colleagues to support that motion.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I would concur, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SANDERS. I was suggesting that we had talked about this issue and that the gentleman is not in disagreement with the intent of the amendment.

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

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is being offered by myself and members of the Progressive Caucus and I believe should not be controversial. In fact, I believe that it is consistent with the intent of the proposed legislation. Mr. Chairman, there is no argument about the need for restitution for violent crimes, and I believe that the intent of this legislation is to cover white collar and corporate crime as well. The gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum] has made that quite clear. The amendment that I am offering simply requires that companies convicted of crimes must notify the victims of those crimes. Convicted companies should be required to notify as best as possible all of their victims. Let me give an example if I might. Price fixing goes on in America and I think there is no debate about it. We have had circumstances where companies that deliver oil, heating fuel to people's homes are convicted of price fixing, they are charging their customers too much money. It seems to me to be appropriate that if that company is convicted of price fixing, all of the victims, people who have paid more money than they should have, should be notified of that conviction and then again do as they choose to do. And that essentially is what this amendment is about. I have talked to the majority and I believe that they are not in disagreement with the intent of this amendment. I yield to the gentleman for a response.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, you and I or the President of the United States and I may disagree with the wisdom of the Mexican bailout, but I think very clearly the American people are wondering about what is happening to our Constitution and to the ability of Members of Congress to represent them. Mr. Speaker, every single day Members come up here and they question this appropriation, whether this $50,000 is well spent, whether this $200 million is well spent. It seems to me that the people of Vermont and the people all across this country are wondering about the Constitution when we are talking about putting at risk $40 billion of taxpayers' money without serious discussion and debate on the floor of the House. It seems to me what the Constitution is about is that if the Members of the House and if the Members of the Senate want to approve this $40 billion bailout, OK. But it is incomprehensible, and it seems to me unconstitutional, that that bailout can take place without debate, without discussions, and without a vote. So, Mr. Speaker, I very much support this privileged resolution, and hope that the Members will vote for it.