Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I send to the desk a motion to instruct conferees.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, as I have indicated on many occasions, I think this Republican budget is, frankly, a disaster. It causes severe harm for some of the most vulnerable people in this country. It throws 27 million people off of health insurance. It forces elderly people to pay more for prescription drugs. It cuts $90 billion in mandatory Pell grants at a time when young people are struggling to be able to afford to go to college. Pell grants are one of the significant ways that they are able to go to college; $90 billion is cut. It cuts Head Start significantly, such that 110,000 fewer young children will be able to enroll in Head Start. It cuts title I education program money directed to schools with low-income kids, the schools who need help the most. At a time when so many of our families are struggling to put food on the table, this budget cuts nutrition programs, including the WIC Program, by $10 billion. That is the nutrition program that goes to pregnant women, mothers, and infants. It makes other massive cuts in nutrition. It makes cuts in affordable housing. It makes cuts in job training. Now, in the midst of all of this, what it does also, unbelievably, while wreaking havoc on the lives of millions of working families, it decides that we can afford to give huge tax breaks to the very, very, very wealthiest--the top two-tenths of 1 percent--by abolishing the estate tax which would provide $263 billion in tax breaks for the wealthiest two-tenths of 1 percent of the American people. But then, after giving huge tax breaks to the very, very, very rich, what it does is raise taxes for low-income and working-class families by increasing taxes by $900 apiece for more than 13 million families by allowing the expansion of the earned-income tax credit and the child tax credit to expire. So massive cuts in health care, education, and nutrition for working families; huge tax breaks----

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, this motion is being offered on behalf of Senator Murray, and it would instruct budget conferees to build on the Bipartisan Budget Act and provide sequester relief in 2016 and 2017 by closing tax loopholes. As the ranking member of the Committee on the Budget, I rise today to offer a motion to instruct conferees, on behalf of Senator Murray, to S. Con. Res. 11, the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2016, to provide 2 years of sequester relief by closing tax loopholes. This is a concept, an idea I very strongly support. Many Members on both sides of the aisle are concerned that Congress will not be able to pass and enact appropriations bills at the sequester levels. The President's fiscal year 2016 budget provides sequester relief. Moreover, the President has indicated he will veto legislation that does not lift the sequester caps. Discretionary spending has already been cut by $1.6 trillion, and nondefense discretionary spending is currently on track to be the lowest in 50 years. Nondefense discretionary spending is on track to be the lowest in 50 years. Instead of continuing to cut nondefense discretionary spending, we need to increase funding for programs, such as education and infrastructure, that reduce income inequality and that create the millions of jobs we so desperately need. We can fund these investments by looking at wasteful spending in the Tax Code that has allowed major corporations to pay very little, if anything, in Federal income taxes. Each and every year, we are losing well over $100 billion in revenue because large, profitable corporations and some of the wealthiest Americans in this country are stashing their profits in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and other offshore tax havens. Further, the GAO has reported that the effective tax rate of large, profitable corporations is just 12.6 percent--much lower than the 35- percent statutory rate because of these tax loopholes. That is much lower than what millions of middle-class workers pay to the IRS because of the loopholes written into the Tax Code by corporate lobbyists. In 1952, 32 percent of all of the revenue generated in this country came from large corporations. Today, that figure is down to just 11 percent. Right now, there are so many loopholes in our Tax Code that it ends up that many large corporations making billions of dollars in profit pay nothing--zero--in corporate taxes to the Federal Government. As a few examples, General Electric made over $5.8 billion in profits in the United States last year but paid just nine-tenths of 1 percent of that amount in Federal income taxes. Time Warner made $4.3 billion in profits and paid nothing in Federal income taxes; in fact, it got a rebate of $26 million. Xerox made $628 million in profits in 2014 and paid nothing in Federal income taxes; in fact, it received a tax rebate of $16 million. I strongly support this motion which has been introduced by Senator Murray to provide sequester relief, particularly for nondefense discretionary programs, and I would hope very much that this motion to instruct will receive wide bipartisan support. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for one more minute.

Mr. SANDERS. As I was saying, huge tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires and then increased taxes for low-income and working people. This is moving the country in exactly the wrong direction. Today, our side of the aisle brought forth 10 separate motions to instruct, which, if passed, would make this budget a much better document, and I hope very much that both sides of the aisle will support these motions. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I send to the desk a motion to instruct conferees. I am offering this motion on behalf of Senator Murray.

Mr. SANDERS. I send to the desk my motion to instruct conferees.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, this is a motion to instruct budget conferees to keep in the bill the Senate-passed deficit-neutral reserve fund for legislation to allow Americans to earn paid sick time. This was an amendment which passed during a vote-arama of the Senate by a vote of 61 to 39. So it passed with pretty strong bipartisan support, and I would hope we could pass this language again. The truth is, at a time when millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages, when our middle class continues to decline, we also have another serious problem in that only 53 percent of workers report having paid sick leave. Well, you know, people get sick. That is a fact of life, and it is unfortunate that only 53 percent of workers report having paid sick leave. This means people are going to work when they are not well. I don't know about you, but I am not enthused about walking into a restaurant where someone who may have the flu or have some other problem is serving food or preparing food. I don't think that is terribly healthy for this country, not to mention that when there are so many contagious illnesses out there, I don't know that we want to have people who are ill and contagious going to work. So this is a very simple motion and basically reiterates what we had in the first discussion. Again, it won by 61 to 39. All over this country, States and cities are in the process of enacting paid sick leave legislation, and they are seeing economic benefits from that. They have seen mothers more likely to return to work and higher employment in the leisure, hospitality, education, and health sectors. So, again, this is the same language Senator Murray offered. I strongly support this motion, and I hope my colleagues will vote for it. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, in the State of Vermont and I expect all over this country, especially in rural areas, what we have seen is a significant slowdown in mail delivery by the U.S. Postal Service. What this provision is about is the establishment of a deficit-neutral reserve fund which establishes a moratorium to prevent the shutting down of up to 82 mail processing plants all across this country. It is asking that we reinstate overnight delivery standards, undo what the Postal Service has done, that we protect rural services, and that we allow the Postal Service to innovate and adapt to compete in a digital age. The basic financial problems of the Postal Service are that they have to pay $5.5 billion every year in retirement benefits. That program already has $50 billion in its account. Do away with that, and the Postal Service will make a modest profit.

Mr. SANDERS. I have to call for a rollcall vote on this one.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays. Is there a sufficient second? There appears to be a sufficient second. The question is on agreeing to the motion. The clerk will call the roll.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, this motion is being offered by Senator Brown of Ohio. Our big banks are too big. The largest banks are now 38 percent larger than they were before the crisis. In terms of outstanding loans, one out of seven Americans is being pursued by a debt collector. U.S. banks are so big that the six largest financial institutions in this country today have assets of roughly $9.8 trillion, which is equivalent to 60 percent of the Nation's GDP. Being big and powerful is good for the banks and bad for this country. For example, Bloomberg says the too-big-to-fail subsidy is massive. By being big, they get huge subsidies. It amounts to $83 billion a year, and that is why I support this provision to stop too big to fail.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I move to instruct conferees on S. Con. Res. 11, a concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2016, to include in the conference report the provision in the concurrent resolution as passed by the Senate establishing a deficit-neutral reserve fund related to strengthening the U.S. Postal Service by establishing a moratorium to protect mail processing plants, reinstating overnight delivery standards, and protecting rural services. During the so-called vote-arama, that amendment passed by voice vote. This time I hope we can get a strong rollcall vote on it because it is terribly important that we tell the Postmaster General of the United States that the U.S. Senate wants a strong and vibrant U.S. Postal Service. What we are saying to the Postmaster General of the United States is pretty simple; that is, do not destroy up to 15,000 middle-class jobs, do not shut down up to 82 mail processing plants, stop slowing down mail service delivery in this country. Speed it up by reinstating strong overnight delivery standards for first-class mail. I do not know about Arizona and I don't know about Wyoming, but I can tell you that in Vermont we have gotten a significant number of complaints from people who are upset by the slowdown of mail delivery standards. It is, to my mind, just unacceptable, and what we are saying now and will have to say in the months to come is you can't shut down another 82 processing plants, you cannot continue with these inadequate mail delivery standards, and it has to change. The American people and the business community are entitled to know that when they put a letter or document in the mail, it is going to get delivered in a prompt way. Today, that, sadly, is not the case. For over 230 years and enshrined in our Constitution, the Postal Service has played an enormously important role for the people of our country and for our economy, and that mission today remains as important as it has ever been. The beauty of the Postal Service is that it provides universal service 6 days a week to every corner of our country, no matter how small or how remote. It will deliver mail on Wall Street and it will deliver mail to a home at the end of a back road in the State of Vermont. The U.S. Postal Service supports, through its efforts, millions of jobs in virtually every sector of our economy. It provides decent- paying union jobs to some 500,000 Americans and, by the way, is the largest employer of veterans in this country. Whether you are an elderly woman living on a dirt road in a rural area or you are a wealthy CEO executive on Park Avenue, you get your mail delivered 6 days a week, and the American people pay for this service at a cost which is far less than any place else in the industrialized world. In other words, we get a pretty good bargain when we put a stamp on an envelope. Unfortunately, despite the success and popularity of the Postal Service, it is under constant attack and has been under constant attack for years, including from those who would like to privatize the Postal Service and ultimately destroy it. Let's be clear. The same people who are attacking the Postal Service are often the same people who are attacking Social Security, Medicare, and so forth, and they essentially want to move to the privatization of virtually every major public institution in this country. Today, the U.S. Postal Service is in the process of shutting down up to 82 mail processing plants and eliminating up to 15,000 decent-paying jobs. This is in addition to the 141 mail processing facilities that were closed between 2012 and 2013. In January, the Postal Service ended overnight delivery for first-class mail. It didn't get a whole lot of attention, but it happened. The purpose of this motion is to put the Senate on record in strong opposition to these plant closings and to demand that the Postal Service reinstate strong overnight delivery standards and not destroy good-paying jobs. We have been told that all of these horrendous cuts are necessary because the Postal Service is experiencing terrible financial problems. They are losing money every single year. Well, the truth is somewhat different. The major reason the Postal Service is in tough financial shape today is not because of email or the Internet, the major reason the Postal Service is hurting financially is because of a mandate signed into law by President Bush in December of 2006, during a lameduck session of Congress that forces the Postal Service to prefund 75 years of future retiree health benefits over a 10-year period. No other government agency or business in America is burdened with a mandate anywhere close to what the Postal Service has to expend, which is $5.5 billion a year. So the main point is that when you see articles telling you the Postal Service is having financial problems, the main reason--the overwhelming reason--is this necessity to prefund 75 years of future retiring health benefits over a 10-year period at about $5.5 billion a year. In fact, all--A-L-L--all of the so-called financial losses posted by the Postal Service since October 2012 are due to this prefunding mandate. That is it. Without that mandate, they would be making a modest amount of money. We don't hear much about it, but I think it is very important for the American people to understand the reality of the finances in the Postal Service. Excluding the prefunding mandate, the Postal Service has actually made a $1.8 billion profit. So it is a modestly profitable operation excluding the $5.5 billion prefunding mandate. Revenue at the Postal Service has been increasing in recent years. At a time when Postal Service revenue is going up, it makes no sense to eliminate thousands of jobs and slow down the mail service that millions of Americans rely on. We should be working to strengthen the Postal Service and not to send it into a death spiral. Before this prefunding mandate was signed into law, the Postal Service was also profitable. In fact, from 2003 to 2006, the Postal Service made a combined profit of more than $5 billion. I think there is broad bipartisan support, especially from Senators who come from rural areas and who understand just how important the Postal Service is to the people of our States. Once again, when offered as an amendment at the vote-arama, this passed by voice vote. We are going to ask for a rollcall vote when the voting takes place. I hope we win this vote with a very strong vote and send a message to the Postal Service that we want our Postal Service to provide the quality mail service the American people deserve.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I will be back on the floor dealing with the budget as the ranking member, but I am happy to yield the floor at this point.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, later today, maybe as early as 11 o'clock or so, we are going to begin a discussion of the budget. As we know, the budget is a set of national priorities. A budget has to do with our vision of where America is and where America should be. We are now in the process of moving the budget to a conference committee between the House and the Senate. When I think about a budget, I think about a document designed to address the problems facing our country. In that regard, I find the Republican budget that will likely pass to be totally inadequate, and a budget whose priorities are way, way out of place with where the American people are. When we talk about the needs of America, the most significant need and the most significant economic problem we face is that for 40 years the American middle class has been in decline. Today we have over 40 million Americans living in poverty, almost more than at any time in the modern history of America. Our real unemployment is not 5\1/2\ percent; real unemployment is 11 percent. And despite the modest gains of the Affordable Care Act, we still have 35 million Americans who have no health insurance. While millions of Americans work today longer hours for lower wages than used to be the case, despite a significant increase in productivity, what we are seeing as a nation is an obscene level of income and wealth inequality. That reality speaks to the fact that since the Wall Street crash of 2008, about 99 percent of all new income today is going to the top 1 percent. I know people find that amazing, but it is true. Which means that no matter what the GDP may be--2 percent, 5 percent--it doesn't really matter, because virtually all the new income goes to the top 1 percent. In terms of distribution of wealth, what we are seeing in America today is worse and more unequal than any major country on Earth, and worse in America than at any time since the late 1920s. Today we have the top one-tenth of 1 percent owning more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. Unbelievable--the top one-tenth of 1 percent owning more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. Today we have one family owning more wealth than the bottom 42 percent of the American people--that is, the Walton family of Walmart. A recent report came out by Forbes magazine which pointed out--and this is almost beyond belief--that the wealthiest 14 people in this country, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Koch brothers, others, saw their wealth increase between 2013 and 2015, a 2-year period, by $157 billion. That is just an increase in their wealth.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I send to the desk my motion to instruct conferees.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I yield time to the Senator from Ohio, Mr. Brown.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, as I mentioned earlier, I happen to believe the Republican budget we will be discussing today moves us in exactly the wrong direction. At a time when the middle class is in decline and the gap between the very rich and everybody else is growing wider, what the Republican budget does is make ferocious attacks on programs desperately depended upon by working families while at the same time providing outrageous tax breaks to the very wealthiest of the wealthy. That makes no sense to me at all. One area where the Republican budget is negligent--one of many areas where the Republican budget is negligent--is in the issue of Social Security. Social Security is perhaps the most important and successful Federal program that was ever initiated. It is life and death to millions of seniors and people with disabilities in this country, and it has a history of enormous success. Before Social Security was established, about half of the seniors in this country lived in poverty. Today, while too high, that number is somewhere around 10 percent. Unfortunately, in recent years what we have seen is an increase in senior poverty. We have seen many seniors struggling to pay their bills, to heat their homes, and to buy the medicine they need. It seems to me that in this moment, not only should we not be talking about cutting Social Security, as many of our Republican colleagues are, we should be talking about expanding Social Security benefits. I have introduced legislation to do just that. But today I rise to bring forth legislation--bring forth a motion to instruct the budget conferees to include a deficit-neutral reserve fund to protect retirement benefits by not cutting Social Security benefits, by not raising the retirement age, and by not privatizing Social Security. So in essence, what this motion to instruct says is that we go on record as Members of the U.S. Senate that we will not cut Social Security benefits, that we will not raise the retirement age, and that we will not privatize Social Security. At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, when 99 percent of all of the new income generated in this country is going to the top 1 percent and when over half of the American people have less than $10,000 in savings, the last thing any Member of the Senate should be thinking about is cutting Social Security. Today, the average Social Security benefit is just $1,328 a month--not a lot of money. Now, 20 percent of senior citizens are living on an average income of just $7,600 a year. Frankly, I don't know how anybody lives on an income of $7,600 a year. I don't know how you buy food. I don't know how you buy the medicine you need, how you take care of your basic needs. But that is the reality. More than one-third of our senior citizens rely on Social Security for virtually all of their income. In other words, Social Security for them--more than a third--is not just a small part of their total income, it is virtually all of their income. Two-thirds of American seniors depend on Social Security for more than half of their income. The reality is, despite some of the rhetoric we hear around here or see on TV, we do not have a Social Security crisis. America has a retirement crisis. Given this reality, our job is to expand Social Security benefits, not cut them. I have been distressed that in three out of the four major Budget Committee hearings held this year, Republicans invited witnesses who testified in support of cutting Social Security. John Engler, the head of the Business Roundtable, representing the CEOs of some of the largest corporations and Wall Street banks in this country, was one of the Republican witnesses. Mr. Engler and the Business Roundtable are the leaders of corporate America. These are the guys who make millions of dollars a year in salary. These are the guys who have huge retirement benefits. They are asking Congress to cut Social Security COLAs for senior citizens and disabled veterans and to raise the retirement age to 70 years of age. Imagine that. People who are multimillionaires and have huge retirement benefits are coming to Capitol Hill and telling Members of Congress to cut Social Security. It turns out, in fact, that the CEOs of the Business Roundtable have retirement benefits of their own of some $88,000 a month. So we have the heads of large corporations who have retirement benefits of $88,000 a month--$1 million a year--and they are telling the Congress to cut benefits for people who are trying to survive on $14,000 a year. That is an outrage. I am getting a little bit tired of being lectured by CEOs of large corporations who want to cut the Social Security benefits of elderly people. That is wrong. I am also tired of hearing folks on TV say that Social Security is going broke. Well, the truth is Social Security is not going broke. Social Security has a $2.8 trillion surplus and could pay out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 18 years. Now, is 18 years a terribly long time? No, it is it not. Should we develop legislation to extend Social Security for decades after those 18 years? Yes, we should, and I have done that. But, please, I hope that my colleagues will not stand up here and tell us that Social Security is going broke because it is not. I believe the American people feel very strongly that in these difficult times Social Security is a major safety net for so many of the elderly and disabled. When we vote tonight, our job is to send a very, very clear message that the Senate is not going to cut Social Security, it is not going to privatize Social Security, and it is not going to raise the age at which people get those Social Security benefits. With that, I yield the floor for the Senator from Hawaii.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me just pick up on a couple of the points my friend from Wyoming, Senator Enzi, made. The Republicans often say, and Senator Enzi said it now, that Democrats cut $714 billion from Medicare. To the best of my knowledge, not one penny involved in those cuts cut any benefits to the American people. What the Affordable Care Act attempted to do--and maybe we made some progress, as Senator Enzi pointed out, last night with the so-called doc fix--is to make Medicare more efficient. What is wrong with that? What is wrong with saving money? What the American people want us to do is make programs more efficient. In fact, Senator Enzi was talking about that a moment ago. He is right. But the idea, the implication, that those cuts resulted in benefit cuts is not accurate. Furthermore, what some of that money--those savings--went to is filling, plugging the doughnut hole so that seniors would not have to pay money out of their own pockets for prescription drugs. So if you could save money in a bureaucracy--and God knows the U.S. health care system is the most wasteful and bureaucratic of any in the world--if we can make the system more efficient, save money, put that money into helping seniors afford prescription drugs, what is the problem with that? I do not think so. Senator Enzi talked about the IRS and people having difficulty making connections, which is clearly not right. He is right. He also mentioned, quite correctly, that for every dollar we invest in various parts of the IRS which do audits, we can make--what was that, $4 to $6? I think that is a pretty good investment. Most business people would say: All right, I can get $4 to $6 for every dollar that I invest. Let's do it. I look forward to working with Senator Enzi and other Republicans to, in fact, do just that. We can argue about the Tax Code, and we will. But I think we don't argue that when people owe it, they should pay it. Right. We should change it if we do not like it. So if we can invest a dollar into the IRS and get $6 to $4 back, I think that is a pretty good investment. Senator Enzi was right in saying that last night we passed a pretty good piece of legislation. Not perfect by any means. I had some serious concerns about it. I voted for it. One of the reasons I voted for it is it extended for another 2 years a program that I worked very hard on--that is, the Federally Qualified Community Health Center Program which is playing a huge role in providing health care and dental care and low-cost prescriptions drugs and mental health counseling to many millions of Americans in all of our 50 States. We got a significant increase. I fought very hard for a significant increase in that program as part of the Affordable Care Act that was going to expire. As a result of yesterday's legislation, in addition to the doc fix, we have extended--and I see Senator Blunt here, who has been active in that as well--we were able to extend for another 2 years funding for the Community Health Center Program, something that I think was important. Senator Enzi was right. I think that is a step forward. But that should not be confused with the budget. The Republican budget is an unmitigated disaster--tax breaks for billionaires, cuts in programs that Americans desperately need, raising taxes for low-income working families. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside, on behalf of Senator Wyden, to call up amendment No. 1012.