Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Right. OK. Fair enough. That is fair enough. But what I would like to do--and I appreciate--you know, I think you and I can agree that we don't use the committee structure here in the Senate as effectively as we might. That is the place to have serious debate and discussion, correct?

Mr. SANDERS. OK. I would hope in one way or another--I would appreciate if we could start off with my bill. You could come in and tell me what you don't like about it, and we can go from there. But this is a crisis situation--I think you and I agree--that too many of our seniors are suffering because of lack of dental, hearing, and vision. I look forward to hearing what you have to say. Let's debate it. But can we get this into the committee and have a serious discussion on it?

Mr. SANDERS. It will.

Mr. SANDERS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I thank the minority leader for his comments. I am here tonight with colleagues who have worked extremely hard to protect the sovereignty of Ukraine and to defend democracy in that country and, in fact, throughout the world. And I thank all of my colleagues for getting on the floor this evening and for the resolutions that they will be bringing forth. I am not a historian, but I do know that, for the last 250 years, since the inception of our great country, despite our imperfections, the United States has stood in the world as a symbol of democracy. And all over the world--all over the world--people have looked to our country as an example of freedom and self-governance to which the rest of the world could aspire. People have long looked to our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution as blueprints for how to establish governments of the people, by the people, and for the people. Tragically, all of that is now changing. As President Trump moves this country toward authoritarianism, he is aligning himself with dictators and despots who share his disdain for democracy and the rule of law. Last week--just last week--in a radical departure from longstanding U.S. policy, the Trump administration voted against a United Nations resolution which clearly stated that Russia began the horrific war in Ukraine. That U.N. resolution also called on Russia to withdraw its forces from occupied Ukraine, in line with international law. The resolution was brought forward by our closest allies, countries that we have been aligned with for God knows how many years, including the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and dozens of other democratic nations. And 93 countries at the U.N. voted yes on that resolution. Rather than side with our longstanding allies to preserve democracy and uphold international law, President Trump voted with authoritarian nations like Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Belarus to oppose the resolution. Many of the other opponents of that resolution are undemocratic nations propped up by Russian military aid. But it wasn't just the U.N. vote. Pathetically, President Trump also told an outrageous lie, claiming that it was Ukraine that started the war, not Russia. He also called Zelenskyy a dictator, rather than the leader of a democratic nation, as he is. As we discuss Ukraine tonight, it is terribly important that we not forget who Vladimir Putin is and why he is no friend of the United States and why we should not be in an alliance with him against Ukraine. Putin is a man who crushed Russia's movement toward democracy after the end of the Cold War. Putin is a man who steals elections, murders political dissidents, and crushes freedom of the press. He has maintained control in Russia by offering the oligarchs there a simple deal: If they grant him absolute power and share the spoils--and he, by the way, is one of the wealthiest people in the world--he would let them steal as much as they wanted from the Russian people. The result: While the vast majority of the Russian population struggles economically, Putin and his fellow oligarchs stash trillions of dollars in offshore tax havens. And so today, 26 years after he took power, Putin is the absolute ruler of Russia, and I think, as everyone knows, Russia's elections are blatantly fraudulent--a sham. And Putin is the man who sparked the bloodiest war in Europe since World War II. More than 3 years ago, on February 24, 2022, Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations and international law. Russian land, air, and naval forces have attacked and occupied territory across Ukraine. Since that terrible day, more than a million people have been killed or injured because of Putin's war. Putin's forces have massacred civilians and kidnapped thousands of Ukrainian children, bringing them back to Russian reeducation camps. These atrocities led the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Putin in 2023 as a war criminal--a war criminal. That is who we are aligning ourselves with. And still today, Russia continues its attacks, raining down hundreds of missiles and drones on Ukrainian citizens. Russian forces illegally occupy about 20 percent of Ukraine's sovereign territory. This war could end today, right now. If Putin gave up his outrageous effort to conquer a neighboring country, the war could end today. The killing could stop right now if Putin gave that order, and that simply is what my resolution says to Vladimir Putin: Stop the killing. Obey international law. Withdraw your forces and cease your attacks on Ukraine. And I, honestly, just don't know how anybody in the U.S. Senate could object to that simple demand. Now, more than at any time in recent history, it is imperative that the Senate come together in a bipartisan manner to make it clear that we stand for democracy, not authoritarianism; that we stand for international law, not conquest by force; and that we stand with Ukraine and fellow democracies throughout the world, not with the murderous dictator of Russia. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 109, which was submitted earlier today; further, that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. SANDERS. One brief remark because I strongly disagree on this issue with my friend. You think it takes Trump to end the war. You think that Putin alone can't end the war. Well, who do you think started the war? Who do you think runs Russia with an iron fist? If, tomorrow, Putin thought it was to his advantage to end this war, he would do it, and as a dictator, he can do it. So, with that, Mr. President, I would--I don't want to yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS. Let me respond to my friend from Idaho. I think he said, to paraphrase him a bit, there is one man who can stop the war. You are right. But that man doesn't live here in Washington, DC. That man happens to live in Moscow, and his name is Vladimir Putin. He is the one who started the war. And, in my view, when we ally ourselves with Putin, when we threaten and, in fact, cut back on military support or intelligence support for Ukraine, do you know what we are telling that one man? We are saying you have got a green light. The United States is withdrawing. You do what you want. You continue the war. You continue to pummel the people of Ukraine, who have already suffered so terribly. So I think it is true that there are many approaches to how we can end this war, and I agree with my friend that we all have the common goal of wanting to end this war. But I think the fastest way forward is in a bipartisan way. You have 100 U.S. Senators and hopefully 435 Members of the House who stand up and say: Mr. Putin, you started this terrible war. You are acting illegally. You are acting barbarically. Stop that war. That, in my mind, would be a major step forward to ending the atrocities we are currently seeing.

Mr. SANDERS. Could I ask my friend--I mean this sincerely--Senator Risch, would you agree with me that he is a dictator who runs Russia?

Mr. SANDERS. All right. The point is, he is a dictator, and he can end the war unilaterally, in my view. I yield the floor. Unanimous Consent Request--S. Res. 110

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I speak with senior citizens all over Vermont and, in fact, in many parts of the country. Just last night, we held a telephone townhall in Vermont, and in our small State, 34,000 people were on the line. I think the reason for that is there is a great deal of anxiety among people in general and seniors in particular regarding the Republican budget proposal that was passed the other day in the House. Seniors and Americans all over this country have reason to be concerned. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, the Republican budget would give over $1 trillion in tax breaks to the top 1 percent-- that is billionaires and the wealthiest people in our country. In Vermont and all over this country, seniors are asking: Well, how are they going to pay for that trillion-dollar gift to the 1 percent? The answer is not complicated. They have made it clear. Republicans will be making massive cuts in healthcare, nutrition assistance, affordable housing, and education. These are precisely the programs that working families and kids and the elderly and the sick and the poor most depend upon. The Republican budget would cut Medicaid by $880 billion. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has estimated that if these cuts are implemented, up to 36 million Americans, including millions of children, would have their health insurance taken away from them. Let's be clear. When we have Republicans in the House passing a budget to make massive cuts to Medicaid, we are not just talking about throwing millions of kids off of the healthcare they need; we are also talking about massive cuts to community health centers, where some 32 million Americans receive the primary healthcare they need and where community health centers receive 43 percent of their funding from Medicaid. So a massive cut to Medicaid is a cut to community health centers and is a cut to the services that 32 million Americans receive, including many, many seniors. At a time when we have a major crisis in nursing home availability in Vermont and all over this country, let us understand that Medicaid provides for two out of every three seniors who live in nursing homes. A massive cut to Medicaid is a massive cut to nursing homes and the people who utilize those homes. How many seniors would be thrown out of nursing homes if the Republicans cut Medicaid by $880 billion? Nobody knows, but it would be a disaster for working families and their parents. That is for sure. But it is not just Medicaid cuts that seniors are worried about. Today, nearly 22 percent of people over 65 years of age are trying to survive on an income of less than $15,000 a year. That is an unbelievable and horrific reality. Imagine anyone in America, in any part of this country--let alone a senior citizen--trying to survive on $15,000 a year or less. I don't know how anybody can possibly do that, especially seniors who have healthcare needs and need prescription drugs and who need to heat their homes more than the general public. And it is not just seniors trying to get by on $15,000; half of our Nation's seniors are trying to get by on less than $30,000 a year. The bottom line is that in the richest country in the history of the world, you have millions and millions of seniors today--people who helped build this country, people who raised us--who are barely getting by in the year 2025. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the OECD, the United States now has the dubious distinction of not only having one of the highest rates of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, we also have one of the highest rates of senior poverty--senior poverty--compared to other wealthy nations. In America today, according to the latest OECD estimates, 23 percent of seniors are living in poverty compared to just 4.1 percent in Norway, 6.1 percent in France, 9.5 percent in Ireland, and 14.9 percent in the United Kingdom. That is a dubious distinction. That is something we should not be proud of. That is a crisis we should be addressing. In addition to the poverty that millions of seniors in America are experiencing today, about half of older workers--these are people in the workforce right now, people between the ages of 55 and 64--have no retirement savings at all. You are 60 years old. You have worked your entire life. Half of the people in that situation--from 55 to 64--have no retirement savings at all. As bad as all of that is, many of my Republican colleagues have proposed making a bad situation--a tragic situation--even worse by cutting Social Security. Some want to cut benefits. Others want to raise the retirement age. Then there are some who simply want to privatize Social Security and give it over to Wall Street. Well, I strongly disagree. At a time when millions of seniors are struggling to keep their heads above water, I don't believe that now is the time--in fact, never is the time--to cut Social Security benefits. Instead of cutting Social Security and giving tax breaks to billionaires, Congress must expand Social Security so that every senior in America can retire with the dignity and the respect that he or she deserves. Further and importantly to the younger generation, we must also make Social Security solvent for generations to come. So that is the goal. The goal is to say to seniors all over this country, in the richest country on Earth: We are going to address the fact that many of you can't quite figure out how to buy the food you need, heat your homes, get the prescription drugs you need. You are struggling. You helped build this country. You are our parents and our grandparents. We stand with you. That is why I have introduced legislation today with 10 of my colleagues--Senators Warren, Merkley, Welch, Padilla, Smith, Van Hollen, Markey, Booker, Gillibrand, and Whitehouse--to accomplish both of those goals. This legislation would make Social Security solvent for the next 75 years. It would lift millions of seniors out of poverty, and it would expand benefits for seniors and people with disabilities by $2,400 a year. Now, I know that in the world here in Washington where the government is now run by billionaires, $2,400 doesn't seem like a whole lot of money, but if you are trying to get by on $15,000 a year and can't afford to heat your house and can't afford to buy a prescription drug that you need, $2,400 is something that will help. How do we do this? What does this legislation do? Well, at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when billionaires pay an effective tax rate lower than the average worker, this legislation demands that the wealthiest people in America, the billionaires and others, start paying their fair share of taxes. Today, absurdly and unfairly, a billionaire pays the same amount of money into Social Security as someone who makes $176,000 a year. A billionaire pays the same amount into Social Security as somebody who makes $176,000 a year. That is because there is a cap on the Social Security payroll tax. What does that mean? It means, if you make up to $176,000 a year, you pay 6.2 percent of your income in Social Security taxes, but if you make 10 times more--$1.7 million a year--you pay just 0.62 percent of your income in Social Security taxes. If you make $1 billion a year, you pay nothing more into the Social Security fund than someone making $176,000. Now, that may make sense to somebody--probably to the billionaire class--but it does not make sense to me. This legislation applies the Social Security payroll tax to all income--including capital gains and dividends--for those who make over $250,000 a year. Under this bill, 91 percent of households in our country would not see their taxes go up by one single penny--not one penny for the bottom 91 percent. Not only is this legislation good public policy, it also happens to be precisely what the American people want. According to a Data for Progress poll, 81 percent of the American people, including 79 percent of Independents and 75 percent of Republicans, support expanding Social Security benefits. So in passing this legislation, it is not only good policy, it is precisely what Democrats, Republicans, and Independents want. Therefore, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 770, which was introduced earlier today; that the bill be considered read three times and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, since 2010, I have sponsored a State of the Union essay contest for Vermont high school students. This contest gives students in my State the opportunity to articulate what issues they would prioritize if they were President of the United States. This is the contest's 15th year, and I would like to congratulate the 475 students who participated. It is truly heartening to see so many young people engaged in finding solutions for the problems that face our country. To my mind, this is what democracy is all about. A volunteer panel of Vermont educators reviewed the essays and chose Justason Lahue as this year's winner. Justason, a junior at Burr and Burton Academy, wrote about the impact of social media on youth mental health. Ari Glasser, a junior at Essex High School, was the second- place winner. Ari wrote about the influence of billionaires on American politics. Ely White, a senior at Leland & Gray Union Middle and High School, was the third-place winner, with an essay on political polarization. I am very proud to enter into the Congressional Record the essays submitted by Justason, Ari and Ely. The material follows: Winner, Justason LaHue, Burr and Burton Academy, Junior Social media is deteriorating adolescent mental health, yet the United States' government is treating the situation like a social experiment; our government is waiting to see what will happen despite the mounting evidence that social media has dangerous effects. Until we apply evidence-based regulations to limit social media use, adolescent well-being is in jeopardy. The current evidence of harm is compelling. A 2023 Gallup survey found that teenagers spend an average of 4.8 hours on social media daily. Alarmingly, a longitudinal study involving 6,595 adolescents revealed that spending over 3 hours daily on social media doubled the risk of poor mental health outcomes, such as anxiety and depression. These are not studies in isolation: a systematic review of 13 studies also found that unhealthy engagement of social media was correlated with depression, anxiety, and psychological distress. While these studies demonstrate correlation, there are also indicators of causality. Numerous studies highlight how limiting social media use can improve mental health. A randomized controlled trial reported that reducing social media use by just 30 minutes daily lessened depressive symptoms in college students. Another study involving adolescents showed that ceasing social media use for 4 weeks resulted in a 25-40% improvement in subjective well-being (e.g., life satisfaction, depression, and anxiety) when compared to psychological interventions such as therapy. Social media use can worsen adolescent mental health, while lessening use demonstrates the opposite effect. Adolescent brain development is most active from ages 10 to 14. However, the arbitrary and rarely enforced `internet age' currently set at 13 exposes immature brains to a world of entertainment, inappropriate content, and harassment. Given these biological factors and the evidence of potential harm, a more appropriate age for adolescents to access the internet is 16 years of age. I propose a bill called the Youth Mental Health Protection Act. This act would target a root cause of social media- related youth mental health issues by changing the legal age of `internet adulthood' (i.e., when one can sign up for most online platforms, consent to terms of service, and share personal data). This act would make 16 the legally required age to access social media, similar to obtaining a driver's license in most states, another privilege requiring complex thinking and decision-making. Finally, the Youth Mental Health Protection Act would hold social media companies liable by requiring age verification prior to account creation. Requiring age checks would likely lessen the negative effects of social media on adolescent mental health, however, this is just one step the United States government needs to take to solve this crisis. To counteract the harms introduced by this ongoing social experiment, policy-makers need to act now. Enacting the Youth Mental Health Protection Act and prioritizing further research on the effects of social media is imperative to safeguard the mental health of our nation's youth. Second Place, Ari Glasser, Essex High School, Junior President-elect Donald Trump has so far nominated over a dozen billionaires to his cabinet, with a combined net worth of over $400 billion-more than ten times the GDP of the state of Vermont. In addition, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, was one of Trump's strongest supporters during the election campaign: He donated a staggering $277 million to Trump and other Republican candidates, according to CBS News. It is clear that the ultra-wealthy control a growing share of both political and economic power in the United States, holding disproportionate sway that erodes the power of the American people. The expanding influence of the billionaire class is one of the greatest challenges facing America today. The recent trend of billionaire influence is reminiscent of the Gilded Age, a time when an incredibly wealthy group of industrialists such as John D. Rockefeller presided over vast monopolies while the government struggled to break them up. Meanwhile, the urban masses worked long hours with deplorable conditions and little pay. It was a kind of oligarchic society, one where these ``Captains of Industry'' wielded immense political and economic influence. Today, America is in a sort of Second Gilded Age-complete with drastic wealth inequality and a dangerous level of influence by the ultra- wealthy that is becoming ever nearer to oligarchy. Just 735 billionaires hold more wealth than the bottom half of all American households. In order to reduce the concerning level of billionaire influence, many reforms must be enacted, but perhaps most important is a wealth tax. This could raise trillions of dollars for the government while also reducing the wealth and influence of billionaires over time. One such proposal would be Senator Bernie Sanders' plan, which would implement a progressive wealth tax, starting at one percent on net worth over $32 million, up to eight percent on net worth over $10 billion. According to Sanders, this plan would cut in half the wealth of billionaires over just 15 years, greatly reducing wealth inequality and the power of the top 0.1 percent. In addition to reducing the economic power of billionaires, their political influence must be reduced through the use of campaign finance reform-most importantly, overturning the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC. This case eviscerated campaign finance regulations and essentially allowed unlimited contributions to political groups known as super PACs, such as the one Elon Musk donated to. While it may be difficult, passing a proposal such as the We the People Amendment would reverse the Citizens United decision by putting an end to the antidemocratic concepts that money equals political speech, and that corporations are people. While there is no simple solution to ending the dangerous influence of billionaires in American politics and the economy, through important legislative action such as a wealth tax and campaign finance reform, America can stop the encroachment of oligarchy on its society. Third Place, Ely White, Leland and Gray Union Middle High School Abraham Lincoln once said, ``a house divided against itself cannot stand.'' Speaking solemnly of the dire state of division in the United States leading up to the Civil War, it is now over a century later that his words resonate once more. Political polarization has grown in the past decade in the United States, transforming healthy debates of ideas into an endless battle of ``us'' against ``them.'' Division has infiltrated into all facets of American life, a political landscape where compromise is rare and partisan loyalty is prioritized. This deepening division threatens the ideals of our democracy, making it nearly impossible to address the critical issues that face our country today. A 2022 NBC News survey revealed that 80% of Americans believe the opposing party ``poses a threat that, if not stopped, will destroy America.'' This growing divide is evident in the 2018-19 government shutdown, when a standoff between Democrats and Republicans over border wall funding caused a 35-day gridlock. With neither side willing to compromise, 800,000 government workers went unpaid, and federal services became disrupted. Heightened polarization has normalized the prioritization of party loyalty over national needs, a theme of officials refusing to seek bi- partisan solutions even with critical federal services, workers, and decisions at stake. Beyond our boardrooms and capitals, division based on political views has become synonymous with what it means to be American. Pew Research Center's 2022 report on polarization shows that 72% of Republicans view Democrats as more immoral than other Americans, and 62% of Democrats say the same about Republicans. Political identity has become tribal in nature, a defining characteristic of one's morality and values. Political polarization strains relationships in families, communities, and workplaces, the American Psychological Association reporting that 38% of adults avoided conversations with people of opposing political views. Addressing solutions to America's political division is complex. Specific systemic reforms, however, can help reduce polarization by shifting the incentives that drive division. Ranked-choice voting (RCV) is a system that allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference, the votes for the lowest-ranking candidate then redistributed to voters' next choice until a majority is achieved. RCV would encourage candidates to appeal to broader ranges of voters rather than just their base, incentivizing politicians to take moderate stances rather than extreme party-driven positions. Reforming the closed primary system by adopting open or top-two systems would force candidates to appeal to a broader electorate, reducing the influence of extreme partisanship and encouraging more moderation. Integrating civic education and media literacy into our schools and communities could also work as a grassroots solution in helping individuals evaluate information and recognize bias in misinformation and ideological chambers. The future of our democracy depends on our ability to bridge divides and prioritize unity over partisanship. We must rebuild trust, restore faith in our institutions, and create a government that serves all Americans. Change begins with us- and we call and act for a system that brings us together, not tears us apart.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, since 2010, I have sponsored a State of the Union essay contest for Vermont high school students. This contest gives students in my State the opportunity to articulate what issues they would prioritize if they were President of the United States. This is the contest's 15th year, and I would like to congratulate the nine volunteer judges who helped choose the contest winners and finalists. The contest relies on its committed team of judges. The judges take time to review each essay and evaluate the diversity in writing that engages students and will benefit them for years to come. The judges' willingness to participate in this project reflects their dedication to both the students and our State, and for that, I graciously thank them. The judges include: Andrew Chobanian of Oxbow High School--participant for 3 years Jason Gorczyk of Milton High School--participant for 12 years Krista Huling of South Burlington High School--participant for 12 years Robert Jackson Randolph Technical Career Center-- participant for their first year Krystal Melendez of North Country Union High School-- participant for their first year Mary Schell of White River Valley School--participant for 3 years Terri Vest of Twinfield Union School--participant for 15 years Robert Walls-Thumma of North Country Union High School-- participant for their first year Caroline Zeilenga of Randolph Technical Career Center-- participant for their first year I am very proud to enter the State of the Union Essay Contest judges into the Congressional Record to recognize their contributions.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask to have entered into the Record some of the finalists' essays written by Vermont High School students as part of the 15th Annual State of the Union Essay contest conducted by my office. The material follows: Finalists

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, we live in difficult times, in times where people throughout our country are experiencing a great deal of anxiety for a number of reasons. And in the midst of all of that, it is important that we not forget what is taking place not only in Ukraine but back home here in the United States. And back home, right now, tens of millions of Americans are struggling economically to keep their heads above water. Mr. President, 60 percent of our people are living paycheck to paycheck, 85 million are uninsured or underinsured, and we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major nation on Earth. And as someone who has visited senior centers throughout the State of Vermont and has spoken to seniors throughout our country, I can tell you that there is a significant level of fear and anxiety among the older people in this country with regard to what is happening right here in DC. When we have a President of the United States and Republicans who are talking about massive cuts to Medicaid, let's understand--and seniors do understand--that we are not just talking about throwing millions of kids off the healthcare that they have at a time when we are the only major country not to provide healthcare to all people--not just kids off their healthcare, we are talking about massive cuts to community health centers, which receive over 40 percent of their funding from Medicaid and where millions of seniors go to get the primary care they need. And at a time when we already have a major crisis in nursing home availability, let us understand that Medicaid provides funding for two out of every three seniors who live in nursing homes. In other words, massive cuts to Medicaid would be a disaster for senior citizens throughout this country. But it is not just Medicaid cuts that worry our seniors. Today, quite unbelievably--and we don't talk about this anywhere near enough--25 percent of people in our country who are 65 years of age or older are trying to survive on incomes of $15,000 a year or less. I myself do not know how anybody, let alone a senior with healthcare needs, can survive on $15,000 a year, but that is what 25 percent of our seniors are trying to do. Mr. President, this issue of so many seniors struggling to get by, struggling to heat their homes, struggling to buy the food or the prescription drugs they need, this is an issue we must address, and it is a crisis that is unacceptable in the richest country in the history of the world. That is why I am proud to tell you that within the next several weeks, I, along with a number of cosponsors, will be introducing legislation that expands Social Security benefits and extends the solvency of Social Security for decades. We are hearing a lot of talk about cutting Social Security. We should not be talking about cutting Social Security; we must be talking about expanding Social Security benefits. And the legislation that I will introduce would do just that. It would expand Social Security benefits by $2,400 a year, and it would not raise taxes by one penny on the bottom 93 percent of Americans, those who make less than $250,000 a year. And how do we do that? By lifting the cap at applying the Social Security payroll tax on all income above $250,000. Unbelievably, under current law, a billionaire pays the same amount of money into Social Security as someone who makes $176,000 a year. Elon Musk, worth $400 billion, pays the same amount into Social Security as somebody who makes $176,000. That is because, under Social Security, there is an absurd cap on taxable income. If we lifted that cap and made sure that millionaires and billionaires paid the same percentage of their income into Social Security as the working class of this country, we could extend the life of Social Security for generations to come and lift millions of seniors out of poverty. Further, when we talk about the needs of senior citizens in this country, I want to mention that I will also be introducing legislation to expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing. It is unacceptable that millions of seniors are unable to read a newspaper because they cannot afford eyeglasses, can't have conversations with their grandchildren because they can't afford hearing aids, and have trouble eating because they cannot afford dentures. That should not be happening in the United States of America in the year 2025. Expanding Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing is an extremely popular concept. Poll after poll shows that 80 percent of the American people--Democrats, Republicans, Independents--support doing just that. Mr. President, when we talk about the anxieties that the American people are now experiencing, it is not just, to say the least, senior citizens. All across this country, there is a growing fear that the Trump administration is undermining the Constitution of our country, a Constitution which has kept us a free nation, an example, a model for the rest of the world for the last 250 years. During the last month alone, President Trump has attempted to usurp the powers of Congress, illegally and unconstitutionally refusing to fund programs passed by Congress. He has illegally destroyed agencies like USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that were created by Congress. And under the leadership of Mr. Musk, they have illegally and inappropriately gained access to tax data and Social Security data of millions of Americans, et cetera, et cetera. Every day, they are acting in an illegal and unconstitutional manner. And I would say this--and I don't know if people take it seriously or not; I do--just this week, President Trump tweeted: He who saves his Country does not violate any Law. Wow. In other words, Mr. Trump sees himself, the President of the United States, as above the law and immune from the basic rules of the Constitution and the separation of powers that have governed this country since the founding. Hey, anything I want to do--I am President--I can do it. It doesn't matter what Congress says. It doesn't matter what the Constitution says. It doesn't matter what the rule of law is about. Hey, I am the President. I am trying to save the country. I don't need to hear from anybody else. That is not what Americans fought and died to preserve. That is not what this country is about. And with regard to the movement toward authoritarianism, let me say a few words about an area that I think has not gotten much attention at all, and that is Trump's attack on the free press, which is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. The Founding Fathers of this country considered freedom of speech and free press to be enormously important. That was the First Amendment. Mr. Trump has sued CBS and its parent company, Paramount, for $20 billion because he didn't like how they edited an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. The company is now reportedly considering settling the lawsuit--and I certainly hope they do not do that--out of fear of retaliation from Trump's FCC. He did not like a television program on CBS. Well, many of us don't like television programs on CBS or NBC or FOX or ABC, but you don't sue somebody for $20 billion because you didn't like the program. And, obviously, the intention of that lawsuit is clear, and that is that CBS and every other network and media outlet will now have to look over their shoulder: Oh, my goodness, we are saying something critical of Donald Trump. Is he going to sue us for 5 billion, for 10 billion? Is he going to drive us out of business? Maybe we should not run that program. Maybe we should not do that investigative report. Not just CBS. In recent times, he has sued ABC. He has sued Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. He has sued the Des Moines Register. What crime did a little newspaper in Iowa make? What was their crime? They ran a poll which turned out, in retrospect, to be inaccurate. So pollsters all over America, be careful. There was a poll coming out just today--I saw it--that Trump's unfavorables are going up. Hey, you may be sued. Pull that poll. I mean, how absurd is that? And what kind of threat is it to freedom of speech and expression in this country? And when we talk about the Trump administration's movement toward authoritarianism, we should take note of another remarkable and troubling set of events that happened just this week, and my colleague from Colorado spoke at length on that. We saw the President of the United States openly aligning himself with the dictator of Russia--the dictator of Russia--Vladimir Putin, to undermine the independence of Ukraine and abandon our closest democratic allies in Europe. Trump made it clear that he sees one of the world's most brutal dictators as his pal and our longtime democratic allies as his enemies. It appears that Mr. Trump wants a world that is safe for authoritarians and oligarchs but dangerous and unstable for democracies. And when we talk about authoritarianism, we have got to mention the growing phenomenon in this country of the Big Lie. The Big Lie. Say something that is blatantly untrue, repeat it over and over again, and then blast that lie out on social media until people actually believe it. Let me mention one of the very big lies that Trump said recently regarding the war in Ukraine earlier this week. The President said that Ukraine started the war. Trump said that Ukraine started the war. Really? That is, as I hope every Member of the Senate knows, an absolute lie. Russia invaded Ukraine twice; first, in 2014 and then again on February 24, 2022. And on that date, February 24, 2022, Putin's tanks and troops rolled into Ukraine. And on that day, Russian aircraft began bombing targets all over Ukraine. Russia started the war. Period. End of discussion. Trump is lying. Since Putin's invasion, over 1 million people have been killed or injured every single day. Russia continues to rain down hundreds of missiles and drones on Ukrainian cities. Putin's forces have massacred civilians and kidnapped thousands of Ukrainian children, bringing them back to Russian reeducation camps. These atrocities led the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin in 2023 as a war criminal. Further, Trump called Ukrainian President Zelenskyy--not Putin, but Zelenskyy--a dictator, and that obviously is not true either. Zelenskyy won 75 percent of the vote in free elections, and in the midst of a brutal war, Ukraine's Parliament continues to function and open and unfettered political debate takes place. Trump recently claimed that our European allies have done little to support Ukraine in its fight against Putin's invasion. He said the United States has contributed three times more than Europe. Well, that is another lie. In fact, Europe has provided more aid to Ukraine than the United States. But it is not just that Trump is lying again. That is not new. It is what this all reveals about where we want to take our country and where we want the world to be moving--what direction. Trump is cozying up to Vladimir Putin. So who is Putin, and what kind of world does Putin want to build? Putin is a dictator who crushed Russia's movement toward democracy after the end of the Cold War. Russia now holds sham elections where Putin wins 90 percent of the vote, and authorities there do not even try to hide their ballot stuffing. There is no freedom of speech or free media in Putin's Russia. Protests are violently suppressed. Tens of thousands of people are imprisoned for protesting Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Political dissidents are harassed or thrown into jail. The bravest people like Alexei Navalny are killed outright. Hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled Putin's Russia since his invasion of Ukraine. That is the Russian leader that Donald Trump admires. But my Republican colleagues know all of this. And what is particularly disturbing to me--and I believe the American people--is my colleagues, my Republican colleagues, understand and know that Trump is lying; they know that Russia started the war, not Ukraine; they know that Putin is a dictator, not Zelenskyy, but their silence has been overwhelming on this issue. I cannot tell you how many times I have sat here on the floor and I have listened to my Republican colleagues come to the Senate to condemn Vladimir Putin and his brutal invasion of Ukraine. Many of their remarks were right on the money. They were perceptive, and they were right. And my simple question to my Republican colleagues right now is: Where are you now? Last I heard, this is still a democracy. Last I heard, we are still allowed to disagree with the President of the United States, even if he is a member of your own party. Last I heard, we are allowed to call out the President when he lies-- blatantly lies--even if he is a member of our own party. And what really bothers me is I know that many of my Republican colleagues understand all of this. I just want to give you an example of what is going on right now. Let me just quote a few of my Republican colleagues in statements they have made since Putin's invasion of Ukraine. These are Republican Members of the U.S. Senate, and I am not going to mention names right now. I don't want to embarrass anyone, put anybody on the spot. These are quotes. One leading Republican said: We must remember that the instigator of this war was Russia. It was President Putin who launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine. That Republican colleague was obviously right. Another Republican said: I think Vladimir Putin started the war. I also believe, through bitter experience, that Vladimir Putin is a gangster. That is a Republican colleague. A third Republican colleague: There is no equivalency between Vladimir Putin and President Zelenskyy. President Putin is evil, and he has to be stopped. Fourth Republican--and this is just a few of the quotes. I could probably come up with dozens of quotes. Fourth Republican said when the war began: Today's invasion of Ukraine by Russia is a premeditated and flagrant act of war. Putin has violated the border of a sovereign country. That Senator later said: Anyone who is surprised by Putin's deadly attack on a sovereign nation has not been paying attention. These are the actions of a madman. Just recently that very same Senator said: Putin is not going to stop with Ukraine. If we abandon Ukraine and throw in the towel--as some would like us to do-- that is going to drastically change how people view the United States, and how people rely on the United States, and there will be major consequences. A fifth Republican--fifth Republican colleague here in the Senate called Putin a thug and compared him to Hitler. He said: Vladimir Putin is not a legitimate leader. He is a war criminal that needs to be dealt with. That is what my Republican colleagues have said time and time again. The question is, Now do you have the courage to continue telling the truth when the President of the United States is lying? This is an extraordinarily pivotal moment in American history, and all of us must have the courage to stand up for truth, to stand up for democracy, to oppose authoritarianism. This is the moment. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, we are living in an extremely dangerous time. Future generations will look back at this moment--what we do right now--and remember whether we had the courage to defend our democracy against the growing threats of oligarchy and authoritarianism. They will remember whether we stood with President Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg who, in 1863, looking out over a battlefield where thousands of people had died--thousands of soldiers died in the fight against slavery--and he stated that ``this Nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that a government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.'' Do we stand with Lincoln's vision of America, or do we sit idly by and allow this country to move into a new vision, and that is a government of the billionaire class, by the billionaire class, for the billionaire class? But it is not just oligarchy that we should be concerned about, not just the reality that today three people own more wealth than the bottom half of American society, 170 million--three people, more wealth than the bottom 17 million Americans. It is not just that the gap between the very, very rich and everyone else is growing wider. And it is not just that we have more income and wealth inequality today than we have ever had. On top of all of that, the reality is that today we are moving rapidly under President Trump toward authoritarianism, more and more power resting in fewer and fewer hands. Mr. President, as we speak, right now, Elon Musk, the wealthiest man on the planet, is attempting to dismantle major Agencies of the Federal Government which are designed to protect the needs of working families and the disadvantaged. These Agencies were created by the U.S. Congress, and it is Congress's responsibility to maintain them, to reform them, or to end them. It is not Mr. Musk's responsibility. What Mr. Musk is doing is patently illegal and unconstitutional and must be ended. Mr. President, 2 weeks ago, President Trump attempted to suspend all Federal grants and loans, an outrageous and clearly unconstitutional act. As I hope every sixth grader--every kid in the sixth grade--in this country knows, under the Constitution and our form of government, the President can recommend legislation, he can support legislation, he can veto legislation, but he does not have the power to unilaterally terminate funding passed by the Congress. It is Congress--the House and the Senate--that controls the purse strings. But in this move toward authoritarianism, it is not just the Congress that is being attacked; it is our judiciary. This weekend, the Vice President of the United States--a graduate of Yale Law School who clerked for a Supreme Court Justice--said: Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power. Really? I thought that one of the major functions of the Federal courts was to interpret our Constitution and, when appropriate, serve as a check on the unconstitutional power of the Executive. That is not just what I believe; that is what I suspect every legal scholar and lawyer in America understands to be the case. Further, Mr. Musk, meanwhile, has proposed that the ``worst 1 percent of appointed judges be fired every year,'' and he demanded the impeachment of judges who have blocked him from accessing sensitive Treasury Department files. No doubt, under Mr. Musk's rule, it will be him and his billionaire friends who determine who the worst judges are. And no, Mr. Musk, I must tell you: You don't impeach judges who rule against you here in the United States. You may or may not know this, Mr. Musk, but under the U.S. Constitution, we have a separation of powers, brilliantly crafted by the Founding Fathers of this country in the 1770s, and it has worked pretty well throughout our country's history. We have an executive branch, we have a legislative branch, and we have a judiciary. What we are seeing now is not just an organized attack on the power of the Congress and the responsibility of the judiciary; Mr. Trump and his friends are not just trying to undermine two of the three pillars of our constitutional government--the Congress and the courts; they are also going after the media in a way that we have never seen in the modern history of this country. Trust me that every Member of Congress will tell you that the people working in the media and media organizations are not perfect. We have all had our experiences with the media. Media, like everything else, makes mistakes every day. But I do hope that every Member of Congress understands that you cannot have a functioning democracy, that you cannot have a free-flow of information, that you cannot have the pursuit of truth without an independent press--a press not intimidated by Presidents of the United States but a press who writes it and sees it the way they understand it to be. In that regard, I want to mention to my colleagues what President Trump has done just in recent months. Mr. Trump has sued ABC and received a $15 million settlement. He has sued Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, and received a $25 million settlement. He has sued CBS and its parent company, Paramount, and is right now in negotiations over a settlement. He has sued the Des Moines Register for poll results that he didn't like, and his FCC is now threatening to investigate PBS and NPR--major news outlets in our country. In other words, we have a President of the United States who is using his incredible power and the power of his Agencies to go after media in this country that are saying and doing things he does not like. How are we going to have an independent media if journalists are looking over their shoulders, fearful that their reporting will trigger a lawsuit from the most powerful Executive in the world? In the midst of all of this, I think that now is the time to ask a very, very simple question, something, I think, that is on the minds of millions of Americans: What do Mr. Musk, Mr. Trump, and their fellow billionaires really want? It is not really taking over Greenland or the Panama Canal and all of that stuff. The real question is, What is their endgame? What is their goal? What are they striving for? In my view, the answer really is not complicated. It is not novel. It is not new. It is, in fact, exactly what ruling classes throughout history have always wanted and have always believed to be their right-- their right--and that is more power for themselves, more control for themselves, and more wealth for themselves, and in their pursuit of more power, more control, and more wealth, they are determined to not allow democracy and the rule of law to get in their way. For Mr. Musk and his fellow oligarchs, the needs, the concerns, the pain, the ideas, the dreams of ordinary people are simply an impediment to what they, the oligarchs, are entitled to, and that is really what they believe. They are entitled to all of the wealth and the power they have, and they are determined to stop anyone who gets in their way. This process--this phenomenon--that is going on right now is not the first time that we have seen this in our country's history. As I think many Americans understand, in pre-revolutionary America--before the 1770s, before the creation of the United States and the writing of our Constitution--the ruling class of that time governed through a doctrine called the divine right of Kings--the belief that the King of England was an agent of God, that God appointed him, and that he was not to be questioned by mere mortal human beings. He was appointed by God. In modern times, we no longer have the divine right of Kings. What we now have is an ideology being pushed by the oligarchs which says that, as a very, very wealthy group of people--often self-made, often the masters of revolutionary new technology--and as high IQ individuals, it is their absolute right to rule. In other words, the oligarchs of today are our modern-day Kings. It is not just power that they want. Despite the incredible wealth they currently have, they want more and more and more. Their greed has no end. Today, Mr. Musk is worth $402 billion, Mr. Zuckerberg is worth $252 billion, and Mr. Bezos is worth $249 billion. With a combined wealth of $903 billion, these three people own more wealth than the bottom half of American society--170 million Americans--and, not surprisingly, since Trump was elected, their wealth has soared. Musk has become $138 billion richer, Zuckerberg has become $49 billion richer, and Bezos has become $28 billion richer since election day in November. Meanwhile, while the very rich become much richer, 60 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured in terms of healthcare, 25 percent of our seniors in this country are trying to survive on $15,000 a year or less, 800,000 Americans are homeless, we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth, and real inflation-adjusted wages for the average American worker has not gone up in 50 years. Does anyone really think that the oligarchs give a damn about ordinary Americans? Trust me, they don't. Musk's decision to dismember USAID means that tens of thousands of the poorest people in this world will either go hungry or die of preventable diseases--tens of thousands of people. But it is not just USAID and what is happening abroad. Here in the United States--mark my words--if we do not stop them, they will soon be going after the healthcare, nutrition, housing, and educational programs that protect the most vulnerable people in our country--all so that they can raise the money they need to provide huge tax breaks for themselves and for other billionaires. As modern-day Kings who believe they have the absolute right to rule, they will sacrifice without hesitation the well-being of working people in order to protect their power and their privileges. Further, they will use the enormous media operations they own to deflect attention away from the impact of their policies while they entertain us to death. Mr. Musk owns Twitter. Mr. Zuckerberg owns Meta, which includes Facebook and Instagram. Mr. Bezos owns the Washington Post and Twitch. Further, they and their fellow oligarchs will continue within our corrupt campaign finance system to spend huge amounts of money to buy politicians in both major political parties. The bottom line: The oligarchs, with their unlimited amounts of money, are waging a war on the working class of our country, and it is a war they are intent on winning. Now, I am not going to kid anybody. The problems that our country faces right now are enormously serious, and they are not easy to solve. Our economy is rigged--the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the middle class struggles. Our campaign finance system is totally corrupt. Billionaires can now pour as much money as they want into both political parties. And climate change is ravaging our country and the world with unprecedented levels of extreme weather disturbances, among many other crises our country faces. In the midst of all of these crises, this is what I do know, and this is what I do believe, and that is that the worst fear of the ruling class of our country is that the American people, whether they are Black or White or Latino, whether they are urban or rural, whether they are young or old, gay or straight--whatever--the fear of the ruling class is that the American people will come together to demand a government that represents all of us, not just the people on top. Their oligarchs' nightmare is that we will not allow ourselves to be divided up by race, religion, sexual orientation, or country of origin and will come together and have the courage to take them on. Will this struggle be easy? No, it will not, and one of the reasons that it will not be easy is that the ruling class of this country will constantly remind us that they have the power. They control the government. They own the media. But our job right now, in these difficult times, is to go back and remember the great struggles and sacrifices that millions of Americans have waged over the centuries in difficult times to create a more democratic, just, and humane society. Think about all of the sacrifices and the struggles that Americans went through to create a more democratic, just, humane society, and think about trying to put yourselves where they were in those times of crisis. Think about what was being said at those times. Think about the 1770s. Overthrowing the King of England--the most powerful person on Earth--the British Empire, to create a new nation and have self-rule here in the Colonies--impossible. So many people thought it could not be done. Establishing universal suffrage, the right of all people, whether they were wealthy or not, to vote--imagine that. What a radical idea: extending the right to vote to poor people--impossible. It couldn't be done. But it was done. Ending slavery and segregation, taking on all of the power of the slaveholders--impossible. But it was done. Granting workers the right to form unions and ending child labor, taking on the power of big business--impossible. But it was done. Giving women control over their own bodies, taking on sexism, taking on the powers that be--it couldn't be done--impossible. But it was done. Passing legislation to establish Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, a minimum wage, clean air and water standards--impossible. It couldn't be done. But it was done. In other words, I think back to what Nelson Mandela told us, and he said: Everything is impossible until it is done. So in these difficult days, when we find ourselves arrayed against the wealthiest people in the world, the most powerful people in the world, people who want to expand the power of the oligarchy, people who want to move us toward authoritarianism--I know. I know that people get discouraged that we can't take them on; that we cannot create a government that works for all and not just the few; that we cannot do what every other major country on Earth does--guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right--that we cannot raise the minimum wage to a living wage so that tens of millions of people do not earn starvation wages; that we cannot make sure that all of our kids get the quality education that they deserve; that we can't expand Social Security or lower the poverty rate among seniors. I know that, in this moment, people say: Well, that is an impossible dream; it can't be done. But I think, if you look back on American history, you will find that, in very difficult and dark days, when people came together, they did the impossible. This ain't going to be easy. We are taking on enormously powerful people who really do not believe in democracy or the rule of law. But if we stand together, we are going to win this fight. And not only will we save American democracy; we are going to create the kind of Nation that I think most of us know we should become. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, how am I recorded?

Mr. SANDERS. I vote no.

Mr. SANDERS

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

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, today, we find ourselves in a pivotal moment in American history, and millions of Americans, by their actions or lack of action, will determine the future of our country for decades. In my view, the Trump administration is moving this country very aggressively into an oligarchic form of society where extraordinary power rests in the hands of a small number of unelected multibillionaires. The Trump administration is moving this country very aggressively into an authoritarian society, where the rule of law and our Constitution are being ignored and undermined in order to give more power to the White House and the billionaires who now control our government. The Trump administration is moving this country very rapidly toward a kleptocracy, where the function of government is not to serve the needs of ordinary people but to enrich those who are in power. Mr. President, I think that today is a very good day to recall what one of our great Presidents said at Gettysburg in November of 1863. Looking out at a battlefield where thousands of Union soldiers had just sacrificed their lives in the defense of freedom and the ending of slavery, Abraham Lincoln famously stated: The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did-- The soldiers did-- here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-- The great task remaining before us. --that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-- And this is how he concluded-- That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. ``Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth''--I fear very much that under President Trump we are not seeing a ``government of the people, by the people, for the people,'' but rather a government of the billionaire class, by the billionaire class, and for the billionaire class. And what is really interesting is that none of this is happening behind closed doors. It is not being done in secret. It is right out there for everybody to see. Several weeks ago, Donald Trump was inaugurated for a second term as President. Standing right behind him were the three richest men in America: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg. Combined, these three men are worth $920 billion. These three men own more wealth than the bottom half of American society, 170 million people--three guys, 170 million people. And I should point out--and this should tell you exactly where we are going as a nation--these three men, the wealthiest three in America, have become some $232 billion richer since Trump was elected, a few weeks ago--three guys, $232 billion richer since Trump was elected. This is how an oligarchic system works. Elon Musk, the wealthiest person in the world and now a key part of the Trump administration, spent over $277 million to get Trump elected. In other words, within a corrupt campaign finance system, which allows billionaires to spend as much as they want, he helped buy the election for Mr. Trump. Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, the second and third wealthiest people in our country, both kicked a million dollars each into Trump's inauguration fund. And let us remember that Mr. Bezos who, among other things, owns the Washington Post, rescinded the endorsement of that paper for Kamala Harris just before the election. Mr. Bezos was showing early on that he was willing to bend the knee for Donald Trump. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, agreed to settle a lawsuit with Trump for $25 million. These three multibillionaires are working with Trump for one very simple reason: They understand that Trump's policies are designed to make the very wealthiest people in this country even richer. Since Trump's election, Mr. Musk has become $154 billion richer--not bad in a couple of weeks' time. He earned a great investment. He only spent a couple of hundred million on the election, and now he is $154 billion richer. Mr. Bezos has become $35 billion richer, and Mr. Zuckerberg has become $43 billion richer. I am concerned not only about the growing movement toward oligarchy in this country, but I am deeply worried that, under the leadership of President Trump, we are moving rapidly toward authoritarianism. All over this country, people are alarmed and shocked by what they have seen in the last several weeks. Just a few examples--just a few: Last week, President Trump attempted to suspend all Federal grants and loans, in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution and Federal law. As every third grader in America knows--or I hope knows--the power of the purse in the United States belongs to Congress, not the President. Yes, the President can recommend legislation to Congress. The President can veto legislation Congress has passed. But he does not have the power to unilaterally terminate funding and legislation that has been passed by the U.S. Congress. That is a dangerous and blatantly unconstitutional act. And I should add that Trump's blocking of Federal funding would have had a horrific impact on millions of Americans who utilize programs like Medicaid, Head Start, community health centers, Meals on Wheels, homeless veterans programs, and many, many other initiatives. Tens of millions of Americans, including some of the most vulnerable in our country, were impacted by that decision. But that is not all. A few days ago, Trump fired 17 inspectors general, independent government watchdogs that were created by Congress in the wake of the Watergate scandal to prevent the abuse of power by the executive branch. Last week, President Trump fired a member of the National Labor Relations Board, and in so doing, effectively neutered the only Federal Agency in America with the authority to hold corporations accountable for illegal union busting and to protect the constitutional right of millions of workers who want to join unions in order to earn better wages, working conditions, and benefits. Not only is that move blatantly illegal, it is exactly what Elon Musk, the owner of Tesla, and Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, have been fighting for months. They don't like unions, and what Mr. Trump has given them is the opportunity to make it much, much harder for workers to organize in their companies. President Trump also illegally fired members of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the only independent Commission in our country that protects workers against discrimination in the workforce. Further, and what should upset every American--no matter whether you are conservative, moderate, or progressive--is that, in direct violation of the Constitution and Federal law, Trump is intimidating the media, with lawsuits against ABC, CBS, Meta, and the Des Moines Register. His FCC is now threatening to investigate PBS and NPR. What Trump is essentially saying to every media outlet in America: If you say or do anything that is critical of me, that displeases me, you may be subject to a lawsuit or a Federal investigation. If that is not a direct attack on the First Amendment, on the U.S. Constitution, and on free speech in our country, I don't know what is. But that is not all. Elon Musk and his unelected minions at DOGE have forced out officials at the Treasury Department and illegally shut down USAID, a program which, among other things, helps feed and provide medical help to starving and desperate children all over the world. Presidents, much less unelected billionaires, do not have the unilateral right to shut down Federal Agencies established by Congress. And when we talk about the very dangerous movement toward authoritarianism that we are seeing in this country now, let us not forget Trump's pardoning of the January 6 insurrectionists who injured 174 police officers right here, right outside this floor. Even worse, not only did he pardon those people, but Trump is undermining the FBI by actually investigating the agents there who helped bring these violent criminals to justice. Imagine that, pardoning the people who broke the law and investigating the people who upheld the law. That is not what America is supposed to be about. And under Trump we are rapidly moving toward a kleptocracy as well. Just before the President was inaugurated, he and his wife launched their own cryptocurrency coins, giving them the potential to earn many billions of dollars. If Wall Street CEOs tried to bribe the President with a bag full of money, that would be illegal; that is against the law. But now they don't have to do that. Today, if a multibillionaire or the head of a foreign country wants to curry favor with the President, all they have to do is buy his cryptocurrency coins; and when they do that, they are directly enriching Mr. Trump. So the question that millions of Americans are asking is, given the move toward oligarchy, given the move toward authoritarianism, given the movement toward kleptocracy, where do we go from here? What should we, as Americans, be doing? Let me tell you what I think and what most Americans think; and that is, instead of moving toward an economy which is designed to benefit the very richest people in our country, we have got to create an economy and a government that works for all of us, not just for Mr. Musk or Mr. Bezos or Mr. Zuckerberg. At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, we have never had more income and wealth inequality than we have had right now. It is beyond stupidity to provide more tax breaks to the very richest people in our country and then to pay for those tax breaks by cutting back on Medicaid and other programs desperately needed by working families all across this country. That is what we should not be doing. But let me take a moment to tell you what we should be doing. At a time when 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured in our broken healthcare system, we have got to do what every other major country on Earth does, and that is guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right, not a privilege. That is what we have got to do. At a time when one out of four Americans cannot afford the outrageously high prices that the pharmaceutical industry charges, we have got to end the absurdity of the American people paying by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. We have got to cut the cost of medicine in this country in half, making it comparable with what the rest of the world is paying. The Federal minimum wage today is $7.25 an hour. That is a starvation wage. While 60 percent of our people--60 percent of Americans--live paycheck to paycheck, we must raise that minimum wage to a living wage, at least $17 an hour. If you work 40 hours a week in the richest country on Earth, you should not be living in poverty. Mr. Musk and Mr. Bezos want to make it harder for workers to join unions. Well, we have got to do exactly the opposite: Make it easier for workers to join unions by passing the PRO Act. At a time when we need the best educated workforce in the world, we need to have the best public schools in the world, and, among other things, that means we need to substantially raise teachers' salaries. We need to attract the best and the brightest young people into education, and we do that, among other things, by making sure that no teacher in America earns less than $60,000 a year. We also radically reform our broken childcare system so the little kids in this country get the quality care they need and the workers there are adequately compensated. All over this country, from Vermont to L.A., we have a major housing crisis, and it is not just the 800,000 Americans who are homeless; it is millions of working families who are spending 40, 50, or 60 percent of their limited incomes on housing. Instead of spending almost $1 trillion a year on a wasteful and bloated Pentagon budget, we have to build millions of units of low- income and affordable housing. When we do that, we put large numbers of American workers to work at good-paying, union jobs. I have heard time and again from Mr. Trump's supporters that the President won the election and he has been given this huge mandate-- just an overwhelming mandate--to do whatever he wants. Well, no President has the right to move us to oligarchy or authoritarianism or kleptocracy. But more important, let's not forget that while Trump did win this election, he actually received 4 million fewer votes than Biden did in 2020 when Biden won the election. So here we are. Where do we go? What do we do? I think now is the time for the American people to come together, to not allow those who want to divide us up by the color of our skin or our sexual orientation or where we were born--that is what they want to do. They want to divide us up. Now is the time for us to come together like never before and make certain we do not move toward oligarchy, make certain we do not move toward authoritarianism or a kleptocracy. Most important, in the richest country in the history of the world, we must understand that we have the capability of providing a decent life for all of our people. We can do that when we stand together and we don't let folks divide us. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, as we go forward in this new session of Congress, I would hope very much that there will be a serious focus on the crises facing the working families of our country. We are the wealthiest nation on Earth. In fact, we are the wealthiest Nation in the history of the world. Yet, today, we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had. Sixty percent of our people live paycheck to paycheck. The life expectancy of working people is far below that in other wealthy countries. Eighty-five million Americans are uninsured or underinsured. Some 800,000 Americans are homeless. Twenty-five percent of seniors are trying to survive on $15,000 a year or less. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major nation on Earth. Further, we remain, shamefully, the only wealthy country not to guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right. Meanwhile, while working families struggle to put food on the table and pay their bills, the wealthiest people in our country have never, ever had it so good. We are now in the absurd situation, the grossly unjust situation, where the 3 wealthiest people on top own more wealth than the bottom half of American society, some 170 million people. The 3 people on top have more wealth than 170 million on the bottom. That is not what America is supposed to be about. In truth, there are a number of reasons why we are living in a nation today where the wealth of the billionaire class is exploding while the working class of our country struggles to keep their heads above water. There are many causes as to why, despite a huge increase in worker productivity, real weekly wages for the average American worker are less today than they were 50 years ago--real weekly wages are less than they were 50 years ago--and why, during that period, there was a $50 trillion transfer of wealth from the bottom 90 percent to the top 1 percent. Now, a lot of the reasons as to why the very rich are becoming richer and working-class families are struggling have to do with disastrous trade policies which have resulted in the loss of millions of good- paying jobs. The failure of Congress to raise the minimum wage to a living wage is another reason why millions and millions of workers today are forced to try to survive on starvation wages. Furthermore, we are seeing and have seen aggressive and often illegal union-busting activities on the part of major employers. All of those reasons, and more, are issues that we have to deal with. Today, I want to focus on one more reason as to why the working class of this country is struggling, and that has to do with the H-1B guest worker program. Elon Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, with a net worth of nearly $430 billion, and other multibillionaires in the high-tech industry claim that the H-1B Federal guest worker program is vital to our economy because of the scarcity of highly skilled engineers and other technology workers in the United States. In other words, what they say is that they are trying desperately to find highly skilled American workers to do their jobs; just can't find them; just not there. In my view, Musk and the other billionaires who are strongly supporting the H-1B Program are dead wrong. American workers are there; they are just not looking for them. In my view, the main function of the H-1B Program is not to hire the best and the brightest. That is the theory--we have to bring in the best and the brightest to help our companies function and grow wealth in America. That is the theory, but in truth, the reality of what the H-1B Program is, is to replace good-paying American jobs with hundreds of thousands of lower paid guest workers from abroad who are often treated as indentured servants. The cheaper it is to hire guest workers, the more money the multibillionaire owners of large corporations make. In other words, this program is not only grossly unfair to American workers; in many ways, it is unfair to foreign workers as well. According to the Economic Policy Institute, between 2022 and 2023, the top 30 companies using the H-1B Program laid off 85,000 American workers while simultaneously bringing in over 34,000 guest workers from abroad. In 2019 and 2020, 85 percent of H-1B visas were awarded to entry level and junior guest workers, who are paid between 20 to 40 percent less than American workers in similar occupations. So, No. 1, it is simply not true that the H-1B Program focuses on the very rare and highly skilled workers that American companies cannot find. Eighty-five percent, to repeat, of H-1B visas were awarded to entry level and junior guest workers, and they are paid 20 to 40 percent less than American workers in similar occupations. Let me just give you a few examples as to how unfair the H-1B Program is. In Dallas, TX, H-1B software developers are making $44,000 less than American workers doing the exact same job. This is information from the U.S. Department of Labor. In Houston, TX, H-1B accountants--I did not know, to be honest with you, that we had a scarcity in accountants, but be that as it may, H-1B accountants are paid nearly $40,000 less than American accountants doing the exact same work. In Santa Barbara, CA, H-1B workers who are hired as computer system engineers make just $45,000 a year. Does that sound like the kind of salary that would bring forth some extremely, highly skilled people for jobs that American workers cannot fill? Madam President, you tell me. Why would a corporation hire an American computer systems engineer at a salary of $110,000 a year when it is $65,000 cheaper to hire an H-1B worker for that same exact position? That is basically what this whole debate is about, and that is that large corporations are paying foreign workers substantially lower salaries than they are paying American workers. Madam President, if you want to know why multibillionaire owners of high-tech companies love the H-1B Program so much, that is the reason why. They are using this program to substantially undercut the wages of American workers. Moreover, there are estimates that as many as 33 percent of all new information technology jobs in America are being filled by guest workers. According to the Census Bureau data, there are millions of Americans with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math who are not currently employed in those professions. In other words, we tell kids ``Go out and get involved in STEM work. Become a scientist. Become an engineer. Become a mathematician,'' whatever, and then we bring in people from abroad to fill the jobs they were educated to do. Adding insult to injury, half of the top 30 H-1B employers are companies whose major function in life is to outsource jobs, known in the industry as body shops. In other words, the same companies that are involved with supplying American companies with cheap foreign labor at home are the same exact companies that provide even cheaper labor to corporations when they move abroad. They are two sides of the same coin. Madam President, if there is truly a major shortage of skilled tech workers in this country, as Elon Musk and others have argued, why did Tesla lay off over 7,500 American workers last year, including many software developers and engineers at its factory in Austin, TX, while, at the same time, applying to hire thousands of H-1B guest workers? If these jobs are only going to the ``best and the brightest,'' why has Tesla employed H-1B guest workers as associate accountants for as little as $58,000 a year, associate mechanical engineers for as little as $70,000 a year, and associate material planners for as little as $80,000 a year? I will admit, I am not a rocket scientist. But, to my mind, those occupations don't sound like highly specialized jobs that are primarily for the top 0.1 percent, as Mr. Musk claimed last month. If this program is really supposed to be about importing workers with highly advanced degrees in science and technology, why are H-1B guest workers being employed as fashion models, lawyers, dog trainers, massage therapists, cooks, and English teachers? One might think that, in the United States of America, we could find English teachers and not need to bring in people from abroad. Further, does anyone really believe that in America we do not have enough lawyers and need to bring in more attorneys from abroad? At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, we need fundamental changes in our economic policies. We need an economy that works for all, not just the few. And one small but very important way forward in that direction is to bring about major reforms to the H-1B Program in order to benefit American workers. That is why I have filed an amendment to the Laken Riley bill that we are debating this week that will do just that. I hope very much that the leaders agree on allowing that amendment to be debated and voted upon. Let me very briefly describe what this amendment does in terms of reforming the H-1B Program. First, this amendment would double the major H-1B fee that corporations pay before they can hire guest workers from abroad. This provision would generate over $370 million in revenue each year. And what would we use that revenue for? Well, it would be used to provide nearly 20,000 scholarships each and every year for American students pursuing advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering, math, and other fields vital to the competitiveness of our Nation. If the Members of this body truly believe we need H-1B visas in order to compensate for a shortage of skilled American professionals, this amendment will attract tens of thousands of America's best and brightest young people into those fields. Second, this amendment requires corporations to substantially increase wages for the jobs they need before they would be allowed to hire H-1B guest workers. Specifically, this amendment would raise the prevailing wage for the H-1B Program to at least the median local wage. In other words, if the H-1B Program is truly meant for ``the best and the brightest,'' it should not be used as a tool to undercut the wages of highly skilled American workers. And that is what this amendment would prevent. Third, this amendment would prohibit corporations from replacing laid-off American workers with H-1B guest workers from overseas. Corporations that are engaged in mass layoffs should not be allowed to replace American workers with guest workers. Finally, this amendment would prevent corporations from treating H-1B guest workers, for all intents and purposes, as indentured servants. Under current law, H-1B guest workers are often locked into lower paying jobs and can have their visas taken away from them by their corporate bosses if they complain about dangerous, unfair, or illegal working conditions. That is unacceptable, and that has got to change. This amendment would make H-1B visas portable and give guest workers the ability to easily change jobs. Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy and others have argued that we need a highly skilled and well-educated workforce. I agree. But the answer is not to bring in cheap labor from abroad through the H-1B Program. The answer is to hire qualified American workers first and to make certain that we have an education system that produces the kind of workforce that our country needs for the jobs of the future. The bottom line: It must never be cheaper for a corporation to hire a guest worker from overseas than an American worker at home. And that is what this amendment is all about. Let's be clear. Thirty years ago, the leaders of corporate America, the political establishment in both major parties, and the editorial boards of the most influential papers in our country told us not to worry about the loss of millions of blue-collar manufacturing jobs that would come as a result of unfettered free-trade agreements like NAFTA and permanent normal trade relations with China: Don't worry about the loss of those jobs. And the reason they told us not to worry is that that job loss would be more than offset by the many good-paying, white-collar information technology jobs that would be created in the United States. Yes, they said, you lose blue-collar manufacturing jobs, but not to worry. We will create zillions of good-paying, white-collar information technology jobs. I, personally, was a Member of Congress at that time and never believed that. And I helped lead the effort against NAFTA and PNTR with China. Unfortunately, I and the many others who opposed those trade agreements were proven correct. NAFTA and PNTR cost us millions of good-paying manufacturing jobs as large corporations shut down here in America and fled to China, Mexico, and other low-wage countries in search of cheap labor. And what about all of those great high-tech jobs that supposedly were going to be created? Well, that didn't quite happen either. As a result of the H-1B guest worker program and other guest worker programs, major corporations are now importing hundreds of thousands of lower paid guest workers from abroad to fill the white-collar technology jobs that are currently available. In other words, heads, billionaires wins; tails, American workers lose. In my view, we can and must change that reality. A good place to start would be to pass this amendment and put American workers first. Multibillionaires and Big Tech should not be allowed to hire guest workers to fill entry-level and mid-level information technology jobs. Those jobs should be going to American workers who have, among other things, the constitutional right to form unions and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits, and working conditions. Madam President, I will be asking for a rollcall vote on this amendment, and I hope very much we can get it to the floor. In my view, the time has come for the American people to know which side their Senators stand on this issue. In order to accomplish that goal, I very much appreciated the statement Majority Leader Thune gave on the floor of the Senate last November about the need for more amendment votes in the Senate. Here is what the majority leader said on November 14 with respect to the amendment process: [A]ll Members of the Senate--and not just the Members of a particular committee--should have a voice in final legislation through amendments on the floor. Members should assume that amendment votes will be the norm. That will mean taking tough votes at times, but that is part of our jobs. I would very much agree with Majority Leader Thune. The truth is that, in the past, whether it has been Republican leaders or Democratic leaders, no one debates that the amendment process has been thwarted. I hope we will see a new opening here where people will be allowed to offer amendments and take up votes. That is what we were elected to do. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I rise today to honor Hugh Espey of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement--a friend, fellow champion of the working class, and person who has never been afraid to speak truth to power and challenge the wealthy elite and special interests. I met Hugh in 2014 when I travelled to Iowa to hear from folks in the Midwest about the challenges they were facing and what they wanted to be done about it. And almost immediately, I met a man who had been doing just that for most of his life. You see, Hugh had been with Iowa CCI since 1979 and served as its executive director since 2003. And he has left a mark that deserves recognition. In the heart of our country is a man and a grassroots organization that has been engaging everyday people to stand up to corporate power and right the injustices faced by the working class for 50 years. That is no small feat. When farmers were told to ``get big or get out,'' and tens of thousands across the country, particularly the Midwest, faced foreclosure and immense undue hardship, Hugh Espey and Iowa CCI were there. Working together, they saved numerous family farmers from foreclosure, in part by using a tool passed by this body in the seventies called the Community Reinvestment Act. Hugh and the members of Iowa CCI showed everyday people that government can and should--and needs--to work for everyday people, not the billionaires, banks, and special interests that want to divide us. And he kept that up through the Great Recession and the challenges facing our country right now. While massive income inequality continues to grow, Hugh Espey and Iowa CCI are there in the heart of the Midwest listening and talking to the people who break their backs to help make this country great--and after hearing their stories, telling them that together we will make an economy that works for us all. Hugh and members of Iowa CCI know that it isn't the wealthy elite who built and who will maintain this country--it is the people who clock in and out every day, tend to the farm, and hold those in power accountable who will be the ones who shepherd us into the next phase of American greatness. Throughout 45 years at Iowa CCI, Hugh has understood the plight of working Americans--because he listens, asks questions, and makes no assumptions about the pain they are feeling. It is a lesson we could all learn from. Hugh has taught, mentored, advised, and more countless community organizers who are out there making this world a better place for those of us living in it and those who will live in it. This isn't easy work, but Hugh doesn't do things that are easy. He does the hard things that need to be done--for the worker, the farmer, the immigrant, the stranger--because he knows we are all in this together and that we all do better when we all do better. I thank Hugh for the important work he has done over the past 45 years and for all that he will accomplish in the years to come--because even though he has retired from CCI, I know that he cannot and will not stop fighting to put people first and put our communities before corporations.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, the time is long overdue for Congress to get its priorities right. And we can begin moving in that direction by rejecting and voting no on a $900 billion defense bill which is full of waste and fraud and cost overruns. I find it amusing that anytime we come to the floor and Members point out that we have a housing crisis, that we have some 600 million Americans who are homeless, that we have millions and millions of people in this country spending 40, 50, 60 percent of their limited incomes on housing, and that we need to invest in low-income and affordable housing, what I hear is we don't have the money. We don't have the money to build affordable housing. When we have 85 million Americans who are uninsured or underinsured-- 60,000 die each year because they don't get to a doctor on time--well, we don't have the money to invest in primary healthcare. When all over this country, working parents are searching desperately to find quality and affordable childcare, we don't have the money to invest in childcare. Madam President, 25 percent of senior citizens in this country are trying to survive on $15,000 a year or less. I don't know anybody in America who could survive on $15,000 or less. But when we talk about increasing Social Security benefits, well, we just can't afford to do that. We just can't afford to expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing, or vision. We just cannot afford to make higher education in America affordable. That is what I hear every single day. When there is an effort to improve life for the working class in this country, I hear no, no, no, we can't afford it. But when it comes to the military industrial complex and their needs, what we hear is yes, yes, yes, with almost no debate. There is nobody who has studied the Pentagon who does not believe there is massive waste and fraud and cost overruns in that industry. Defense contractors routinely overcharge the Pentagon by 40 percent, and just in October, a few months ago, RTX, formerly Raytheon, was fined $950 million for inflating bills to the Department of Defense. They lied about labor costs and about material costs, and they were busy paying bribes to secure foreign business. But it is not just Raytheon. In June, Lockheed Martin was fined $70 million for overcharging the Navy for aircraft parts, the latest in a long line of similar abuses. Fraud is rampant within the military industrial complex. The F-35, the most expensive weapons system in history, has run up hundreds of billions of dollars in cost overruns. GAO now estimates it will cost more than $2 trillion to develop, maintain, and operate that fighter jet through its lifetime. The simple point that I am making is that when it comes to the needs of the military industrial complex and their lobbyists, and that industry which makes millions in campaign contributions, we give them what they want, despite the overwhelming evidence of waste and fraud and the fact that they have not been able to go through an independent audit for the last 7 years. They can't account, literally, for trillions of dollars in property and stuff that they own. They have no idea where the money is going, but we give them more and more money. So my request is simple. I think this week we are going to be voting on a $900 billion defense budget. I think it is time to tell the military industrial complex that they cannot get everything they want. It is time to pay attention to the needs of working families. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, as the holiday season approaches, it is an appropriate time to talk about our national priorities, where we are as a nation, and where we should be going into the future. Right now, tonight, as we assemble here in Washington, DC, there are thousands of people in this city and in the surrounding areas who are sleeping out on the streets. And that is not just Washington, DC, it is almost every major city in the country. When we talk about the housing crisis, it is not just homelessness, it is a reality that millions of people in Vermont and throughout this country are paying 40, 50, 60 percent of their limited incomes for housing. We have a major housing crisis. We need to invest in low- income and affordable housing. Today, in the United States, in the richest country in the history of the world, which today has more income and wealth inequality than it has ever had, while the very rich become much richer, 60 percent of our people are living paycheck to paycheck and millions of workers are earning starvation wages, barely enough to stay alive. The time is long overdue, when we talk about our national priorities, that this Congress pass a livable minimum wage. Raise that minimum wage to a livable level so that no worker in this country who works 40 hours a week lives in poverty--not a radical idea. In the United States today, we have a broken and dysfunctional healthcare system whose major function is not to provide quality, affordable care to our people but to make billions in profits for the insurance companies and the drug companies. The truth is that while 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, while 60,000 die each year because they don't get to a doctor in time, the insurance companies and the drug companies make tens of billions of dollars a year in profit. The time is long overdue for the United States to do what every other major country on Earth does, and that is to guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right. In my view, the most efficient way to do that is to pass a Medicare for all single payer program. Unbelievably, in this wealthy Nation in which three people on top own more wealth than the bottom half of our society, we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any developed country on Earth, and on top of that, millions of parents, working-class parents, cannot find affordable or quality childcare. We need to make quality childcare available for all. In America today, unbelievably, in my view, 25 percent of senior citizens in our country are trying to survive on $15,000 a year or less--$15,000 a year. I don't know how anybody in America, no matter where you live--let alone if you are a senior citizen with additional healthcare and other needs--I don't know how anybody survives on $15,000. We need to expand Social Security benefits by lifting the cap on taxable income so that every senior in this country can retire with dignity and security. Those are just a few of the things that, in my view, we should be doing in Congress if we are representing the needs of all Americans and not just wealthy campaign contributors in the top 1 percent. But tonight I want to say a few words about something that we should not be doing, and that is, in the coming days, with almost no debate, we should not be passing the National Defense Authorization Act, which provides some $900 billion for the Department of Defense--a little bit less than that--$895.2 billion. When spending on nuclear weapons and emergency defense funding is included, the United States will spend this year close to $1 trillion on the military--$1 trillion on the military, and a few blocks away from here, people are sleeping out on the streets. While middle-class and working-class families are struggling to survive, we supposedly just don't have the financial resources to help them. We just cannot afford to build more housing. We just cannot afford to provide quality childcare to our kids or to support public education or to provide healthcare to all. We just can't afford to do that. But when the military-industrial complex and all of their well- paid lobbyists come marching into Capitol Hill, somehow or other, there is more than enough money for Congress to provide them with virtually everything they need. The military-industrial complex speaks, and Congress responds. Of that nearly $1 trillion that will be voted on in the next few days, about half will go to a handful of hugely profitable defense contractors. The Pentagon accounts for about two-thirds of all Federal contracting, obligating more money every year than all civilian Federal Agencies combined--combined. Yet the Pentagon remains the only major Federal Agency that cannot pass an independent audit. The Department of Defense still cannot accurately account for their finances more than 30 years after Congress made it a requirement under Federal law. In the most recent failed audit attempt, the Department of Defense still could not fully account for huge portions of its more than $4 trillion in assets. The GAO--the Government Accountability Office--reports that the Defense Department cannot accurately post transactions to the correct accounts each year. Auditors find billions of dollars the Pentagon didn't even know it had. In fiscal year 2022, Navy auditors found $4.4 billion in untracked inventory. They just lost it. Hey, what is $4 billion among friends when you have $1 trillion to play with? I don't often agree with Elon Musk. I agree with him very, very rarely. But he is right when he says the Pentagon ``has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800 billion is spent.'' That is Musk. The inability to track taxpayer dollars has allowed, within the Defense Department, massive fraud, massive amounts of waste, and unbelievable amounts of cost overruns. Defense contractors routinely overcharge the Pentagon by 40 percent and sometimes much higher than that. For example, just one example, in October, a few months ago, RTX-- formerly Raytheon--was fined $950 million for inflating bills to the Department of Defense as they lied about labor and material costs and as they paid bribes to secure foreign business. They were fined $950 million. In June, Lockheed Martin was fined $70 million for overcharging the Navy for aircraft parts--the latest in a long line of similar abuses. The F-35--the most expensive weapon system in history--has run up hundreds of billions of dollars in cost overruns. GAO now estimates that it will cost more than $2 trillion to develop, maintain, and operate this fighter jet through its lifetime. Today, as a result of massive consolidation in the defense industry, a large portion of the Pentagon budget now goes to just a handful of huge defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, RTX--formerly Raytheon-- General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman. That consolidation has been extremely profitable for the industry. Since 2022, these four contractors have brought in over 600 billion in revenues, including 353 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds and recorded 57 billion in profits. During that same period, they have spent 61 billion on dividends and stock buybacks to make their wealthy shareholders even wealthier. That is just four companies, over less than 3 years, taking 353 billion in taxpayer money and handing 61 billion back to wealthy shareholders. It is worthwhile listening to what Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said earlier this year to a defense industry convention. This is the Secretary of the Navy speaking to defense contractors: Many of you are making record profits, as evidenced by your quarterly financial statements. . . . You can't be asking for the American taxpayer to make greater public investments while you continue to goose your stock prices through stock buybacks . . . and other accounting maneuvers. That is the U.S. Secretary of the Navy, and he is quite right. It is not only fraud and cost overruns that drive up military spending. The major defense contractors also provide their CEOs with exorbitant compensation packages. In the last 3 years for which information is available, the top four defense companies paid their CEOs more than 257 million combined. These companies are all significantly reliant on the U.S. taxpayer. Yet they pay their CEOs about 100 times more than the Secretary of Defense receives. CEOs, defense industry, receive more than 100 times greater compensation than the U.S. Secretary of Defense and 500 times more than the average newly enlisted servicemember. Now, how does that happen? How does it happen that the Defense Department can't pass an audit? How does it happen that every one of the major defense contractors ends up paying fines for fraud? How does it happen that we have massive cost overruns, and yet we give the military industrial complex pretty much what they want. And, by the way, there will be virtually no debate on that issue here on the floor. It is only a trillion dollars. Hey, what is a trillion dollars among friends? People sleeping out on the street; people can't afford healthcare; children going hungry; elderly people can't afford to heat their homes. Got a trillion bucks, no questions asked, for the military industrial complex. So how does all of this happen? And I think most Americans now know the answer. It ain't complicated. These companies--just like the drug companies, just like the insurance companies, just like Wall Street and the big banks, just like the fossil fuel industry--they spend millions and millions of dollars on campaign contributions and lobbying. In the recent election cycle, the one we just came through, defense contractors spent nearly $251 million on lobbying and contributed almost 37 million to political candidates. And surprise, surprise, aren't we all shocked that they end up getting what they want with almost no debate? The waste and fraud in the defense industry is not just, interestingly enough, costing American taxpayers huge amounts of money, it is also costing lives. So let me tell you what I mean by that. Take a look at the war in Ukraine. The United States is providing tens and tens of billions of dollars to help defend Ukraine from Putin's horrific invasion of that country. Despite their recordbreaking profits, many defense contractors said that they couldn't ramp up production of key weapons without more taxpayer support. So the U.S. Government wanted to support, with my vote, Ukraine against Putin's invasion. Ukraine needs weapons. And the defense contractors said: Hey, if you want us to help Ukraine, get them weapons, we need to ramp up production. We need more Federal aid. And so, as part of that process, Congress repeatedly appropriated emergency funding with roughly 78.5 billion going to buy equipment and services from the major defense contractors for Ukraine. And how did, with all of that money, these patriotic defense contractors respond? Did they say: ``Well, thank you. We are going to do everything we can, get all of the weapons we can at a reasonable price to Ukraine, which is fighting for its life''? Not quite. What the defense contractors did is jack up the prices they were charging us in order to help Ukraine. RTX increased prices for Stinger missiles from $25,000 in the 1990s to $400,000 in 2023. Even accounting for inflation and improvements in technology, that is an outrageous price increase. But it wasn't enough for RTX. A recent NATO contract reveals RTX is now charging approximately $745,000 per Stinger. Lockheed Martin and RTX raised the price of the Javelin missile system from about 263,000 per unit just before the war to 350,000 this year. The United States has provided more than 10,000 Javelins to Ukraine. Similar price hikes took place for Patriot missiles and other weapons systems. And make no mistake, every time a contractor pads its profit margins, fewer weapons reach the frontlines. The greed of these defense contractors is not just costing American taxpayers huge amounts of money, it is killing Ukrainians. They are getting less weapons than they should, given the amount of money that we are spending. And there is a name for all of this. It is called war profiteering, and this is not a new problem. During World War II, then-U.S. Senator from Missouri Harry Truman was shocked by the profits made by military contractors while American boys were getting killed in Europe and in the east. And he appointed a special commission--it is called the Truman Commission--to investigate war profiteering, and they found massive amounts of fraud. In my view, that is exactly what we should be doing now. We should be instituting a Truman Commission, or call it whatever you want, to take a hard look at the prices that the defense industry is charging us for the weapons they provide. We should also consider other ideas to reduce waste and fraud in the military industrial complex, such as wider use of the Defense Production Act, significant penalties for audit failures, and a windfall profit tax on hugely profitable defense companies. Most Americans would agree that we need a strong military, and I agree that we need a strong military. But we do not need a defense system that is designed to make huge profits for a handful of giant defense contractors while providing less of what the military needs. We do not need to spend almost a trillion dollars on the military while half a million Americans are homeless, while children go hungry, and while elderly people have difficulty heating their homes. Let me conclude by saying something, which I think is one of the more profound statements ever made by a President, and that is that Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was a former five-star general and a Republican President from 1952 to 1960--he warned us about everything that I am talking about in his farewell address in 1961, and it would be very wise for us to remember what President Eisenhower said, and this is the quote. I quote President Eisenhower: In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. What Eisenhower said was true in 1961. It is even more true today. I intend to vote against this inflated military budget. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I would ask unanimous consent to dispense with further reading of the resolution.