Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. If I may reclaim my time and wind down and finish my remarks, there are two basic issues. No. 1, I know many of my Republican friends deny what the overwhelming majority of scientists are telling us; that is, not only is climate change real, that it is caused by human activity, that it is already causing devastating problems. To continue to deny that reality is to endanger the lives of our kids, our grandchildren, and the planet on which they will live. To say to people all over the world that we Americans are concerned about climate change and yet vote for a project which will encourage and accelerate the excavation of some of the dirtiest oil in the world will make all of us look like fools and hypocrites throughout the world and will make future generations wonder what we were thinking about on that vote today. With that, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. SANDERS. I thank the Senator. I would mention that several years ago we worked together to pass the Energy Efficiency Block Grant Program, which pumped billions of dollars into weatherization, into sustainable energy. I can tell you that in the State of Vermont right now work is being done weatherizing homes, saving substantial sums of money on fuel bills for working people, seeing a 30-, 40-percent reduction in fuel bills and equivalent reductions in the emission of carbon into the air. That is what we should be investing in all over America. Let's create those jobs. Let's create jobs building the wind turbines and the solar panels that we desperately need. We need to be aggressive in that area and above that and beyond that. Everybody knows that bridges in Vermont, in California--the Senator is chairman of not only the environmental committee but the public works committee. She knows that as well as anybody. We need to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. I understand why the construction workers want these jobs, with high unemployment in construction industry. We have to put these guys to work and we can do that. We can do it by transforming our energy system. We can do it by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. We are talking about millions of decent- paying jobs, not 50 permanent jobs or a few thousand construction jobs. We are talking about millions of permanent jobs. I would further add, when we heard this discussion during the caucus today--and I would ask the Senator of California, the chair of the committee, if my Republican friends are so concerned about jobs, please tell me where we are going with the wind tax credit and the solar tax credit, which have been so very important to creating jobs in the wind and solar energy. Clearly, our friends who talk about the ``all of the aboves'' are enthusiastically supporting these tax credits. Will my friend from California enlighten us?

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I thank Senator Boxer not only for her remarks today but for her years and years of commitment to the environmental committee and pointing out the danger of climate change and the toxicity in our air.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I rise today to discuss the dangerous and brutal extremist organization called ISIS, the terrorist army, which in recent months has overrun vast swaths of Iraq and Syria and is a serious threat to the stability of the region, and, in fact, to the international community. But before I do that, I also want to say that ISIS is not the only major problem facing our country. It would be a real tragedy if, in our legitimate concerns about the dangers of ISIS, we continue to ignore the very serious problems that are taking place right here in the United States of America and impacting tens of millions of working families. There are crises here at home we have ignored for too long. Real unemployment today is 12 percent, youth unemployment is 20 percent. We can't ignore it. The minimum wage nationally is at a starvation wage of $7.25 an hour. We cannot ignore that reality. We have to raise the minimum wage. Women earn 77 cents to the dollar that men earn. That is unfair. We cannot ignore the issue of pay equity. We have to address that issue. Senator Boxer was just on the floor talking about the planetary crisis of global warming and the fact that virtually the entire scientific community is united in telling us that global warming is real. It is significantly caused by human activity. It is also causing devastating problems in our country and around the world. We cannot continue to ignore the crisis of global warming. Last week many of us voted to overturn the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision that allows billionaires the ability to spend unlimited sums of money to buy elections which will benefit candidates who support the rich and the powerful. My point is that while we address the very serious problems in the Middle East--and these are very serious problems--we cannot take our eye off the very serious problems facing tens of millions of Americans. The issue involving ISIS, in my view, is enormously complex. Just one example is Syria. The Assad government is a dictatorship which has killed many thousands of its own people and has even used, we believe, chemical weapons against its own citizens--and these are the good guys. The decisions we make now in Syria, in Iraq, and in the Middle East must be made with great thoughtfulness. As you know, President Obama has been attacked time and time again because he publicly stated a while ago that ``we don't have a strategy yet'' for dealing with ISIS. Frankly, I applaud the President for trying to think through this incredibly complicated issue and not making rash decisions which would make a very bad and dangerous situation even worse and more dangerous. I remember back in 2002--I was in the House of Representatives then-- when George W. Bush and Dick Cheney said they did have a strategy. They were tough, they were forceful, they acted boldly, they acted swiftly, but, unfortunately, what they did was dead wrong. In fact, it was the worst foreign policy blunder in the recent history of America and opened up a can of worms we are trying to deal with today. Frankly, I must say I am not impressed with all of the tough talk. I want smart policy that will work and that will, in fact, lead to the destruction of ISIS, not sound bites that may be effective in a political campaign. I will take a few moments to lay out some of my concerns. First, President Obama is absolutely right when he said this struggle will not be successful unless there is a strong international coalition. Let's be clear: ISIS is a terrorist threat not only to the United States but to Britain, France, Germany, countries throughout Europe, and, in fact, to nations throughout the world. More importantly, ISIS, which wants to establish a new caliphate, which includes many countries across a large geographical area, is a major threat in the region to countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey, Qatar, Iran, Jordan, and other countries. I very much appreciate the hard work that President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry have undertaken in trying to put together an international coalition that will effectively fight ISIS. We all know how difficult that effort is, but at this point it appears to me the kind of coalition we need has yet to come together. In my view, ISIS will never be defeated unless the countries in the region--the people in the region, the Muslim world, including Sunni and Shiite nations--stand up to this threat. I know how hard President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry are trying, but we are nowhere near where we need to be in terms of building this coalition at this moment. It may surprise many people to know that Saudi Arabia--a country run by an autocratic royal family worth hundreds of billions of dollars and one of the wealthiest families in the world--is a country which was the world's fourth largest defense spender in 2014. Most people don't know that. According to a Reuters article from earlier this year--and I quote--``Saudi Arabia beat Britain to become the world's fourth largest defense spender in 2013.'' In other words, Saudi Arabia is now spending more money on arms and the military than is the United Kingdom. The article goes on to cite a report by London's International Institute for Strategic Studies which estimated Saudi Arabia was spending over $59 billion, a figure researchers said was extremely conservative, pushing it above Britain at $57 billion or France at $52 billion. Once again, Saudi Arabia is spending more on their military than is Britain or France. Another article from Bloomberg provides additional details on Saudi Arabia's military strength. It cites that ``in 2011, the U.S. Government signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia valued at $29 billion.'' That is the end of the quote from Bloomberg. But according to Military Balance, ``The Royal Saudi Air Force has more than 300 combat capable aircraft, including 81 F-15 C and D fighter aircraft, 172 advanced F-15 S Typhoon and Tornado fighters capable of ground attack, dozens of C-130 transport aircrafts.'' This is what the Saudi Arabian Air Force has. Let me also quote from an article in Forbes which details the strength and numbers of many of the militaries in the Mideast. The article notes: Countries in the region have more than enough power to destroy the Islamic State. Turkey has an army of 400,000. Iran has nearly as many in the army and paramilitaries. Iraq has a nominal army of nearly 200,000 and some 300,000 police. Saudi Arabia has nearly 200,000 army, national guard, and paramilitary personnel. Syria's military, though degraded by war, numbers some 110,000, plus paramilitaries. Jordan has 74,000 in the army. The Kurdish Peshmerga numbers in the tens of thousands. All of these but Iraq and Kurdistan have some air force ground attack capabilities. Furthermore, not only are countries in the region not stepping up in the fight against ISIS but, believe it or not, several of these gulf states are empowering ISIS and Al Qaeda-related groups through their financial contributions. A recent article in the Washington Post noted: Kuwait, a U.S. ally whose aid to besieged Syrian civilians has been surpassed only by the United States this year, is also the leading source of funding for al-Qaeda-linked terrorists fighting in Syria's civil war. Now, think back not so long ago when the United States of America went to war to push Saddam Hussein's troops out of Kuwait and restore the royal ruling family. Today we find that ``Kuwait is the leading source of funding for al Qaeda-linked terrorists fighting in Syria's civil war.'' The article goes on to state: . . . the amount of money that has flowed from Kuwaiti individuals and through organized charities to Syrian rebel groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra totals in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Kuwait is hardly alone in this effort. As Treasury Department Under Secretary Cohen stated: A number of fundraisers operating in more permissive jurisdictions--particularly in Kuwait and Qatar--are soliciting donations to fund extremist insurgents, not to meet legitimate humanitarian needs. On and on it goes. Why is all of this of enormous consequence? The answer is pretty obvious. The worst action we can take now is to allow ISIS to portray this struggle as East versus West and Muslim versus Christians, as the Middle East versus America. That is exactly what they want and that is exactly what we should not be giving them. In other words, this is not just a question of whether young men and women in Vermont or in North Dakota or in any other State of this country should be putting their lives on the line to defend the billionaire families of Saudi Arabia when Saudi Arabian troops are not in the struggle. This is not just whether the taxpayers of our country and not the billionaire ruling families of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and other countries should be paying for this war; more importantly, it is an understanding that at the end of the day, this war will never be won by the United States alone but it must be won by the people in the region. Should we, as the most powerful military in the world, be of help to those people struggling against ISIS? The answer is obviously yes. Along with the international community, we should be strongly supportive of those countries in the region that are standing up to ISIS. And I personally believe President Obama is absolutely right in his efforts to judiciously use airstrikes which, at this point, have shown some success. But at the end of the day, in my view, the United States of America cannot and should not lead this effort. We must be supportive of other countries in the region who are standing and fighting against the ISIS terrorist organization, but this fight will have to be fought by countries in the region that are, in fact, most threatened by ISIS. They cannot stand aside. They cannot say: Hey, go for it, United States. Thank you, American taxpayers. But we in Saudi Arabia--no, we don't want our young people involved in this war. We don't want our airplanes involved in the attacks. We don't want our billions to go into this war. Thank you, America. It is really nice of you to do that. By the way, while you do that, we may play both sides of the issue and some families may actually fund terrorist organizations. But we really do appreciate your stepping to the plate because we are not doing that. So that is where we are today. It is a very complicated, difficult situation. Again, I applaud President Obama and Secretary Kerry for trying to work through this. But this is what I worry about: I worry very much that supporting questionable groups in Syria--so-called moderates who are outnumbered and outgunned by both ISIS and the Assad government--I worry very much that getting involved in that area could open the door to the United States, once again, being involved in a quagmire, being involved in perpetual warfare. And what happens when the first American plane gets shot down or the first American soldier is captured? What happens then? I am hearing from some of our Republican colleagues who are already talking about the need for U.S. military boots on the ground. That is what they are talking about today, and that concerns me very, very much. So I am going to vote against this continuing resolution because I have very real concerns about the United States getting deeply involved in a war we should not be deeply involved in. At the end of the day, if this war against this horrendous organization called ISIS is going to be won, it will have to be Saudi Arabia, it will have to be Iraq, it will have to be the people of Syria, it will have to be the people of that region saying: No, we are not going to accept an organization of terrorists such as ISIS. And we should be there to help, as should the United Kingdom, as should Britain, as should France, as should Germany. This has to be an international coalition. But the last thing we need is the United States being the only major military power involved in this war. So I thank the Chair, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, if you talk to the people in Vermont, and I suspect in any other State in America, they will say the most serious crisis facing this country is the lack of decent-paying jobs, particularly when it comes to young Americans. This is an issue we do not talk enough about, and this is an issue on which we have to focus. Yes, we are better off today than we were 6 years ago when we were hemorrhaging 700,000 jobs a month and the Nation's financial system was on the verge of collapse, but the truth is that the economy for working families and lower income families today remains in very difficult straits. The middle class of this country--the backbone of this country--continues to disappear and more and more people are living in poverty. In fact, we have almost more people living in poverty today than at any time in the history of this country, and all the while we are seeing more wealth and income inequality, such that 95 percent of all new income generated in America since the Wall Street crash is going to the top 1 percent. The fact is that real unemployment in this country is not the ``official'' 6.1 percent we see on the front pages of newspapers. The truth is that if you count those people who have given up looking for work because they live in high-unemployment areas or the people--and there are many of these--who are working part time when they want to work full time, real unemployment is 12 percent. That is a crisis situation. As bad as that is, the unemployment rate is far worse for young Americans. Today the youth unemployment rate is 20 percent--20 percent. We all paid a lot of attention to the tragedy in Ferguson, MO, a few weeks ago, but what was not discussed is that African-American youth unemployment is 33 percent, and in many areas of the country it is even higher than that. Today over 5.5 million young people have either dropped out of high school or have graduated high school. And do you know what they are doing? Nothing. They have no jobs. Many of them in Vermont and throughout this country are hanging out on street corners and many of them are getting into trouble. Maybe they are doing drugs, maybe they are involved in crime, but this I will tell you, and the statistics are very clear on this: If you leave school--either you drop out or you graduate high school--and you don't get a job in your first year, you don't get a job in your second year, you don't get a job in your third year, there is a strong likelihood you will never get a job, never get a career, never make it to the middle class, never be part of mainstream America. Youth unemployment at 20 percent is clearly one of the reasons why in the United States of America we have more people in jail today than any other country on Earth. A lot of people don't know that. China's a great big country, a Communist authoritarian country. Doesn't China have more people in jail than we do? No. We have more people in jail than China. I think the time is long overdue for us to start investing in our young people, helping them get the jobs they need, helping them get the education they need, helping them get the job training they need so they can be part of our economy, part of the middle class, and not end up in jail or dead from overdoses of drugs. The situation is so dire that there are studies out there that tell us now that one out of every three African-American males born today, if we do not change this, will go to prison in his lifetime--one out of three. This is a crisis situation, and it is one that cannot be ignored. The legislation I have introduced today, along with Congressman John Conyers of Michigan, is called the Employ Young Americans Now Act. This legislation will provide $5.5 billion in immediate funding to States and localities throughout the country to employ 1 million young Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 and provide job training to hundreds of thousands of other young Americans. Under our bill the U.S. Department of Labor would provide $4 billion in grants to States and local governments to provide summer jobs and year-round employment opportunities for economically disadvantaged youth, with direct links to academic and occupational learning. There is another $1.5 billion in there to provide such services as transportation or childcare, which would be necessary to enable young Americans to participate in job opportunities. I am very grateful this legislation has already been endorsed by the AFL-CIO, which is the largest labor union in the country, representing some 13 million workers; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; the United Auto Workers; the United Steel Workers of America; the Campaign for America's Future; and the National Employment Law Project. I thank Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan for her support on this legislation as well. We cannot continue to ignore the crisis of youth unemployment in America. We are talking about the future of an entire generation. We are talking about the future of the United States of America. Let's start focusing on this issue. Let's give millions of young people the opportunity to earn a paycheck and to make it into the middle class.

Mr. SANDERS

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

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, thank you very much. With that, I would yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, if you talk to the people in Vermont, and I suspect in any other State in America, they will say the most serious crisis facing this country is the lack of decent-paying jobs, particularly when it comes to young Americans. This is an issue we do not talk enough about, and this is an issue on which we have to focus. Yes, we are better off today than we were 6 years ago when we were hemorrhaging 700,000 jobs a month and the Nation's financial system was on the verge of collapse, but the truth is that the economy for working families and lower income families today remains in very difficult straits. The middle class of this country--the backbone of this country--continues to disappear and more and more people are living in poverty. In fact, we have almost more people living in poverty today than at any time in the history of this country, and all the while we are seeing more wealth and income inequality, such that 95 percent of all new income generated in America since the Wall Street crash is going to the top 1 percent. The fact is that real unemployment in this country is not the ``official'' 6.1 percent we see on the front pages of newspapers. The truth is that if you count those people who have given up looking for work because they live in high-unemployment areas or the people--and there are many of these--who are working part time when they want to work full time, real unemployment is 12 percent. That is a crisis situation. As bad as that is, the unemployment rate is far worse for young Americans. Today the youth unemployment rate is 20 percent--20 percent. We all paid a lot of attention to the tragedy in Ferguson, MO, a few weeks ago, but what was not discussed is that African-American youth unemployment is 33 percent, and in many areas of the country it is even higher than that. Today over 5.5 million young people have either dropped out of high school or have graduated high school. And do you know what they are doing? Nothing. They have no jobs. Many of them in Vermont and throughout this country are hanging out on street corners and many of them are getting into trouble. Maybe they are doing drugs, maybe they are involved in crime, but this I will tell you, and the statistics are very clear on this: If you leave school--either you drop out or you graduate high school--and you don't get a job in your first year, you don't get a job in your second year, you don't get a job in your third year, there is a strong likelihood you will never get a job, never get a career, never make it to the middle class, never be part of mainstream America. Youth unemployment at 20 percent is clearly one of the reasons why in the United States of America we have more people in jail today than any other country on Earth. A lot of people don't know that. China's a great big country, a Communist authoritarian country. Doesn't China have more people in jail than we do? No. We have more people in jail than China. I think the time is long overdue for us to start investing in our young people, helping them get the jobs they need, helping them get the education they need, helping them get the job training they need so they can be part of our economy, part of the middle class, and not end up in jail or dead from overdoses of drugs. The situation is so dire that there are studies out there that tell us now that one out of every three African-American males born today, if we do not change this, will go to prison in his lifetime--one out of three. This is a crisis situation, and it is one that cannot be ignored. The legislation I have introduced today, along with Congressman John Conyers of Michigan, is called the Employ Young Americans Now Act. This legislation will provide $5.5 billion in immediate funding to States and localities throughout the country to employ 1 million young Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 and provide job training to hundreds of thousands of other young Americans. Under our bill the U.S. Department of Labor would provide $4 billion in grants to States and local governments to provide summer jobs and year-round employment opportunities for economically disadvantaged youth, with direct links to academic and occupational learning. There is another $1.5 billion in there to provide such services as transportation or childcare, which would be necessary to enable young Americans to participate in job opportunities. I am very grateful this legislation has already been endorsed by the AFL-CIO, which is the largest labor union in the country, representing some 13 million workers; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; the United Auto Workers; the United Steel Workers of America; the Campaign for America's Future; and the National Employment Law Project. I thank Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan for her support on this legislation as well. We cannot continue to ignore the crisis of youth unemployment in America. We are talking about the future of an entire generation. We are talking about the future of the United States of America. Let's start focusing on this issue. Let's give millions of young people the opportunity to earn a paycheck and to make it into the middle class.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, today, as chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I applaud my colleagues for their support and Senate passage of S. 2258, the Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2014. All of my colleagues on the committee, including Ranking Member Burr and Senators Rockefeller, Murray, Brown, Tester, Blumenthal, Hirono, Isakson, Johanns, Moran, Boozman, and Heller, joined me in supporting this important legislation, introduced by Senator Begich. I look forward to continuing our bipartisan efforts to improve the lives of our Nation's veterans. This important measure directs the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to increase the rates of veterans' compensation to keep pace with the increasing cost-of-living in this country. The rate adjustment is equal to that provided on an annual basis to Social Security recipients and is based on the Consumer Price Index. Last year's cost-of-living adjustment of 1.5 percent affected so many important benefits, including veterans' disability compensation and dependency and indemnity compensation for surviving spouses and children. VA has projected that more than 4.5 million veterans and survivors will receive these benefits in fiscal year 2015. I have been chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee for nearly 2 years, but during that period I have learned several very important lessons. First and foremost, the cost of war is much greater than most Americans realize, and the cost of war does not end when the last shots are fired or the last missiles are launched. The cost of war continues until the last veteran receives all of the care and all of the benefits that he or she has earned. With this in mind, for those who claim that taking care of veterans is too expensive, if you are not prepared to properly provide the health care and other benefits that veterans have earned, then do not send them to war in the first place. Taking care of veterans is a cost of war. As part of Congress's important responsibility of ensuring veterans and survivors receive all of the benefits to which they are entitled, we take steps to prevent these benefits from being diminished by the effects of inflation. Over the last several years there has been a lot of discussion about so-called entitlement reform. When people talk about entitlement reform what they really mean, in English, is cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The cuts to Social Security benefits were going to come in the form of a so-called chained CPI, which would have meant significant cuts in the cost-of-living adjustments that seniors received, that people with disabilities received, and, if you can believe it, that disabled veterans received. The bottom line is that at a time when the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally well and enjoy many, many tax breaks, we should not balance the budget on the backs of some of the most vulnerable people in this country--including disabled veterans. I will continue to strongly oppose any proposal to adopt the chained CPI. Moving to a chained CPI would cut the benefits of more than 4 million disabled veterans and surviving spouses. Congress's responsibility to ensure veterans and survivors receive all of the benefits to which they are entitled also requires that we ensure they receive their complete cost-of-living adjustment. For a number of years, VA rounded down cost-of-living adjustments. The negative impacts of the round-down were just one of the issues that were brought to my attention by the veterans service organizations. I am proud to say that passage of last year's cost-of-living adjustment ended this practice. This year's bill, sponsored by Senator Begich, would continue to ensure veterans receive the full adjustment to which they are entitled. To some, this is mere pennies, but I know these small amounts of money add up over time and make a significant contribution to the financial stability of millions of veterans and their survivors. We have an obligation to ensure the benefits we provide veterans and their survivors do not erode over time. As the debate over spending and the national debt continues, we cannot forget the debt we owe to veterans and their families--after sacrificing for our well-being, the least we can do is ensure theirs. I commend the Senate's passage of S. 2258, the Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2014. It is another important step as we continue to work to honor our obligation to America's veterans and their surviving family members.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, later this week, one of the most important Senate votes in the modern history of this country will take place, and that vote will be about whether the Senate begins the process to move forward on a constitutional amendment which overturns the disastrous 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision on Citizens United. What the Citizens United Supreme Court decision was about 4 years ago is to say to the billionaires in this country, to say to the largest corporations in this country: OK, you already own much of the economy of the United States of America, but now by a 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision we are going to allow the billionaires and the large corporations of this country to own the U.S. Government because they will now be allowed to spend unlimited sums of money on political campaigns. Poll after poll tells us that whether you are a progressive, as I am, a moderate, or a conservative, all over this country people are profoundly disgusted by the ability of big money to buy elections. What democracy means, what people fought and died for is the right of you, her, and him to have one vote. What democracy is not about is allowing the Koch brothers--a family worth $80 billion, the second wealthiest family in this country--to spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to elect candidates whose job it is to make the wealthiest people in this country even wealthier while they continue to attack the needs of the middle class and working families of this country. There was a piece the other day in the Washington Post talking about how the Koch brothers alone--just one family--has already in this election cycle put 44,000 ads on television and radio, and we have 2 months left before this election. Does anybody believe that is what democracy is about? In this country today we are suffering a major economic crisis. What that crisis is about is the disappearance of the middle class, the fact that since 1999 the typical middle-class family has seen its income go down by more than $5,000 after adjusting for inflation. The crisis is that all over America, working people are not working 40 hours a week, they are working 50, 60 hours a week. They are not working at one job-- they are working at two jobs, they are working at three jobs, trying to cobble together an income and maybe some health care to take care of their family. The crisis in America today is that unemployment is not the official rate of 6.1 percent, it is the real rate of 12 percent if we include those people who have given up looking for work and are working part- time. The crisis is that youth unemployment today is 20 percent; African- American youth unemployment is 35 percent. The American people are calling out. They are saying to the Congress: Why doesn't Congress create the millions of jobs our people need. Why don't you rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. Why don't you transform our energy system so we can address the crisis of climate change and move away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency, wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and create huge numbers of jobs. Why don't you rebuild our crumbling bridges, roads, water systems, and wastewater plants. Why don't you raise the minimum wage to a living wage. That is what people tell me in Vermont and that is what people are saying all over this country. People ask that today, despite the modest gains of the Affordable Care Act, how does it happen that the United States is the only major country on Earth that doesn't guarantee health care to all people as a right? We have 40 million people uninsured, even more paying large copayments and premiums. Why don't we join the rest of the world and guarantee health care to all of our people? The answer is very simple. The answer is that Members elected to the House and the Senate increasingly are dependent upon big money campaign contributions in order to win their seats. That is not what democracy is about; that is what oligarchy is about. Oligarchy is when you have a nation owned and controlled by a handful of wealthy families. That is where we are moving today. On issue after issue, the American people are very clear about where they want to be going. On this issue of Citizens United, the American people are very clear that we need real campaign finance reform to prevent billionaires from buying elections. That is what the American people want. That is what they say in poll after poll. Yet it remains to be seen whether, in a few days when we vote on this issue, we will get one Republican vote. And I can understand that because the Republicans today are the beneficiaries in a very big-time way of all of this billionaire money. A couple months ago a constituent of mine in Vermont made a very interesting suggestion. He said: Bernie, do you ever see these guys in NASCAR, the racing car drivers, and they wear their jackets, and their jackets have all of the sponsors on them? They are sponsored by Goodyear Tire Company, and they are sponsored by this oil company, and they are sponsored by this brake company. Maybe we should have the Members of the U.S. Senate wear jackets which tell us who is sponsoring them. So somebody can come forward in their nice blue blazer and say: Hey, I am owned and sponsored by the Koch brothers. Somebody else can come forward and say: No, I am not owned by the Koch brothers, I am owned by the oil industry or I am owned by Big Energy or I am owned by Wall Street. It would be very instructive, when you see people get up and vote, about why they do not want to raise the minimum wage, to find out they are controlled by significant contributions coming from large corporations. I think it would be very interesting to see Members of the Congress wear those types of coats. The men and women of our country know there is something profoundly wrong when 95 percent of all new income generated in this country goes to the top 1 percent. They know there is something profoundly wrong when one out of four profitable corporations pays nothing in Federal taxes in any given year. Yet the reason we are unable to come up with real tax reform--so we can find the money to help our kids go to college, so we can deal with the fact that we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world--has everything to do with large corporations not paying their fair share, and that has everything to do with the types of campaign contributions these institutions make. There was a poll that came out just the other day. They asked the American people: Should we cut Social Security? Do you know what the American people say, whether they are progressives, moderates, or conservatives? They say: You have to be nuts. We can't make it on Social Security benefits today, and you want to cut Social Security? You want to cut Medicare? But that is exactly what the Business Roundtable from corporate America wants us to do. So we are living in two separate worlds. On the one hand you have an agenda here in the House and among many of my Republican colleagues that says: What we need to do is give huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people and the largest corporations. Is that what the American people want? Overwhelmingly, they do not want that. You have an agenda among many who say: We have to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Is that what the American people want? No, they do not. There is an agenda among some Republicans that says: Not only should we not raise the minimum wage, we should do away with the concept of the minimum wage so that in high-unemployment areas people could work for $4 or $5 an hour. Is that what the American people want? Quite the contrary. They want to raise the minimum wage to at least $10.10 an hour. So you have an amazing dynamic right now in American society. On the one hand in the real world outside of the beltway, ordinary people are hurting. They are struggling. They are worried about their kids. They are worried about their grandchildren. They are worried about their parents. They want the U.S. Government to do something to create jobs, to raise the minimum wage, to change our disastrous trade policies. They want us to do something to make college affordable, to lower interest rates on student debt. They want us to create jobs by rebuilding the infrastructure. They want everybody in this country to have health care as a right. They want us to address the crisis of global warming. But we do not do that. Why not? Because increasingly the Congress is not responsive to the needs of ordinary Americans. They are responsive to the big-money campaign contributors, and that has everything to do with this constitutional amendment beginning the process to overturn Citizens United. So of all of the issues out there--whether you are concerned about education, health care, the environment, the economy--the most important issue underlying all of those issues is the need to end this disastrous Supreme Court decision which allows billionaires to buy elections. That is not what people fought and died for in the name of democracy. That is called oligarchy. Abraham Lincoln talked about a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, not a government of the billionaires, by the billionaires, and for the billionaires, and that is where we are today. I hope the American people are watching. The media has not paid, for interesting reasons, a lot of attention to this issue, but there is no domestic issue that I can think of more important for the future of this country. Do we elect Members of Congress who are beholden to the constituents back home, to the middle class, to working families, or do we elect Members of Congress who are beholden to corporate America and the billionaire class? Do we fight to sustain the democratic foundation of this country or do we move toward an oligarchic form of society controlled by a handful of billionaire families? That is the issue. That is what this debate is all about, and that is what this vote in a few days will be about. I hope very much the American people will demand that every Member of this Senate vote for this piece of legislation which begins the process of overturning this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me begin by thanking Senator Tom Udall for his extraordinary work over the years in calling attention to this disastrous Supreme Court decision called Citizens United which is doing so much to undermine the foundations of American democracy. It has been a pleasure working with him, and we will continue to fight. My colleagues may not know it by reading the newspapers or watching TV, but this week we are going to be having a debate on what I consider to be the most important domestic issue facing the United States of America; that is, whether this great country retains its democratic foundations--one person, one vote--or whether we move into an oligarchic form of society where a small handful of billionaires is able to control not only the economic life of our Nation but the political life as well. Whether one is a Democrat, whether one is a Republican, or whether one is--as the Presiding Officer and I are--an Independent, the overwhelming majority of the American people do not believe free speech has anything to do with billionaires being able to buy elections. The Washington Post reported earlier this week that one family, the Koch brothers--a family worth $80 billion--has already put on the air some 44,000 ads, and this campaign has 2 months left to it--44,000 ads. America is supposed to be about debates on issues. It is not supposed to be a process where a billionaire can come into a small State such as Maine or Vermont and plop $50 million down or $20 million down to elect candidates whose sole job in life is to represent the wealthy and the powerful. Men and women have put their lives on the line and died to defend American democracy--the right for all of us to be involved in the political process, not to create a situation where a handful of superwealthy families can elect the candidates they want. I think some people, when they hear about Citizens United, say: Well, it is kind of an esoteric issue; it is not really relevant to my life. Those who believe that are dead wrong. If people are concerned about the collapse of the middle class; if people are concerned about the fact that more people today are living in poverty than at any time in American history; if people are concerned about the fact that we have more wealth and income inequality in America today than any other major country on Earth; if people are concerned that we are the only major country on Earth without national health care, guaranteeing health care to all people; if people are concerned about the crisis of global warming and many other issues, people have to be interested in the issue of Citizens United and how we elect Members of the House and Senate and Governors, and so forth and so on, because ultimately what this is about is whether the wealthy can determine the agenda of the House and the Senate, whether they can say to candidates: Here it is-- we are going to put $50 million into your campaign, and all you have to do is support us on A, B, C, D, and E. You have to make sure the rich get more tax breaks--despite the fact that the wealthy are doing phenomenally well. You have to make sure we cut food stamps or education or we eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency. That is why we are giving you the money we are giving you. People do not spend hundreds of millions of dollars on campaigns for fun, for the hell of it; they are spending money because they have an agenda. And the billionaire agenda is not the agenda of the American people. I wish to read for a moment exact language from the 1980 Libertarian Party, whose Vice Presidential campaign and major funder was one David Koch--one of the two Koch brothers. What I am going to read to my colleagues today is what I believe remains their agenda today because I see no evidence that it has changed. When we turn on the TV and we see an ad coming from one of the Koch brothers' organizations, know what they stand for. ``We favor the abolishment of Medicare and Medicaid programs.'' That doesn't mean cutting them; that means ending them. ``We favor the repeal of a fraudulent, virtually bankrupt and increasingly oppressive Social Security system.'' That does not mean they are opposed to raising the minimum wage, which many of us want to do; they want to do away with Social Security entirely--not cut Social Security but do away with it. ``We support repeal of all laws which impede the ability of any person to find employment, such as minimum wage laws.'' What that means in English is that while we are trying to raise the minimum wage, they want to abolish the concept of the minimum wage. So in high-unemployment areas, an employer can pay a worker $3 an hour or $4 an hour. This is also from the Koch brothers' platform: ``We oppose all government welfare, relief projects, and aid to the poor programs. All of these government programs are privacy-invading, paternalistic, demeaning, and inefficient. The proper source of help for such persons is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals.'' That means goodbye to good jobs, nutrition programs, Federal aid to education, and goodbye to unemployment insurance. This is not a conservative agenda. This is not a small-government agenda. This is an extremist agenda designed to eliminate virtually every piece of legislation passed by Congress in the last 80 years which protects the middle class, working families, low-income people, seniors, and the system. That is their agenda. I am not saying every Republican adheres to every aspect of this agenda, but these guys are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the political process for a reason, and that reason is to make the wealthiest people in this country even wealthier while they do away with all legislation that protects working families. Citizens United is one of the worst decisions in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. I hope every Member of the Senate votes this week to start the process for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, the waiver provisions of applicable budget resolutions, and section 4(g)(3) of the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, I move to waive all applicable sections of those acts and applicable budget resolutions for purposes of the pending conference report. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, before we vote, I wish to take this opportunity to thank Senator McCain for his intervention and making sure that we had serious negotiations. I thank the staff of the Veterans' Affairs Committee: Steve Robertson, Dahlia Melendrez, Travis Murphy, Jason Dean, Carlos Fuentes, Becky Thowman, Ann Vallandingham, Janet Gehring, Elizabeth Austin- Mackenzie, Kathryn Monet, Katie Van Haste, Shanna Lawrie, Raphael Anderson, and Shannon Jackson. These guys worked really hard for months, and I very much appreciate what they did.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, yesterday the House voted 420 to 5 for this conference report. They understood that taking care of veterans, as Senator McCain just indicated--the men and women who have put their lives on the line to defend us, who have sacrificed so much--is a cost of war, and in fact what we are talking about is an emergency. That is what the House said overwhelmingly yesterday. On June 11, 2014, 6 or so weeks ago, by a vote of 93 to 3, the Senate supported the Sanders-McCain bill and it was emergency funded as a cost of war. This bill, as Senator Coburn indicated, is about one-third of the cost of what we voted on in the original Sanders-McCain bill. Let us defeat this point of order. Let us stand with the veterans of this country, let us reform the VA, and let us go forward.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, Senator Coburn forgot to mention one point when talking about the increase in VA funding. He forgot to mention that we were in two wars. He forgot to mention that 500,000 men and women came back from Iraq and Afghanistan with posttraumatic stress disorder and TBI, not to mention the loss of legs, the loss of arms, eyesight and hearing. He forgot to mention that many of the veterans from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam are getting older and need more detailed care. So I think it is important that we put $5 billion into the VA to provide the doctors, the nurses, the personnel they need, so that the veterans can get into the VA and have quality and timely care. That is what this legislation is about. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of the VA conference committee report, which I expect and hope will be on the floor here in a couple of hours. That conference committee report was passed yesterday by the House with an overwhelming vote of 420 to 5, and I hope very much our vote here in the Senate will be as strong as the vote in the House. The conference committee legislation that we will be voting on, frankly, is certainly not the legislation I would have written. I think it is fair to say it is not the legislation that the chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, Jeff Miller, would have written; it is, in fact, a compromise, but it is a compromise I can strongly support, and I hope all of my Senate colleagues will support it as well. This bill does a number of very important things to address the problems facing the veterans of our country. Right now veterans in many parts of this country are on very long waiting lists before they get VA health care. I think in the last month or so the VA has made a concerted effort to reach out to those veterans and to get them care when necessary in the private sector, and I think Acting Secretary Sloan Gibson did a good job in jump-starting that process and saying to veterans we are going to do everything we can to get them quality care in a timely manner. Obviously, this is an expensive proposition, but it is one we have to address. This legislation we will be voting on in a few hours provides $10 billion to make sure every eligible veteran in this country will get timely health care, quality health care, and they will do that through the private sector, through community health centers, through Department of Defense facilities, and Indian Health Service Clinics when those facilities work for veterans. If there is a community health center in a community, the veteran can go in there and the VA will pay that bill. That is the effort we are making to significantly reduce these long waiting lines. This bill also provides a remedy for a condition many of us consider to be terribly important, and that is it gets to the root of why it is that we have long waiting periods in many VA facilities around the country. The reality is that in the last 4 or 5 years we have seen, as a result of the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan, some 2 million more veterans coming into the VA, a net increase of about 1.5 million patients. That is a lot of people. There is not the slightest doubt in my mind or in the mind of the VA that if we are going to do justice to our veterans, we are going to need more doctors, more mental health counselors, more nurses, more medical personnel in general, so that when a veteran walks into a VA facility, that veteran will get quality care in a timely manner. I have heard testimony in the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, which was very clear, and what virtually every major veterans organization has said is that when veterans get into the system, the quality of care they receive is good. It is good. That is not just what veterans are saying and what veterans organizations are saying; that is what a number of independent surveys and studies show us. The problem is access, and if we are going to on a long-term basis address that access problem, it is important to make sure we have the doctors, the nurses, and the medical personnel we should have. This bill provides $5 billion to make sure we get that personnel. In addition to that, there are many facilities all over the country where there are very serious space problems. There are not the examination rooms doctors need in order to work efficiently, and this legislation addresses that with a $5 billion appropriation. In addition, there has been legislation passed in the House overwhelmingly that says, quite correctly, we need to fund 27 major medical facilities all over this country in 18 States and in Puerto Rico, and this legislation does that as well. In addition, what this legislation says--and this is mostly applicable to our rural States--is that if someone is a veteran living hundreds of miles away from a VA facility, when they are sick in the middle of winter or in the middle of summer, they are not going to have to travel hundreds of miles to get their physical therapy or to get the health care they need. If a veteran is living 40 miles away from a VA facility, they will be able to get their care in their community, again through a private doctor, through a community health center, through an Indian Health Service facility, through a Department of Defense facility. This is a big step forward for many veterans in rural communities who will now be able to get care in the area they live rather than having to travel long distances to get health care. This legislation also addresses some other very important issues that have not gotten a whole lot of attention but they are important, and I will mention what they are. All of us know that one of the outrages we have seen in recent years within the military is the very high level of sexual assault against women and against men as well. This legislation provides funding for the VA to increase their capability so women and men who are sexually assaulted will be able to come into the VA and get the care they need to address the problems associated with that assault, and I think that is a very important step forward. This legislation also takes action we should have taken some years ago. The post-9/11 GI bill has been enormously successful in providing educational opportunities for the men and women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and people who have served since 9/11. There was a gap in that legislation, and that gap was that a spouse of someone who died in Iraq or in Afghanistan was not eligible for all of the educational benefits of that post-9/11 GI bill. This legislation remedies that omission. It expands the John David Fry Scholarship Program to include surviving spouses of members of the Armed Forces who died in the line of duty. That means many young women out there will now have the opportunity to get a college education who otherwise would not have, and I think we owe that to all of those people who have already suffered so much. This legislation also allows for veterans--all veterans eligible for the post-9/11 GI bill--to qualify for instate tuition under that legislation. This was part of a bill previously passed in the House, and we are going to pass it in the Senate. There is another provision in here which is very important. A program which provides housing for veterans with traumatic brain injury was about to expire. This legislation extends that program for a number of years, which will be a real relief for people who were worried they would be out on the street and not have adequate housing. It has been from day one--from my first day as chairman of the veterans committee--my belief that the cost of war in terms of what it does to the men and women who fight our battles is a lot greater than most Americans fully understand. We all mourn the 6,700-plus men and women who died in Iraq and in Afghanistan, but we should understand the cost of war is much greater than that tragedy. The cost of war is the men and women who came home without legs, came home without arms, without eyesight, loss of hearing; the cost of war is the 500,000 men and women who came home from Iraq and Afghanistan with the signature illnesses of this war, which are post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. Those are the signature injuries of this war, and we are talking about 500,000 men and women coming home with those very serious problems. In fact, today--just today--and every day close to 50,000 veterans are going to get outpatient mental health care in VA facilities all over this country--close to 50,000. It has also been my view that when we fully understand the costs of war and the needs of the veterans and their families, it is absolutely imperative that we do not make veterans into political pawns. We do not say, yes, we are going to fund veterans' needs, but we are going to cut Head Start, we are going to cut the National Institutes of Health or we are going to cut education. That is absolutely unfair to our veterans. A cost of war is the cost of planes and guns and tanks and aircraft carriers--those are a cost of war. An equally significant cost of war is the needs of men and women who fought our battles and who used those weapons. What this legislation says and what the House just passed by a 420-to-5 vote is that taking care of veterans is in fact a cost of war. The CBO has come up with some recent estimates which lower the costs a little bit. But this bill will put close to--a little bit less than $17 billion into VA health care over the next several years. There is $5 billion in offsets from within the VA that I was comfortable with that will bring the total cost of this package down to somewhere around perhaps $11 billion. Is that a lot of money? It is a lot of money. But that is the cost of war, and that is what happens when millions of veterans come home and need the care they are entitled to receive. As I mentioned a moment ago, the House passed this legislation by an overwhelming vote of 420 to 5. I wish to thank Chairman Miller in the House for the work he has done in getting that result. My understanding is that in a few hours we will be voting on that bill, and I hope we can pass this legislation with a very strong bipartisan vote. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I rise today in strong support of the nomination of Robert McDonald to serve as Secretary of Veterans' Affairs. I also thank Majority Leader Reid for moving this important nomination forward as quickly as he has, and I very much hope that later this afternoon, with a very strong vote, the Senate will vote to confirm Robert McDonald as Secretary of the VA. Before I talk about Mr. McDonald's qualifications, I wish to take a moment to express my sincere thanks to GEN Eric Shinseki for his dedicated service to our Nation, first as a soldier and then as head of the VA, working tirelessly to provide for those injured during war and the families of those who perished on the battlefield. He set very ambitious goals, and under his leadership VA made significant strides in reducing veteran homelessness and transforming a paper-based claims system to one fit for the 21st century. I thank him and his family very much for his service. It is my strong belief that Robert McDonald will bring two very important qualities to the position of Secretary of Veterans Affairs. First, he is familiar with the military as well as the needs of veterans and their families. Mr. McDonald and his family have a history of service to our Nation. Mr. McDonald began his service as a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He graduated in 1975 in the top 2 percent of his class with a degree in engineering and went on to serve as an infantry officer in the Army's 82nd Airborne, earning Airborne and Ranger qualifications during his military service. His father served in the Army Air Corps after World War II. Additionally, his wife's father was held as a POW after being shot down over Europe. Her uncle served in Vietnam and still receives care at the VA. Also, Mr. McDonald's nephew is currently serving and deployed with the U.S. Air Force. In other words, Mr. McDonald and his family have a deep understanding and service with the U.S. military. Upon hearing Mr. McDonald at the hearing we held in our committee for the confirmation process, I was convinced that he has a deep passion to do everything he can to protect our veterans. The other quality Mr. McDonald brings to this job is that he has been the CEO of one of America's leading corporations, a company which has tens of thousands of employees. His more than 33 years with Procter & Gamble gives him the tools to create a well-run and accountable VA. In other words, he will bring the tools of a CEO and a private corporation to the VA--a huge bureaucracy that needs a significant improvement in accountability and in management. As we begin debate on Mr. McDonald's nomination, I believe it is important that my colleagues understand the realities he will face in leading the VA. The VA operates the largest integrated health care system in the United States, with over 1,700 points of care which include 150 hospitals, 820 community-based outreach clinics, and 300 vet centers. In fiscal year 2013 the VA provided 89.7 million outpatient visits each day--today, tomorrow, yesterday. The VA conducts approximately 236,000 health care appointments. In other words, it is a huge system. VA's problems, which Mr. McDonald will have to address immediately, have been widely reported in recent months. In my view, Acting Secretary Sloan Gibson has done an excellent job in taking a number of critical steps to address the problems confronting the VA, but clearly there is much more to be done. We now know, among other issues, there is a significant shortage of doctors, nurses, and mental health providers within VA, as well as the physical space necessary to provide timely access to quality care. This is a major problem because at the end of the day, no matter how well run the VA is or any health care system is, we are not going to be able to provide quality, timely care unless there are the doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel available to do that work. As a result of the shortages, we know that we have tens of thousands of veterans today in many parts of this country on lists that are much too long in order to gain access to the VA. We also know that hundreds of thousands of veterans who have appointments scheduled are waiting too long to be seen and receive care. I think it is important that everybody recognize that as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in the last 5 years 2 million more veterans have come into the VA. This is on top of an aging population of VA patients who served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam--patients who often need a whole lot of care as they age. So combine new people coming into the VA, often with very serious problems--including some 500,000 veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD and TBI--and an aging population with difficult problems, and that is where we are, and those are some of the issues the VA is going to have to address. While I am on the subject, let me say that most people understand-- and that includes many of the veterans I talk to every day in Vermont, veterans across the country, and the national veterans organizations that represent millions of veterans--that once people get into the VA system, in general the quality of care is good. That is not just what veterans and their organizations say; that is what a number of independent studies show. Our problem right now is how to figure out a way that when people apply for VA health care, they get into the system quickly and that once they are in the system, they get the appointments they need in a timely manner. That is our job. It is not going to be an easy job, but that is the job we face. My hope is that tomorrow or Thursday the House and the Senate will be voting on a comprehensive piece of legislation authored by Congressman Jeff Miller, chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, and me. I think it is terribly important that we pass that bipartisan legislation with a strong vote in both Houses because that legislation will give the new Secretary the tools he needs to go forward aggressively in addressing many of the problems facing the VA. I hope every Member of the House and Senate understands it is unacceptable that veterans in this country are on terribly long waiting lines and cannot get the health care they need in a timely manner. This legislation, which I hope will be passed this week by the House and the Senate, provides $10 billion for emergency health care so that if a veteran can't get into the VA, that veteran will be able to go to a private physician, a community-based health center, a military base, or whatever but will be able to get timely care. In addition, the legislation puts $5 billion into the VA so that they will be able to hire the doctors, the mental health counselors, nurses, and other medical personnel they need so that as soon as possible, when veterans apply for VA health care, they will get not only quality care but timely care. In addition, this legislation addresses an issue many veterans around the country, especially in rural areas, are worried about--that if they live long distances away from the VA, they will not have to travel 100 miles to get the health care they need; that if they live 40 miles or more away from the VA facility, they will be able to go to a doctor of their choice in that community. This is an important step forward. This legislation will also do some terribly important work in making sure that widows--women who lost their husbands in battle--will be able to get the education they should be entitled to under the post-9/11 GI bill. This legislation deals with an issue passed by the House; that is, instate tuition for veterans who today may not be able to take advantage of the post-9/11 GI bill. This legislation also addresses a very serious crisis within the military today; that is, the issue of sexual abuse and providing women and men who have been abused sexually in the military with care at the VA. We are at a very important moment in terms of the Veterans' Administration. We will have new leadership at the VA after Mr. McDonald is confirmed. We have a significant piece of legislation that I hope and expect will be passed this week to give the new leadership the tools it needs to start addressing the problems facing our veterans. It seems to me that if this Nation stands for anything, it must protect and defend those who have protected and defended us. When people put their lives on the line and they come back wounded from war--either in body or in spirit--it seems absolutely immoral if we turn our backs on those men and women. The legislation we will pass this week begins to address those concerns, and I hope we will do so under the new leadership Mr. McDonald will provide. Madam President, I yield my remaining time to Senator Brown to hear his comments on the nomination.

Mr. SANDERS

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

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, on June 11--a month and a half ago--in a very strong bipartisan way, the Senate voted 93 to 3--an overwhelming vote--to pass legislation written by Senator John McCain, a Republican, and myself to address crises facing our veterans community and the VA and to protect and defend the men and women who have put their lives on the line to defend us. I wish to take this opportunity again to thank Senator McCain for his very strong efforts on getting that legislation passed. As you know, the legislation we passed was estimated by the Congressional Budget Office, the CBO, to cost about $35 billion. At just about the same time, the House of Representatives passed legislation dealing with, more or less, the same issues, and the bill they passed in the House was estimated by CBO to cost $44 billion--$9 billion more than what we passed in the Senate. In the last 6 weeks, my staff, my colleagues, and I have been working very hard to refine this legislation, to come up with a more reasonable pricetag, and to address the needs of our veterans community in a significant way. In that process, I have been accused by some of ``moving the goalposts.'' I guess I have. I have moved the goalposts so the legislation we are introducing today is substantially lower-- substantially lower--than what passed the Senate and what passed the House. If that is called moving the goalposts, I suspect in this case it is moving the goalposts in a positive direction. In fact, the bill we are presenting would cost less than $25 billion--a lot of money, no doubt--but that is some $10 billion less than what we passed on the Senate floor, and it is $19 billion less than what the House passed. Our proposal is a commonsense proposal which deals in a significant way with the needs of the veterans community. What it does is provide emergency funding for contract services so veterans can, when they find themselves in long waiting periods--as in fact is the case in a number of locations around the country--they can go outside of the VA and get private health care or care at a community health center or whatever. They no longer have to wait during this emergency period for long periods of time to get into the VA. I think that is a very important part of this proposal. It is something we have to do. In addition, what we also say is if a veteran is living more than 40 miles from a VA facility--and there are veterans who in some cases are living hundreds of miles away--they do not have to, when they are ill, get in their car and travel for 3 or 4 hours to get health care at a VA facility. They will be able to go to a non-VA facility, a private physician, if they live more than 40 miles away from a VA facility. I think that is a significant step forward. But what our legislation also does is address an issue of huge concern to the veterans community. Just yesterday--just yesterday--I received, and many members in the Veterans' Committee received, a letter from 16 major veterans organizations. I ask unanimous consent to have the letter printed in the Record.

Mr. SANDERS. One more second. I wanted to paraphrase. Tell me if I am misquoting. I do not have it in front of me, but when we were debating this bill on the floor, the Senator said--we were talking about emergency funding--something to the effect of if this is not an emergency, I do not know what an emergency is. Is that a correct paraphrase?

Mr. SANDERS. I thank Senator McCain very much for his statements and for his hard work on this and would reiterate what he said; that is, my belief that what we have here on the Senate floor, that if taking care of the men and women who have put their lives on the line to defend us and who came home without arms or legs, or without their eyesight or 500,000 of them who came home with post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury--if that is not an emergency, taking care of those brave men and women, I agree with Senator McCain, I do not know what an emergency is. I am happy to yield the floor for my colleague from Alaska, Senator Begich.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, 16 major veterans organizations, including the Disabled American Veterans, the Veterans of Foreign Wars--the VFW--Paralyzed Veterans of America, the Vietnam Veterans of America, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the Military Officers Association of America, and many others--wonderful veterans organizations that have worked for years representing the needs of millions and millions of veterans--what these organizations say in this letter is that while we must address the immediate crisis of doing away with these long waiting lines and allowing veterans to get private care, what they also say--loudly and clearly--is that the VA must have the doctors, the nurses, and the space capacity that it needs so that in the future it will be able to permanently eliminate these long waiting lines so that 2 years from now, 3 years from now, when veterans come into the VA, they will get quality care, they will get timely care. That is what the veterans organizations have said. I will quote to you one small paragraph of a long letter. They say that the charge of the conference committee should be ``to ensure that all veterans currently waiting for treatment must be provided access to timely, convenient health care as quickly as medically indicated,'' and at the same time ``protect, preserve and strengthen the VA health care system so that it remains capable of providing a full continuum of high-quality, timely health care to all enrolled veterans.'' Last week, in a Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee meeting, Sloan Gibson, the Acting Secretary of the VA, stated that the VA needed over $16 billion in order to hire thousands and thousands of doctors, nurses, other medical providers. In many VA facilities doctors do not have the examining rooms they need. There are space problems all over this country. What the veterans organizations--16 of them--said loudly and clearly is that Sloan Gibson, the new Acting Secretary of the VA-- approved with wide Republican support--they said we support his proposal. Our legislation does not give the VA all that Mr. Gibson would like, but we do provide them with the doctors and the nurses and the medical staff they need so we do not continue to have long waiting lines at VA hospitals all over this country, so we do not come back 2 years from now in the same position, with veterans not being able to get timely care. I have worked for a month and a half with my House Republican colleagues, led by the Veterans' Affairs chairman there, Jeff Miller, to find a compromise. Everybody knows the House looks at the world differently than the Senate--we all know that--and if we go forward, we need a compromise. We have put good-faith offers on the table time and time again and we have tried to meet our Republican colleagues more than halfway, but I am very sad to say that at this point--and I hope this changes--but at this point I can only conclude, with great reluctance, that the good faith we have shown is simply not being reciprocated by the other side. Standing here and saying this is the last thing I want to be doing. Our veterans deserve a responsible solution to this crisis. Last night--this is an example of what has happened--somewhere around 10 o'clock in the night, the cochairman of the veterans conference committee, Mr. Miller in the House, announced unilaterally, without my knowledge or without my concurrence, that he was going to hold a so- called conference committee meeting in order to introduce his proposals. Needless to say, his proposal is something I have yet to see. I do not know what it is. This is a proposal nobody on our side has seen. My understanding is he then wants to take this to the House on Monday to come up with a vote. In other words, his idea of negotiation is: We have a proposal. Take it or leave it. Any sixth grader in a school in the United States understands this is not negotiation, this is not what democracy is about. I note the presence on the floor of the coauthor of the bill passed in the Senate, Senator McCain, and I am happy to yield the floor for Senator McCain.

Mr. SANDERS. First of all, I want to thank Senator McCain again for all of his hard work on this issue. Let me ask a few questions. The Senator and I have been talking the last few days. Does the Senator not think--he has been here for 1 or 2 years--that the best way to go forward is for people to sit down at a table and knock out their differences? And then the idea of presenting it to a conference is absolutely right. But the Senator knows, and I know, that what conference committees are largely about are 5-minute speeches. I have been disappointed that I have not--I think the Senator will agree with me, maybe not, that the best way forward is for people to sit down in a room and work out their differences, not to go forward with unilateral statements. Does that make sense?

Mr. SANDERS. I thank Senator Begich.

Mr. SANDERS. Let me ask Senator McCain one more question. I thank the Senator very much. He is not on, at this moment, the Veterans' Affairs Committee, but he has jumped into this with both feet and is playing a very big role. Would the Senator be prepared if, generally speaking, what happens is the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate and the House get together--you are not the chairman, you are not the ranking member, but I think you could play a good role. Would the Senator be prepared to sit down with the other four members, myself, the other three, and help us reach a compromise?