Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I thank the Chair.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment to call up my amendment No. 474.

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, this is a pretty simple and straightforward amendment. Senator Ayotte mentioned a moment ago we have had problems at the VA. No question about it; veterans have waited too long to get the timely and quality care they need. What this amendment does is establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund to protect and strengthen the Department of Veterans Affairs, to hire more health care professionals for the Department, and ensure quality and timely access to health care for all veterans. If we talk to veterans organizations, they think the care within the VA is good once people get in there. I want to make sure we have the doctors and nurses to provide the quality and timely care our veterans deserve.

Mr. SANDERS. How much time remains on the Democratic side?

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I don't know whose budget Senator Cornyn is presenting, but it is certainly not the President's budget. The President's budget recommends raising the minimum wage, and that is not in Senator Cornyn's proposal. The President's budget includes 2 years of free community college. That is what the American people want, and it is not in Senator Cornyn's proposal. The President's budget talks about a fair tax proposal, not more tax breaks for billionaires, and that is not in Senator Cornyn's proposal. I will vote no because I am not quite sure what is in Senator Cornyn's proposal, but it is certainly not what President Obama presented to the American people.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, this is a very important amendment, and I hope the American people are listening. Social Security is probably the most important Federal program ever developed in the modern history of this country. It is an enormously popular program, and it has been an enormously effective program. The truth is that it has significantly reduced poverty among seniors. Before Social Security, about 50 percent of seniors lived in poverty. Today, while the number is too high, it is somewhere around 10 percent. The extraordinary beauty of Social Security is that in good times and in bad times--in an economic boom, depression, or recession--Social Security has paid out every check owed to every eligible American without fail. No one has ever received a letter that said: You know, we are in the middle of a recession, so we have to cut your benefits in half. That has never been the case. We take it for granted, but that is an extraordinary record. Because we have a number of Republicans who simply do not like government programs, there has been for many years an effort to either cut or privatize Social Security and give it over to Wall Street. What we hear are a lot of misleading arguments. The argument is, well, Social Security is unsustainable, and it is not going to be there. And they throw out all of these reasons. But the answer is that Social Security is absolutely sustainable, but, as Senator Whitehouse just indicated, we have to deal with issues such as income and wealth inequality, which has resulted in a significant reduction in the solvency of Social Security because people's incomes have not risen, and therefore they contribute less to the Social Security trust fund, or many other people have gone way above the cap and are still paying less than they should. The Republicans' solution seems to be--and I think there will be a side-by-side amendment that will say: Well, we are not going to cut Social Security benefits for those who are in the program right now. But essentially their language says that they will cut benefits for future retirees, people who are 55, 60, and 63 years of age. When we have so many seniors and elderly people who are struggling right now to make ends meet, I think the last thing in the world we should do is cut Social Security. Over half of all Americans have less than $10,000 in savings, and these people, when they reach Social Security age, do not want to see their benefits cut. Two-thirds of seniors depend on Social Security for more than half of their income, and one-third depend on Social Security for almost all of their income. These people do not want to see their benefits cut. Just 2 weeks ago, Senator Whitehouse and I accepted petitions from 2 million people which said loudly and clearly: Do not cut Social Security. And in the polling I have seen in these tough economic times, Republicans say do not cut Social Security, Democrats say do not cut Social Security, and Independents say do not cut Social Security. Yet what our Republican friends are saying is that if you are 55, 60, or 63 and are not yet on Social Security, beware because we are prepared to cut your Social Security. Maybe we will raise the retirement age or maybe we will cut your COLAs through a so-called chained CPI. I will say as the former chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee that virtually every veterans organization has been loud and clear in opposition to the chained CPI because they understand that chained CPI does not just cut benefits for seniors, it cuts benefits for disabled veterans. Do we really want to be cutting benefits for disabled veterans? I hope we will not. This is a very important amendment. It is an amendment that says: If you stand with the overwhelming majority of the American people who say we should not cut Social Security--yes, let's move forward to make it solvent beyond the 18 years that it is solvent, but do not cut benefits, do not cut COLAs, and do not raise the retirement age. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, if Senator Cornyn wishes to bring a proposal that has 2 years of free community college to the floor, which is in the President's budget, I invite my friend to do that. Is the Senator from Texas up for that? If Senator Cornyn wants to bring a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, which is in the President's budget, I invite my friend to do that. Will the Senator from Texas introduce that?

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island not only for his important remarks but for the work he has been doing for years to protect and defend Social Security. Let's be clear about a number of facts. When people jump up and say Social Security is going broke--not quite true. As Senator Whitehouse indicated, Social Security can pay out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 18 years. When people jump up and say Social Security is contributing to the deficit--also not quite accurate. As everybody knows, Social Security is funded by the payroll tax, an independent source of revenue for Social Security. The fact is that for many, many years, in a variety of ways, my Republican colleagues have been attempting to either cut Social Security or, in the extreme case, privatize Social Security and allow-- force--Americans to go to Wall Street for their retirement benefits. While this budget does not include a provision to cut Social Security, what I will say is, if my memory is correct, in three out of the four hearings held by the Budget Committee, there were Republican representatives--people who were asked to testify--who did talk about various ways to cut Social Security. So what this amendment does is it establishes a deficit-neutral reserve fund--it establishes a budget point of order which prevents benefit cuts, a raise in the retirement age, or the privatization of Social Security benefits. That is what it does. Now we are going to have a lot of people coming up here and saying: Well, we want to preserve Social Security. What they really mean is that in order to preserve Social Security, they want to cut Social Security benefits--maybe not for the people on Social Security today but for future beneficiaries. They say: Well, that is the only way we can protect Social Security. Well, that is not accurate. I introduced legislation which, in fact, makes Social Security not only solvent until the year 2065--50 years from today--but also expands benefits. We do that by saying that it is currently very absurd that a multimillionaire is paying the same amount of money into the Social Security trust fund as somebody making $118,000. There are some very wealthy people who are paying all of their Social Security taxes in the first day or two of the year. Right now, we have a situation where millions of people in this country depend upon Social Security, people who are getting benefits of $12,000, $13,000, $14,000 a year. That is how they are living. Those benefits should not be cut. When we talk about a so-called chained CPI, which cuts COLAs for seniors and disabled vets, what we are talking about is cutting Social Security benefits for an average 65-year-old by more than $658 a year by the time that person reaches age 75 and a cut of more than $1,100 a year by the time that person reaches age 85. Those are very significant cuts for people who are trying to live on $13,000 or $14,000 a year. So here is the argument. Is Social Security important? Obviously, it is. As the middle class continues to decline, Social Security is enormously important for the elderly and the disabled people of this country. Point No. 2: Do we have to cut benefits in order to save Social Security? The answer is, obviously, yes. But we are back to the same old question we debate all day here. Our Republican friends seem absolutely determined not to ask the wealthiest people in this country who are doing phenomenally well to contribute to the well-being of the American people. That is this overall budget. But on the issue of Social Security, what we have to do is raise the cap, which is now at $118,000, and start it at $250,000. Just doing that will enable us to expand Social Security to the year 2065 and expand benefits for lower income seniors. This point of order is enormously important. It says there will be a need for 60 votes for any effort to cut Social Security, to raise the retirement--I don't know what world some people are living in. There are some who have come forward and said we should raise the Social Security retirement age to 70. Let's have people out there working at 68, 69, 70 years of age. Let's force them to keep working before they get their benefits. My God, that is a horrendous idea. They also say we should cut COLAs--cost-of-living adjustments--for disabled vets. What a terrible idea. There is a way to extend Social Security for many decades and to expand benefits. This amendment says: Do not cut Social Security. I think a number of my Republican friends will say: Well, we are not going to cut Social Security for anybody on Social Security today. That is not good enough. There are people out there who are 50, 55, 60, 63, 64, and they want to know that the benefits they will get are the benefits they will be able to live on. Don't cut benefits for working people, and that is what this very important amendment is about.

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, this is a very important amendment, and I hope the American people listen carefully to what is in it. As Senator Hatch indicated, it protects current beneficiaries. In other words, they are not going to cut benefits for those currently on Social Security. But if you are 63 years of age, 64 years of age, 65 years of age, watch out. They are going after you. I would suggest there is a way to extend the solvency of Social Security, and it deals with raising the cap and asking wealthy people to contribute more. We can make Social Security solvent for the next 50 years without cutting benefits for anybody. I urge a ``no'' vote on the Hatch amendment.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment so that I may call up my amendment No. 386.

Mr. SANDERS. I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, Senator Portman's amendment touches upon a serious issue that I hope and expect will have broad bipartisan support, and that is the needs of children with serious chronic conditions. In the United States, over 3 million children have medically complex health conditions. Of those 3 million kids, 2 million rely on Medicaid for their health insurance. That is two out of three kids, which should tell every Member of the Senate how important Medicaid is. Let me repeat. Two out of three children rely on Medicaid. They have medically complex issues--the issues Senator Portman is speaking about. Last Congress, Senator Nelson offered a similar amendment during the budget process to address this important issue, and I was pleased to support it. I also plan to support this amendment today and hope that we have widespread bipartisan support for it. But what I must say is that given that the Republican budget eliminates the Affordable Care Act, which throws 15 million Americans off of health insurance--many of whom have just, for the first time in their lives, received health insurance--and given that the Republican budget cuts Medicaid by some $400 billion over a 10-year period, the amendment Senator Portman is offering deals with only one tiny and small part of what the Republican budget is doing. What the Republican budget is doing is decimating health care in the United States of America. Senator Portman says: Well, we have a situation with kids who have medically complex problems. He is right, but we have many other issues out there that the Republicans are decimating. Medicaid provides 6.4 million elderly seniors who rely on Medicaid, many of whom are living in nursing homes--6.4 million elderly seniors, some 80 or 90 years of age, rely on Medicaid for their nursing home care. In some cases, these seniors have incomes of $8,000 to $9,000 a year. The Portman amendment does not address the devastating cuts that happen to elderly Americans in nursing homes. Pregnant women who rely on Medicaid for vital prenatal care that improves the health and well-being of mothers and babies--those programs are going to be cut. The Portman amendment does not protect them in any way. Nearly 33 million children in our country rely on Medicaid for their health insurance. These are kids of low-income, working-class families, and they need important medical care when they are young, such as immunizations and well-child visits. The Portman amendment does not address the fact that many of those people will be thrown off of health insurance. Some 10 million Americans with disabilities rely on Medicaid to treat serious, sometimes life-threatening disabilities. The Portman amendment does not address what happens to people with disabilities who are on Medicaid. While I support this amendment, I am also concerned about the devastating impact the Republican budget will have on many millions of Americans by ending the Affordable Care Act--16 million Americans thrown off of health insurance, $400 billion in cuts in Medicaid, millions more. I believe we need a budget that strengthens health care in America, not decimates it. I believe we need a budget that doesn't force us to choose between a seriously ill child and a pregnant woman with small children at home. These are false choices which a great nation such as ours should not be forced to make, especially at a time, as Senator Boxer mentioned, when we have the wealthiest 14 people in this country seeing their wealth increase in the last 2 years by $157 billion. Our Republican friends say: No, these people should not be asked to pay more in taxes, but we should balance the budget by taking millions of people off of health insurance. I don't think anybody in America thinks those priorities make any sense at all. I am offering a side-by-side, and in doing so, I urge my colleagues to vote for the Portman amendment but also to vote for my amendment, cosponsored by Senator Wyden, which supports all Medicaid beneficiaries by opposing cuts to the program. Let's not sit around saying: Well, we are making some progress in one area, but we don't care about the millions of other people who have been thrown off of Medicaid. I urge support for the amendment Senator Wyden and I are offering.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, yes, of course.

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, first I wish to thank Senator Wyden for his remarks. I concur with what he said, and I thank him for cosponsoring the amendment on infrastructure that we will be voting on in a few minutes. Senator Wyden and I understand that you cannot be a great nation if your roads and bridges, water systems, wastewater plants, airports, levees, dams, and railroad system are crumbling. That is not what a great nation is about. Years ago, the United States used to be the envy of the world in terms of infrastructure. Countries all over the world looked to the United States and asked: How do you do it? How do you provide clean water to your people? How do you have such an efficient transportation system? How do you have such great roads? That is no longer the case. Today we are in 12th place, and I don't think any of my Republican colleagues would deny that. In fact, our infrastructure is crumbling. We have to address this issue. We cannot kick the can down the road. We can't say: Well, let's wait a few years until we come up with some magic funding formula. We have to do it, and we have to do it now. The reason we have to do it now is that every year we delay, the problem only becomes worse. We are spending billions of dollars just to maintain the status quo, patching up a deteriorating system--whether it is transit, rails, roads or bridges. We have to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. There is no disagreement, I believe, in the Senate on that. Second of all, I hope there is no disagreement that unemployment in this country is much too high. Real unemployment is at 11 percent, counting those who have given up looking for work and those who are working part-time. Youth unemployment is 17 percent, and African- American youth unemployment is higher than that. We need a major jobs program to put millions of people back to work at decent wages, and that is what rebuilding our infrastructure does. The economists tell us that if we want to create jobs, the fastest way to create jobs in America is to rebuild our roads, bridges, and rail system. That is the fastest way to do it. Many of my Republican colleagues probably understand that as well. Where we disagree is how we fund the front. Some on the Republican side will say: Well, we are looking at tax reform, and we are looking at this and looking at that, and maybe it will happen, but maybe it will not happen. We certainly have not had a lot of luck on these issues in recent years. Our Republican friends are not particularly interested in investments in America. Their idea of dealing with the deficit is to cut, cut, cut. What we are proposing here is a $478 billion infrastructure package for 6 years, and it is funded by something I hope all of us can agree is unacceptable, and that is that at a time when corporate profits are at an all-time high, many corporations are stashing their profits in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Luxembourg, tax havens around the world. Guess what they are paying in American income tax to the United States Government. Zero. We eliminate those loopholes. We raise substantial sums of money. We put that money into rebuilding our infrastructure, creating jobs, and making our country more efficient, safer, and more productive. That is what happens when you have a strong infrastructure. I ask that Americans try to imagine what America will look like when we have some 9 million workers. This proposal would create some 9 million good-paying jobs in all of our States. People would be working to improve our roads and our water systems, and we can try to begin to compete effectively with the rail systems of other countries throughout the world. Think of what America will look like when we become and develop a first-rate infrastructure, not a third-rate infrastructure. I know people think this is a lot of money, but it is nowhere near what the American Society of Civil Engineers is telling us that we need. If you are interested in creating a 21st century infrastructure, please vote for my amendment. If you are interested in creating and maintaining some 9 million jobs over a 6-year period, please vote for my amendment. If you are interested in ending an outrageous corporate loophole, which in some cases enables large, profitable multinational corporations to pay zero in Federal income tax, please vote for this amendment. It will send a powerful message that now is the time to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and put our people to work and end absurd loopholes. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, what this amendment deals with is something I think virtually every Member of this body understands to be an enormously important issue, and the American people understand it as well, and that is our crumbling infrastructure and the fact we have to begin the process to substantially invest in our roads, our bridges, our water systems and our wastewater plants, our levees and our dams and our airports. The needs out there are enormous. When we do that, we can create millions of jobs at a time when we need to create millions of jobs. I heard Senator Enzi yesterday speaking on the issue. I think he reflects the views of many. I don't think there is a great debate on whether our infrastructure is crumbling. I don't think there is a great debate--and I speak as a former mayor--that if you allow your infrastructure to continue to crumble, it only becomes more expensive to rebuild it. I don't think there is a debate on that. The debate, of course, comes down to how you pay for it. That debate has been going on here for many years. If anyone had a magical solution, I suspect it would have been brought forth already. But the proposal we are bringing forth calls for a $478 billion investment over a 6-year period. That will be paid for by eliminating some outrageous corporate loopholes today that, among other things, allow large, profitable corporations to stash their profits in the Cayman Islands, in Bermuda, and in other tax havens and not have to pay one nickel in taxes to the U.S. Government. Our proposal is pretty simple. Let's eliminate some of those loopholes, let's take that money, let's invest in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, let's make our country more efficient, more productive, safer, and let us create millions of jobs. The need for rebuilding our infrastructure should not be in doubt. One out of every nine bridges in our country is structurally deficient, and nearly one-quarter are functionally obsolete. Almost one-third of our roads are in poor or mediocre condition. And as everybody stuck in a traffic jam at this moment knows, more than 42 percent of urban highways are congested. Much of our rail network is obsolete. We are competing against countries which have high-speed rail, which operates much more rapidly than our railroads do. America's airports are bursting at the seams and still rely on antiquated 1960s radar technology. More than 4,000 of our Nation's dams are considered deficient, and nearly 9 percent of all levees are likely to fail during a major flood. That is a pretty scary proposition. Our drinking water systems are nearing the end of their useful lives all over this country. Virtually every day there is another pipe which bursts, causing flooding in downtowns and wasting huge amounts of clean drinking water. Further, our wastewater plants routinely fail during heavy rains, allowing all kinds of crap to go into our lakes and our rivers, which should not be the case. Our aging electrical grid has hundreds of avoidable power failures each year and is unacceptably vulnerable to cyber attacks. Now $478 billion may seem like a lot of money. It is a lot of money, but the American Society of Civil Engineers tells us we need to invest an additional $1.6 trillion to get our infrastructure into a state of good repair by 2020. To be honest with you, while this amendment is a significant step forward, it does not go anywhere near as far as it should go. I would hope on this amendment we would have strong bipartisan support. It is not good enough for people to continue to say what everybody acknowledges--yes, we need to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, but, no, we don't know how we are going to come up with the money to do it. It is too late to keep expressing that rhetoric. We have heard it for too many years. Every day we don't act, it becomes more expensive for us to act. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to today make an important statement that, A, we cannot continue to delay rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure; that, B, when real unemployment in this country is not 5\1/2\ percent but 11 percent, when youth unemployment is 17 percent, when African-American youth unemployment is off the charts, we need a major jobs program to put our people back to work at decent wages. That is what work on infrastructure does. The time for rhetoric is gone. The time for action is now. Let's rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. Let's put people to work. Let's end outrageous corporate tax loopholes. Let's make our country safer, more efficient, and more productive. I ask for support for that important amendment which comes up for a vote I believe at around 12:00 or so. I yield 5 minutes off the resolution to Senator Boxer.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I look forward to continuing to work with Senator Enzi in a thoughtful and important process, and I thank the Senator for his civility. I think we are going to have an interesting few days. To my mind, the basic issue surrounding this budget debate is whether we address the enormous needs facing a declining middle class and whether we come forth with ideas that create the jobs--the millions of jobs our people need--whether we raise the wages that millions of workers desperately need who today are working for $7.50 an hour, $8 an hour, whether we deal with the scandal of pay equity in this country where women are making 78 cents on the dollar compared to men, whether we make sure we do not cut Social Security at a time when there are so many vulnerable seniors out there whose entire income or almost their entire income is Social Security. In my view, we cannot balance the budget on the most vulnerable people in this country. We cannot cut the Meals on Wheels Program. We cannot cut Head Start. Essentially at a time when the middle class is shrinking, we cannot balance the budget on the backs of the elderly, the children, the sick, and the poor. On my side of the aisle in the Democratic Caucus, what people are looking at is massive wealth and income inequality taking place in America. Senator Reid a few minutes ago made the point that in the last 2 years alone--the last 2 years alone--the wealthiest 14 people in this country have seen their wealth increase by over $150 billion--in 2 years. That is more wealth that they have increased in 2 years than the bottom 40 percent of the American people own. That is pretty crazy. The richer are becoming phenomenally richer, and we have tens of millions of Americans struggling to keep their heads above water. My Republican colleagues say, well, we want to deal with the deficit by cutting programs for the working families, lower income people, the people who are struggling, but we are not going to ask the wealthy or largest corporations in this country who are doing phenomenally well to pay an additional nickel in taxes. That does not make sense to me. I do not believe it makes sense to the American people. Amendment No. 323, as Modified Having said that, what I wish to do now is get to an amendment that is currently at the desk, and I ask that the pending amendment be modified with the changes that are at the desk.

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

Mr. SANDERS. It was $157 billion in a 2-year period.

Mr. SANDERS. Please support this amendment. No cuts to Medicaid for all our kids.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, in a moment I am going to yield for Senator Kaine, but before I do that, I just want to make a few points based on the remarks from my friend, the Senator from Texas, Mr. Cornyn. When Senator Cornyn talked about military spending--and how much we should spend on the military is a very important debate. We now spend more money than the next nine countries combined. But as we talk about the deficit and the debt, I would remind my colleagues and the American people that one of the reasons our national debt is at $18 trillion and one of the reasons our deficit is as high as it is is because under President Bush, we went to war in Iraq and we went to war in Afghanistan, and we put those wars on the credit card. We didn't pay for them. On Thursday, at the Senate Budget Committee meeting, an amendment was passed to add another $38 billion of defense spending to the deficit. So I have a little bit of a problem understanding all of my Republican friends coming down here and saying: We are really concerned about the deficit and the debt. We are going to have to cut back on Head Start. We are going to have to cut back on health care. We are going to have to cut back on the Meals On Wheels programs for seniors. We are going to have to cut back on Pell grants, making it harder for young people to go to college. We just can't afford those things anymore because the deficit is so high. But, when it comes to military spending, we don't have to worry about the deficit at all. I have a real problem with that, and I suspect that within the next couple of days there will be an amendment on the floor which makes it very clear that if people want to go into another war--and I certainly hope we do not go into another war; I think two wars is quite enough-- but if people want to vote for another war, they are going to have to pay for that war and not pass that debt on to our kids and our grandchildren. With that, Madam President, I yield the floor for the Senator from Virginia, Mr. Kaine.

Mr. SANDERS. I thank Senator Kaine for his outstanding work on the committee and for his very cogent remarks. In the Republican budget, we don't have to talk about protecting absurd loopholes for large corporations and for the wealthiest people in this country. We don't have to talk about significant cuts in Head Start, making it harder for working families to send their kids to that very important program. We don't have to talk about cuts in the Pell grant program, some $90 billion in mandatory funding, making it harder for working families to send their kids to college. We don't have to talk about raising taxes on working families by allowing the earned- income tax credit and the children's tax credit to expire. We don't even have to talk about that. All we have to do is to hear what Senator Kaine just said. Does anybody in America think it makes sense to tell 16 million men, women, and children--who today have health insurance, some for the first time in their lives--that they are going to lose that health insurance, but, by the way, we will continue to collect the taxes from the Affordable Care Act? Does anyone take that proposal seriously--throwing 16 million people off of health insurance, the equivalent of, what was it, the 15 smallest States in America--and having no plan with what to do with these people? On the surface, I think the Republican budget makes no sense at all and has a very warped sense of priorities in terms of protecting the wealthiest people in this country--the largest corporations--but sticking it to the middle-class and working families. Senator Kaine mentioned that one of the areas that we, in fact, are going to focus on is the need to create jobs. I think all of us who are not particularly partisan are aware of the fact that the economy today is a lot better than it was when President Bush left office and we were hemorrhaging 800,000 jobs a month. Is the economy where we would like it to be today? I don't think anyone believes that. But have we made some significant progress in the last 6, 6\1/2\ years? Yes, I think we have. But having said that, let's be clear. If you look at the unemployment rates, unemployment in this country is not 5\1/2\ percent. Real unemployment is close to 11 percent. Youth unemployment, which we never talk about at all, is somewhere around 17 percent, and African-American youth unemployment is off the charts. In addition to that, we have another major problem. That is, our infrastructure is crumbling. So what many of us think we should be doing is that at a time when our roads, bridges, rail systems, water plants, wastewater plants, dams, levees, and airports need a huge amount of work, and at a time when real unemployment is much higher than it should be--well, what about a commonsense approach which says: Let's start rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and let us put Americans back to work? Do you know what, that is what the American people want. On every poll I have seen, the top priority of the American people--Democrats, Republicans, Independents--is the economy, create jobs, raise wages, and that is what we should be doing. In about 1 hour or so I will officially offer an amendment which will, in fact, rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and create many millions of decent-paying jobs. In terms of infrastructure, which is a fancy word for roads, bridges, water systems, rail, and so forth, I don't think you have to be a Ph.D. in infrastructure to know our infrastructure is really in quite bad shape. Every day somebody gets into a car--whether it is in Vermont or Washington, DC--and you see that pothole that takes away half of your axle, that is what infrastructure is about. When you are in a traffic jam because the road is inadequate to deal with traffic, that is called infrastructure. When your water pipes in your town are bursting and flooding downtown, that is called infrastructure. The truth is that for too many years Congress has dramatically underfunded the maintenance and improvement of the physical infrastructure our economy depends upon. That has to change, and that is why I will be introducing an amendment to invest $478 billion over 6 years to modernize our infrastructure. How will we pay for that? Will we pay for it by throwing children off of Head Start? Will we pay for it by throwing people off of the Affordable Care Act? No. We are going to pay for it in the right way, and that is to close tax loopholes that allow corporations and billionaires to shift their profits to the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and other tax havens. So instead of having these corporations putting their money in tax havens--paying zero in Federal income tax--and at a time when we are losing about $100 billion a year without reason, we are going to ask these corporations to start paying their fair share of taxes, and then we are going to use that money to repair our crumbling infrastructure and put millions of people back to work. This amendment--by the way, I will tell you personally I have introduced legislation that is more expansive than this, but because I want all of the Members of the Senate to be supporting this, I have tailored it down a little bit, and we are talking about $478 billion over 6 years. This amendment will support more than 9 million good- paying jobs over 6 years, more than 1.5 million jobs a year. This is money that not only creates jobs and rebuilds our infrastructure, it makes the country more productive, more efficient, and safer. Right now, Larry Summers, the former Treasury Secretary, makes the point that if we take into account the impact of depreciation, our net investment in infrastructure is actually closer to zero of GDP, zero percent. In other words, what we are spending our money on is not rebuilding new infrastructure but replacing and patching old infrastructure. The sad truth is that as a nation we are falling further and further behind. Throughout China, multibillion-dollar projects are underway to build new bridges, airports, tunnels, an $80 billion water project, and high-speed rail lines--in China, not in the United States. This past November, China approved nearly $115 billion for 21 additional major infrastructure projects. While we are debating, while we refuse to invest in our crumbling infrastructure, China is doing just that--in spades. It is no surprise that the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report now ranks our overall infrastructure at 12th in the world--12th in the world. That is down from seventh place a decade ago. There was once a time when the United States had an infrastructure that was the envy of the world. Now we are in 12th place. Let's take a look at some of the problems we face and why we need to invest in infrastructure. One out of every nine bridges in this country is structurally deficient, and nearly one-quarter are functionally obsolete. We need to rebuild crumbling bridges. Almost one-third of our roads are in poor or mediocre condition, and nearly 42 percent of all urban highways are congested. We need to rebuild crumbling roads. Transit systems across the country are struggling to address deferred maintenance, even as ridership steadily increases. People want to take advantage of transit, to get to work on transit, and yet the transit authorities are deferring maintenance because of limited funds. Meanwhile, nearly 45 percent of American households lack any meaningful access to transit, which is a huge problem in rural areas across the country, including the State of Vermont. In Vermont, in most cases you have one way to get to work and only one way: That is in your automobile. The amendment I would be offering also creates a national infrastructure bank. This idea, championed in the past by Senators on both sides of the aisle, will leverage private capital to finance more than $250 billion in transportation, energy, environmental, and telecommunications projects. My amendment will also greatly expand credit assistance to projects of national and regional significance through the TIFIA Program, long championed by my good friend from California, Senator Barbara Boxer. It will boost funding for the highly competitive TIGER Program that funds locally sponsored transportation projects across the country that increase economic competitiveness and promote economic innovations. But we all know our infrastructure problems are not just limited to roads, bridges, and transit. Much of our Nation's rail system is obsolete, even though our energy-efficient railroads move more freight than ever and Amtrak's ridership has never been higher. While we debate the merits of high-speed rail in Congress, countries across Europe and Asia have gone ahead and built vast high-speed networks. Guess what. They work. High-speed rail trains relieve congestion on roads, airports, and whisk people around quickly and efficiently. China has already 12,000 miles of track with trains that run at least 125 miles per hour and several thousand miles with trains that can travel at 200 miles per hour. Meanwhile, the Acela, Amtrak's fastest train, travels at an average speed of just 65 miles per hour. This amendment will invest $12 billion to make much-needed investments to upgrade our passenger and freight rail lines, and to move people and goods more quickly and efficiently. It is time for America to catch up with the rest of the world. There was once a time when we were No. 1 in infrastructure. Today we are No. 12. I hear my friends on the other side talking about the debt we are going to be leaving our kids and our grandchildren, while we are going to be leaving them a crumbling infrastructure which at some point somebody is going to have to pay for unless we get our act together now. America's airports are bursting at the seams as the number of passengers and cargo grows. The Airports Council International--North America says America needs $76 billion over the next 5 years to accommodate growth in passengers and cargo activity and to rehabilitate existing facilities. Moreover, and rather incredibly, our airports still rely on antiquated 1960s radar technology because Congress chronically underfunds deployment of a new satellite-based air traffic control system. This amendment will invest $6 billion to improve airports across the country. It will invest another $6 billion to bring our air traffic control system into the 21st century by accelerating deployment of NextGen technology that will make our skies safer and our airports more efficient. Anyone, as many of us do, who travels, who flies a lot, knows our airports need to be more efficient than they are. Bottlenecks at our marine seaports, which handle 95 percent of all overseas imports and exports, cause delays that prevent goods from getting to their destinations on time. The same is true--perhaps even more so--for our inland waterways, which carry the equivalent of 50 million truck trips of goods each year. My amendment will invest an additional $1 billion a year to clear the backlog of projects needed to improve inland waterways, coastal harbors, and shipping channels. Our businesses simply can't compete in the global economy if they can't move their goods and supplies to, from, and within our country more efficiently. Right now, more than 4,000 of the Nation's 84,000 dams are considered deficient--not in need of a few repairs, but deficient--serious problems. Even worse, one of every 11 levees has been rated as likely to fail during a major flood. I will talk a little more about this issue in a few minutes as this is something that could concern everyone in the Senate. My amendment will invest $5 billion a year to repair and improve the high hazard dams that provide flood control, drinking water, irrigation, hydropower, and recreation across the country, and the flood levees that protect our cities and our farms. Much of our drinking water infrastructure is nearing the end of its useful life. I like to tell the story of Rutland, VT. A few years ago that city--one of the largest in Vermont--had water pipes that were built before the Civil War--before the Civil War--and I think that is not all that uncommon. Cities and towns all over this country, in many instances, have pipes that go way, way, way back and are constantly breaking and causing serious leaks. Each year, there are nearly one-quarter million water main breaks with the loss of 7 billion gallons of freshwater. Let me repeat that: Each year, there are nearly one-quarter million water main breaks with the loss of 7 billion gallons of freshwater. But that is nothing compared to the amount of water we lose through leaky pipes and faulty meters. In all, the American Water Works Association estimates that we lose 2.1 trillion gallons of treated drinking water every year--2.1 trillion gallons. Clearly, this is an issue that cannot continue to be delayed. We have to address that. Our wastewater treatment plants aren't in much better shape than our freshwater pipes are. Almost 10 billion gallons of raw sewage is dumped into our Nation's waterways every year when plants fail or pipes burst, often during heavy rains. My amendment would invest $2 billion a year so States can improve the drinking water systems that provide Americans with clean, safe water. The amendment would similarly invest $2 billion a year to improve the wastewater and storm water infrastructure that protects water quality in our Nation's rivers and lakes. America's aging electrical grid consists of a patchwork system of interconnected power generation transmission and distribution facilities, some of which date back to the early 1900s. Not surprisingly, the grid suffers from hundreds of major power failures every year, many of which are avoidable. Our grid is simply not up to the 21st century challenges it faces, including resiliency to cyber attacks. It is no wonder the World Economic Forum ranks our electric grid at just 24th in the world, in terms of reliability, just behind Barbados. My amendment will invest $3 billion a year for power transmission and distribution modernization projects to improve the reliability and resiliency of our ever more complex electric power grid. This investment will also position our grid to accept new sources of locally generated renewable energy and will address critical vulnerabilities to cyber attacks, an issue of great concern to many of us. Another area where we are falling behind is Internet access and speed, and this is especially important to rural States such as Vermont. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the OECD, ranks the United States 16th in the world in terms of broadband access--16th in the world in terms of broadband success--not something we should be terribly proud of. We are only marginally better in terms of average broadband speed--12th in the world, according to Akamai's 2014 annual report. How can it be that businesses, schools and families in Bucharest, Romania, have access to much faster Internet than most of the United States of America? My amendment will invest $2 billion a year to expand high-speed broadband networks in underserved and unserved areas and to boost speeds and capacity all across this country. Let us be clear: Internet access is no longer a luxury, it is essential for 21st century commerce, for education, for telemedicine, and for public safety. We cannot continue to lag behind many of our global competitors in terms of broadband quality and access. That is a brief summary of what my amendment does. It addresses a chronic funding shortfall. It addresses the need to start the kinds of investments we need to bring our physical infrastructure into the 21st century. If $478 billion over 6 years sounds like a lot of money, please consider this: The American Society of Civil Engineers--the people who actually know the most about the state of America's infrastructure--says we need to invest $3.6 trillion by 2020 just to get our Nation's infrastructure to a state of good repairs. So this amendment is a good start, but that is all it is. It is a good start. Much more has to be done. Let me conclude by asking my fellow Americans to imagine an America where millions of people in our 50 States are hard at work earning good wages rebuilding our crumbling bridges, making our roads much better, dealing with wastewater plants, dealing with water systems, and dealing with our rail system. Think about what America looks like when we create an infrastructure that is 21st century. Our job right now is to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. As a former mayor, I can absolutely assure you infrastructure does not get better all by itself. You can't turn around and ignore it and think it gets better. Quite the contrary, it gets worse. If you have a bridge right now which is in serious disrepair, it does not get better by ignoring it. It only gets worse, and in fact it ends up costing more money to rebuild it as it deteriorates. So we have an opportunity right now. We have an opportunity to make our country more efficient, more productive, and safer by creating a 21st century infrastructure, and at the same time we have an opportunity to create millions of decent-paying jobs. In many respects, this is a no-brainer. This amendment is paid for by ending outrageous corporate loopholes that allow large profitable corporations from paying any Federal income tax. So I hope we will have wide bipartisan support for this amendment, which, as I understand it, will be voted on tomorrow, and I will officially bring it up in about half an hour. With that, Madam President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS. Thank you, Madam President. Let me begin by commenting on a few of the thoughts raised by my good friend Senator Enzi. Senator Enzi says the economy today is not where it should be, and he is right. I don't think anybody thinks the economy is where it should be in terms of low unemployment and high wages--no debate about that. But I ask the American people to think back 6\1/2\ years ago, at the end of President Bush's term, to what the economy was like. At that point, we were not gaining the 200,000 jobs a month we are gaining now; we were losing 800,000 jobs a month. At that point, the deficit was not at $480 billion, where it is today; it was at $1.4 trillion. At that point, the stock market was not soaring, as it is today; the American and world financial system was on the verge of collapse. So let's begin by putting issues into perspective. No, nobody I know thinks we are where we should be economically in America today, but anybody who does not understand that despite enormous Republican obstructionism, we have made significant gains over the last 6\1/2\ years would, I believe, be very mistaken. As we all know, the Federal budget we are working on now is not an appropriations bill. It does not provide explicit funding for this or that agency. What it does do is lay the foundation for that process, the total amount of money the appropriations committees have to spend. In other words, this budget is more than just a very long list of numbers. The Federal budget is about our national priorities and our values. It is about who we are as a nation and what we stand for. It is about how we analyze and assess the problems we face and how we go forward in resolving those problems. That is the task the Senate is now about to undertake, and it is a very serious responsibility. Let's be very clear. No family, no business, no local or State government can responsibly write a budget without first understanding the problems and the challenges it faces. That is even more true when we deal with a Federal budget of some $4 trillion. As I examine the budgets brought forth by the Republicans in the House and here in the Senate, this is how I see their analysis of the problems facing our country. At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, perhaps the most important issue facing this country--a huge transfer of wealth from the middle class to the top one-tenth of 1 percent. My Republican colleagues apparently believe the richest people in America need to be made even richer. It is apparently not good enough for my Republican colleagues that 99 percent of all new income today is going to the top 1 percent--not good enough. It is apparently not good enough that the top one-tenth of 1 percent today own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. Clearly, in the eyes of my Republican colleagues, the wealthy and the powerful and the big campaign contributors need even more help. Not only should they not be asked to pay more in taxes, not only should we not eliminate huge loopholes that benefit the wealthy and large corporations, some of my Republican friends believe we should protect these loopholes, not change them at all or maybe even make them wider. It is apparently not good enough that corporate America is enjoying record-breaking profits and that the CEOs of large corporations earn some 290 times what their average employees make--290 times more. It is apparently not good enough that since 1985, the top one-tenth of 1 percent has seen a more than $8 trillion increase in its wealth than it would have if wealth and equality had remained the same as it was in 1985--an $8 trillion dollar increase in wealth going to the top one-tenth of 1 percent. But apparently my Republican colleagues not only do not talk about this issue, they will do nothing to address the massive wealth inequality this country faces. It is apparently not good enough for my Republican colleagues that the wealthiest 14 people in this country--14 people--have seen their wealth go up by more than $157 billion over the past 2 years alone. Fourteen people saw an increase in their wealth of $157 billion, and the Republican budget talks about cutting food stamps and education and nutrition, because we are presumably a poor nation. Well, we are not a poor nation. We just have massive wealth and income inequality, so that the vast majority of people are becoming poorer but the people on top are predominantly wealthy. That is the reality we must address. As manifested in the House and Senate budgets, my Republican colleagues are ignoring a very significant reality, and that is that millions of middle-class and working families are people who are often working longer hours for lower wages and have seen significant declines in their standard of living over the past 40 years. My Republican colleagues say those people who are struggling, those people who are trying to feed their families, those people who are trying to send their kids to college--those are not the people we should be helping; rather, we have to worry about the top 1 percent. At a time when over 45 million Americans are living in poverty, which is more than at almost any time in the modern history of our country-- and many of these people are working people, people who are working 40 or 50 hours a week at substandard wages--my Republican colleagues think we should increase poverty by ending the Affordable Care Act, by slashing Medicaid, and by cutting food stamps and the earned-income tax credit. At a time when almost 20 percent of our kids live in poverty--the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world--my Republican colleagues think that maybe we should even raise that poverty rate a little bit among our children by cutting childcare, by cutting Head Start, by cutting the refundable child tax credit, and maybe let's even go after nutrition programs for hungry children. To summarize, the rich get much richer and the Republicans think they need more help. The middle-class and working families of this country become poorer and the Republicans think we need to cut programs they desperately need. Frankly, those may be the priorities of some of my Republican colleagues, but I do not believe those are the priorities of the American people. Today, the United States safely remains the only major country on Earth that does not guarantee health care to all people as a right. Today, despite the modest gains in the Affordable Care Act, we still have about 40 million Americans who lack health insurance and millions more who are underinsured. What is the Republican response to the health care crisis? They want to abolish--do away with completely--the Affordable Care Act and take away the health insurance that 16 million Americans have gained through that program. Here we have 40 million people who have no health insurance and the Republican response is: Well, let's make it 56 million people. And if you add the massive cuts they proposed to Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, even millions more would lose their health insurance. Does anybody, for 1 second, think this vaguely makes any sense in the real world? People are struggling to try to find health insurance and the response is: Oh, let's cut 16 million people off of the Affordable Care Act and millions more off of Medicaid. While the Senate budget resolution does not end Medicare as we know it, unlike the House budget last year, it does make significant cuts. Further, when you make massive cuts to Medicaid, it is not only low- income people who suffer, you are also cutting the nursing home care for seniors. These are elderly people--80, 90 years of age--in a nursing home, and one might argue these people are the most vulnerable people in this country, the most helpless people, fragile people, and we are going to cut programs for them. I have talked a little bit about the devastating impact the House and Senate Republican budgets would have on the American people, but I think it is equally important, when we look at a budget, to talk about not only what a budget does but talk about what a budget does not do, the serious problems it does not address. Poll after poll tells us the American people, when asked what their major concerns are, almost always respond: It is jobs, wages, and the economy. That is, generally speaking, what Democrats, Republicans, and Independents respond. It is the economy, jobs, and wages. Despite a significant improvement in the economy over the last 6 years, real employment today is not 5.5 percent, it is 11 percent, counting those people who have given up looking for work and those people who are working part time. Youth employment, an issue we almost never discuss, is at 17 percent, and African-American youth employment is much higher than that. What the American people want--and what the Republican budget completely ignores--is the need to create millions of decent-paying jobs. I think if you go to Maine, to Vermont, to Wyoming, to California and ask people what they want, they would say: We need more jobs, and those jobs should be paying us a living wage. In my view--and in the view of many economists--if we are serious about creating jobs in this country, the fastest way to do it is to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, our roads, bridges, water systems, wastewater plants, airports, rail, dams, levees, broadband in rural areas. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, we need to invest over $3 trillion by the year 2020 just to get our Nation's infrastructure in good repair. When we make a significant investment in an infrastructure, we create millions of decent-paying jobs, which is exactly what we should be doing and what our side of the aisle will fight for, but it is an issue virtually ignored by the Republican majority. Crumbling infrastructure, need to create jobs--they don't talk about it. At a time when millions of Americans are working for starvation wages and when the Federal minimum wage is at an abysmal $7.25 an hour, we need a budget that substantially increases wages for low-income and middle-income workers. In the year 2015, no one who works in this country for 40 hours a week should be living in poverty. I would hope that is a tenet all of us can agree on. No one should be making the totally inadequate Federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Raising the minimum wage to at least $10.10 an hour--I personally would go higher than that--would not only be good for low-wage workers, it would reduce spending on Medicaid, public housing, food stamps, and other Federal programs by some $7 billion a year. Sadly, when I offered an amendment in committee that called for a substantial increase in the minimum wage, not one of my Republican colleagues voted for it. Well, we are going to give them an opportunity to rethink the error of their ways. We are going to bring an amendment onto the floor to do exactly what the American people want; that is, significantly increase the minimum wage in this country, so no one who works 40 hours a week lives in poverty. We also need pay equity in this country so women do not make 78 cents on the dollar compared to what a man makes for doing the same work. Further, we need to address the overtime scandal in this country in which many of our people are working 50 or 60 hours a week but fail to get time and a half for their efforts. I haven't heard--I sat through all of the committee meetings, Budget Committee meetings, I was at the markup on Thursday--I didn't hear one Republican word about the need for pay equity for women workers, about the need to address the overtime scandal, and about the need to address the minimum wage. These are the issues the American people want addressed, but look high and low in that long Republican budget, you will not find one word addressing these issues. I can stay in Vermont and I suspect every State in this country, young people and their families are enormously frustrated by the high cost of college education and the horrendously oppressive student debt that many of them leave school with. In fact, student debt today at $1.2 trillion is the second-largest category of debt in this country, more than credit card debt and auto loan debt. Does the Republican budget do anything to lower interest rates on student debt? No. In fact, their budget would make a bad situation even worse by eliminating subsidized student loans and increasing the cost of a college education by about $3,000 for some of the lowest income students in America. Does the Republican budget support or comment on President Obama's initiative to make 2 years of community college free or do they provide any other initiative to make college affordable? Sadly, they don't. But what they do is cut $90 billion in Pell grants over a 10-year period, which would make college even more expensive for about 8 million low- income college students. My Republican colleagues say they are concerned about the deficit-- which, by the way, has been reduced by more than two-thirds since President Obama has been in office, and we should be clear this side of the aisle is concerned about the deficit. My Republican colleagues are concerned about an $18 trillion national debt, which has skyrocketed in recent years. One of the reasons it has skyrocketed is that we went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the experts tell us that by the time we take care of the last veteran, those wars may cost over $5 trillion, and my deficit hawk friends on the Republican side, how did they pay for those wars? What taxes did they raise? What programs did they cut? They didn't. They put it on the credit card. That is how they paid for it. What concerns me very much is that, unfortunately, two wars unpaid for is not enough for my Republican colleagues. In the committee markup they put another $38 billion into defense spending on the credit card-- off-budget. So I think we should ask ourselves how does it happen that the move toward their balanced budget approach--they want to cut nutrition, education, health care, virtually every program that working families need--but when it comes to defense spending, another $38 billion. That is not chump change, even in Washington. That is off-budget--no problem, just add it to the deficit. When we talk about sensible ways of addressing our deficit or sensible ways of addressing our national debt, we cannot ignore the reality that major corporation after major corporation, in a given year, pays what in taxes--20 percent, 5 percent, 10 percent, zero percent. Profitable corporations such as General Electric, Verizon, Boeing, and many others have not only paid nothing in Federal income taxes in some recent years, they actually get rebates from the IRS. Can we talk about that issue or is the only way toward a balanced budget to cut programs for the elderly, the children, and the sick and the poor? A report from the Congressional Research Service: Each and every year profitable corporations are avoiding about $100 billion in taxes by stashing their profits in the Cayman islands.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 323, which is at the desk.

Mr. SANDERS. The point I was making is if we are serious about reducing the deficit, it is inconceivable that one does not look at the fact that corporation after corporation is paying zero in Federal income taxes. It is inconceivable that we do not recognize that in 1952 corporations contributed about 32 percent of all Federal tax revenue. Today, they contribute about 11 percent. It is inconceivable that we do not understand that according to the CRS, each and every year profitable corporations are avoiding $100 billion in taxes. How can we not look at that issue? How could your only approach be to make it harder for kids to go to college or for little children to be in the Head Start Program? I look forward to the debate we will be having over the next several days. I suspect there will be a lot of amendments being offered. I think it is fair to say, on this side of the aisle, what the amendments will be saying is that we need to create millions of jobs. We need to raise wages in America. We need a tax system that is fair and does not contain loopholes that allow the wealthy and large corporations to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. We need a budget that says women workers should earn the same as male workers. We need a budget that says we have to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. I think there will be a lot of very serious debates. I think the differences between the two sides will become very apparent, and I hope the American people pay strong attention to this discussion. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Michigan, Ms. Stabenow.