Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, since the beginning of the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve, the Fed, has provided over $2 trillion in taxpayer-backed loans and other financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the world. Let me repeat that: over $2 trillion--with a ``t''--$2 trillion. Over a year ago, as a member of the Budget Committee, I asked Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Fed, a very simple question--very simple question; it could not be simpler--and the question, in so many words, was: Mr. Bernanke, you lent out $2 trillion. Who got that money? Who received the money? What were the terms of those loans? Mr. Bernanke's answer was: No; I am not going to tell you, Senator Sanders. I am not going to tell the Budget Committee, and I am not going to tell the American people. I think that is outrageous. I think when $2 trillion of taxpayers' money is placed at risk, the American people have a right to know. How many debates have we had on the floor of the Senate about legislation dealing with $5 million, $30 million, with feverish debate--whether it is a good idea or a bad idea--and now you are looking at trillions of dollars of taxpayer money being placed at risk, and we do not know who received that. That, to me, is an outrage and that, to me, is unacceptable. On that very day, after Ben Bernanke denied the American people the right to know who received those loans, I introduced legislation requiring the Fed to put that information on their Web site. The Presiding Officer knows as well as I do, millions of lives have been ruined by the greed, the recklessness, and the illegal behavior of Wall Street. While the Fed was providing secret loans, at virtually no interest, to some of the largest financial institutions in this country, millions of Americans were losing their jobs, their homes, their life savings, their ability to send their kids to college--as a direct result of the same Wall Street firms the Fed was propping up. So you have a situation where all over this country families are suffering, small- and medium-sized businesses are in desperate need of affordable loans. Yet you have the Fed providing trillions of dollars to the people who caused the recession and to some of the wealthiest and most powerful CEOs in the country. The very least we can do for the American people is to tell them, to give them the information as to who got bailed out by the Fed. I do not think that is too much to ask. We have to explore whether there were conflicts of interest. How does it work when financial institutions get huge amounts of zero or near zero interest loans? Who sits on the committee? Are there conflicts of interest? We have to know, for example, what I believe to be the case: that some of those financial institutions that received billions in zero or near zero interest loans may have invested that money in T-bills, in Treasury bonds, earning 3 or 4 percent interest. What kind of scam is that? You get zero interest loans from the Fed, and you invest in government-backed T bonds at 3 or 4 percent interest. That is an incredible scam. Did some of those financial institutions do that? I suspect they did. But we do not know what they did with that money and we have a right to find out. Let us be very clear: The money put at risk does not belong to the Fed. It belongs to the American people. The American people have a right to know where their taxpayer dollars are going. Therefore, during the debate on financial reform, I will be offering an amendment to audit the Federal Reserve and to require that the Fed release all the details regarding the more than $2 trillion in virtually zero interest loans the Fed has provided to large financial institutions since the beginning of the economic crisis. We talk a lot around here about the need for bipartisanship or tripartisanship. I am an Independent. Well, this amendment does that. I do not know that there is any amendment out there that has more bipartisan support. This amendment is being cosponsored by Senators Feingold, Leahy, Wyden, Dorgan, and Boxer; Democrats. It is being cosponsored by Senators DeMint, McCain, Grassley, Vitter, Brownback, Graham, Risch, and Wicker; Republicans. But, quite significantly, on the base bill I introduced, from which this amendment comes, this legislation is being supported by 32 cosponsors; that is, 22 Republicans and 10 Democrats, and they run the gamut from some of the most conservative Members of the Senate to some of the most progressive. The Senators who are supporting the base bill are Senators Barrasso, Bennett, Boxer, Brownback, Burr, Cardin, Chambliss, Coburn, Cochran, Cornyn, Crapo, DeMint, Dorgan, Feingold, Graham, Grassley, Harkin, Hatch, Hutchison, Inhofe, Isakson, Landrieu, Leahy, Lincoln, McCain, Murkowski, Risch, Thune, Vitter, Webb, Wicker, and Wyden. That is a very broad cross-section of the Senate, from some of the most conservative to some of the most progressive Members on the base bill, who say it is absurd that the Fed could lend out trillions of dollars without the American people knowing who has received that money. Let me tell you what our amendment would do, and it is pretty simple. No. 1, it would require the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, the GAO, to conduct an independent and comprehensive audit of the Fed within 1 year. Secondly, it would require the Fed to disclose the names of the financial institutions that received over $2 trillion in virtually zero interest loans since the start of the recession. That is it. That is the whole amendment. Pretty simple. I would hope and expect we would have widespread bipartisan support for this amendment when it gets to the floor. This amendment also has widespread community support from organizations all over this country. It has the support of Americans for Financial Reform--a coalition of over 250 consumer, employee, investor, community, and civil rights groups, including the AFL-CIO and the AARP. I should also mention that increasing transparency at the Fed is obviously something the American people want to see, and poll after poll suggests that. This amendment is similar to the Federal Reserve Transparency Act that was introduced in the House by Congressman Ron Paul and now has 320 bipartisan cosponsors. That is a lot. There are 435 Members of the House, and 320 are on the House bill. A version of that bill passed the House Financial Services Committee by a vote of 43 to 28 and was incorporated into the financial reform bill that passed the House last December. So not only do we have widespread bipartisan support in the Senate, that same type of support exists in the House. Last year, the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, said Congress should ask the Fed to put this information ``on the Internet like they've done with the recovery package and the budget.'' That is exactly what this amendment would do. Interestingly enough, not only do we have widespread bipartisan support in the Congress, not only has the House moved vigorously on this issue already, but, importantly, the courts have ruled in support of what we are trying to do. Bloomberg News has been very aggressive on this issue, and they have won court decisions requiring the Fed to release this information to the public. But despite widespread congressional support, despite two court decisions, the Fed continues to resist the transparency which our country desperately needs. As long as the Fed is allowed to keep the information on their loans secret, we may never know the true financial condition of the banking system. This has resulted in a whole myriad of problems, and I think it is time we brought some sunshine to the goings on of the Fed. Let me conclude by saying this: The American people are outraged, regardless of their political views, by the behavior of Wall Street. They have seen the greed of Wall Street lead us into a recession in which millions of jobs have been lost, homes have been lost, savings have been lost, families have been destroyed, and they want to make sure we do everything we can to make sure what caused this terrible recession never happens again. I think one of the most important things we can do in terms of Wall Street reform is to bring transparency to the Fed. So this is an incredibly simple amendment. This is an amendment that has grassroots support. This is an amendment that has support from the most progressive and conservative Members of the Congress. When I bring up this amendment, I certainly hope we can get a great deal of support from Members of the Senate.

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

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I wish to thank the Senator from Illinois for his continued efforts on Wall Street reform and the excellent work he has done.

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, my friend from Illinois is exactly right. Let me just add to it. We have the House of Representatives that voted to go forward. We have the President of the United States who wants to go forward. We have 57, or whatever the number is, Senators who wish to go forward. Now is the time to go forward. I would add to what my friend from Illinois has just said. Let's be very clear about this. Last year, in 2009, as I understand it, our friends on Wall Street who are doing everything they can to make sure Congress does nothing to reform the way they do business--that is what they want; let's be clear about it--do you know what they spent last year? I would tell my friend from Illinois that my understanding is they spent $300 million on lobbying and campaign contributions. I know my friend from Illinois knows that we can't walk around the Capitol without bumping in to one or another lobbyist representing Wall Street. Why are they here? Why are they representing hedge fund managers who make billions of dollars in a year? They want to be able to continue to do the exact same things they have done in the past which has led to this terrible recession. So let's not be naive. There are huge amounts of money flooding Capitol Hill right now, and the goal is, no matter what anybody may say: Let's do no Wall Street reform.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me begin by commending my friend from North Dakota, expressing my agreement of virtually everything he said. I also commend Senator Dodd for the very hard work he has done in bringing forth a very strong piece of Wall Street reform legislation which is long overdue. Let me also say that my good friend and neighbor from New Hampshire, Senator Gregg, took to the floor yesterday to express his outrage that 10 Senators on the Budget Committee voted for an amendment I offered-- which lost, by the way, 12 to 10--to begin the process of breaking up too-big-to-fail financial institutions that pose a catastrophic risk to our economy. Frankly, after listening to Senator Gregg's statement, I wonder, with all due sincerity, what planet he is living on. Apparently, he has missed the fact that due to the greed, the recklessness, and the illegal behavior of Wall Street, the American people continue to suffer through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The damage done by Wall Street in bringing this economy to a grinding halt is incomprehensible--millions of people having lost jobs, their homes, their savings, young people trying to go out into the job market to begin a career in their lives unable to do that because of the greed of Wall Street. The fact that just yesterday we could not get one Republican vote to proceed to begin the debate on how we finally reform Wall Street is beyond my comprehension. This debate needs to be going forward, and we need to pass strong--underline ``strong''--legislation that makes sure that what happened a year and a half ago never, ever happens again. I also find it interesting that we have some of our conservative Republican Senators, such as Senator Gregg, who day after day tell us how much they dislike big government--they don't like Social Security, don't like Medicare, don't like big government--but apparently have no problem with huge financial institutions which control a very significant part of our economy. In the last 15 years, the six largest banks in this country have more than tripled in size and now have combined assets equal to 63 percent of the gross domestic product. Let me say that again. The six largest banks in this country now have combined assets equal to 63 percent of this Nation's GDP. I ask all my conservative friends who come down saying: Oh, government is too big, government is awful, what about banks that have trillions of dollars in assets? Why aren't we talking about that reality? The truth is that today what we are seeing with these huge financial institutions is not only the ongoing problem of what happens when they fail and whether the taxpayers will be having to bail them out again, but when you have that kind of concentration of ownership, you have a very dangerous situation. The four largest banks in this country, four banks, issue two-thirds of the credit cards. What do we think about that? Everyone in the world has a credit card. Four banks issue two-thirds of that. How does that tally with the rhetoric I hear from my conservative friends about a competitive economy? Competition is what drives prices down. Well, maybe one of the reasons millions of Americans today are paying 25 or 30-percent interest rates on their credit cards is you have got four banks that issue two-thirds of them. The four largest banks in this country provide half of the mortgages in America. I think that is a real problem. The four largest banks control nearly 40 percent of all bank deposits in this country. Over 100 years ago, we had some good Republicans, William Howard Taft and Teddy Roosevelt. When they saw the concentration of ownership and wealth that existed in their time, they, as good Republicans, said: Let's start breaking it up. I think what they did over 100 years ago is a lesson we should learn today. If a financial institution is too big to fail, that financial institution is too big to exist and the time is now to start breaking it up. This idea of starting to break up large financial institutions is not just an idea that Bernie Sanders has, it is not just an idea, an amendment offered by Senators Brown of Ohio and Kaufman are going to speak to. It is an idea that is spreading all over this country. I would point out to you that the presidents of three regional Federal Reserve Banks also support the need to start breaking up large financial institutions. These are: James Bullard, who is the president of the Fed in St. Louis; Thomas Toenig, the president of the Fed in Kansas City; and Richard Fisher, the president of the Fed in Dallas, TX. They are all in agreement that we have got to start breaking up these large financial institutions. Senator Dorgan made this point, and I want to make it again; that is, that during the bailout, the Fed decided it was going to lend out trillions of dollars in zero or almost zero-interest loans. When Chairman Bernanke came before the Budget Committee, on which I serve, I asked him what I thought was a pretty simple and straightforward question: Mr. Chairman, can you tell me and the American people who received these loans? I mean, we are talking about trillions of dollars in loans. I do not think it is too much to ask who received the loans and what the terms were of those loans. Well, Mr. Bernanke disagreed. I offered an amendment that day that begins to bring transparency to the Fed. That amendment is called the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act. I am happy to say it has 32 cosponsors. Interestingly enough, 22 of them are Republicans, 10 are Democrats. They are: Senators Barrasso, Bennett of Utah, Boxer, Brownback, Burr, Cardin, Chambliss, Coburn, Cochran, Cornyn, Crapo, DeMint, Dorgan, Feingold, Graham, Grassley, Harkin, Hatch, Hutchison, Inhofe, Isakson, Landrieu, Leahy, Lincoln, McCain, Murkowski, Risch, Thune, Vitter, Webb, Wicker, and Wyden. That is quite a cross section of political views in favor of bringing transparency to the Fed. What my amendment will do--and we intend to bring that amendment to the floor during this debate--is, in fact, it would require the Federal Reserve to release all of the details about the more than $2 trillion in zero-interest loans the Fed provided to large financial institutions. Also it would call for a GAO audit of the Fed. The bottom line there is it is imperative that the GAO conduct an independent and comprehensive audit of the Federal Reserve within 1 year. That is what our amendment does. It requires the Federal Reserve to disclose the names of the financial institutions that received over $2 trillion in virtually zero-interest loans since the start of the recession. This is an amendment that I think millions of people want. What is interesting about it is if you talk about bipartisanship or tripartisanship, this amendment, both in the House and the Senate, brings together some of the more conservative members and some of the more progressive members. In the House, this language is supported by my former colleague Ron Paul. I am introducing it here in the Senate. That, my friends, is a very significant disparity in political views. But we do agree that the Fed needs transparency. Let me conclude by simply saying this: The time is now for the Senate to begin to deal with the greed, the recklessness, and the illegal behavior on Wall Street. The American people have demanded action since this crisis began, and we owe it to them to deliver. As we proceed with Senator Dodd's piece of legislation, which I think has many very positive attributes, I think our goal is as we debate it, to make it even stronger. In that regard, as I mentioned, I will be bringing forward an amendment dealing with Fed transparency. I will be bringing forth an amendment which will put a cap on the interest rates that banks can charge. I think it is not acceptable, not moral, that banks are now charging 25, 30-percent interest rates. We are going to have a cap similar to what exists for credit unions. As I mentioned also, we are going to have legislation, an amendment dealing with Fed transparency. So my hope is our Republican friends will join us in beginning this debate and, in fact, going forward so that finally, finally, we can hold Wall Street accountable and bring forth the legislation to make sure that never do we see a repetition of the disaster we saw a year and a half ago. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I am disappointed but not surprised that our Republican colleagues have chosen not to go forward in terms of financial reform because we should be very clear that when we do financial Wall Street reform, we are taking on not only the most powerful people in the United States of America but some of the most powerful people in the world--people of endless resources. When Congress deregulated Wall Street, against my vote, Wall Street and their allies, over a 10-year period, spent $5 billion fighting for deregulation so they could be in a position to do anything they wanted, which was, of course, what brought us the terrible recession we are currently in. Last year alone, in 2009, the financial interests spent $300 million in lobbying, campaign contributions, in order to fight finance and Wall Street reform. So I am not surprised that at this point our Republican friends have not chosen to go forward. I hope they change their mind, and I hope they know back home the American people are profoundly disgusted at the behavior of Wall Street, and they want to make sure we never again will be placed in the position of having to bail out people who, through their greed and recklessness, have brought suffering to tens and tens of millions of Americans. As we proceed--and I believe we will proceed--to Wall Street reform, it is also important we not just pass something for the sake of a press release but we do something substantive. There are a lot of issues out there. I know Senator Dodd has brought forth a bill with 1,600 pages in it. There are dozens and dozens and dozens of important issues. I want to touch on simply three that I believe are essential if we are going to be serious--underline ``serious''--about Wall Street reform. Issue No. 1. I receive calls every week from Vermonters--and I suspect the Presiding Officer does from people in New Hampshire--who are disgusted by having to pay 25-, 30-, 35-percent interest rates on their credit cards. In my view, usury is immoral. If you look at Christianity or Judaism or Islam or any of the major religions, they make the point that charging outrageous interest rates to desperate people is immoral. We finally have to end usury in the United States. We have to put a cap on the interest rates that financial institutions can charge when they issue credit cards. The amendment I will be bringing before the floor is similar to what has existed for several decades now for credit unions. Credit unions today are doing just fine, but they cannot charge more than 15-percent interest rates, except under exceptional circumstances. If it is good for credit unions, it is good, in my view, for Wall Street and large financial institutions. Second of all, I think there is great skepticism about the role of the Fed and the lack of transparency that exists in the Federal Reserve. About a year ago, Chairman Bernanke came before the Budget Committee on which I serve and I asked him a pretty simple question. I said: Mr. Chairman, you have lent out trillions--underline ``trillions''--of dollars in zero or near-zero interest loans to the largest financial institutions in America. Could you please tell me and the American people who received those trillions of dollars in loans? I do not think that was a terribly unfair question to ask. Mr. Bernanke said: No, I am not going to tell you. He gave me his reasons why. I disagreed. The American people have a right to know who received those loans. The American people have a right to know whether some of those large financial institutions took those zero-percent interest loans and then went out and bought government bonds, T bonds, at 3- percent interest, which, if true--as I suspect it is--is a huge scam, a huge scam. So we need transparency in the Fed, and I am going to bring an amendment to the floor to do that. The third point I want to make is, in, I believe, November of 2009 I introduced legislation--three pages--very simple legislation, which called for breaking up large financial institutions. As this bill proceeds, my colleagues Senator Brown and Senator Kaufman are going to be offering a bill along those lines, which basically says if an institution is so large that its collapse will bring systemic damage to the entire economy, we have to start breaking up those institutions-- break them up. If a financial institution is too big to fail, in my view, it is too big to exist. The issue here is not just the liability, the potential liability for the taxpayers of this country if a large financial institution collapses and we have to bail them out, it is also an economic issue. Are we comfortable when, according to Simon Johnson, the former chief economist of the IMF, ``as a result of the crisis and various government rescue efforts, the largest six banks in our economy now have total assets in excess of 63 percent of GDP. . . . This is a significant increase from even 2006. . . .'' I find it quite interesting the senior Senator from New Hampshire was on the floor a little while ago attacking me because in the Budget Committee I brought up a resolution which lost 12 to 10 to begin to break up these large financial institutions. I get a little bit tired of our conservative friends who say: Oh, the government cannot do anything. We hate big government. But apparently they do not hate large financial institutions, six of which have assets equivalent to over 60 percent of the GDP of this country. Teddy Roosevelt, a good Republican, over 100 years ago started breaking up large financial institutions, large corporations. What we are talking about now is a handful of corporations, of financial institutions that play a very negative role in creating a stranglehold and a lack of competition in our entire economy. I intend to be strongly supporting the amendment brought forth by Senator Brown and Senator Kaufman. I think it is moving exactly in the right direction. So I am disappointed but not surprised that the Republicans have not chosen to go forward on Wall Street reform. I hope they will reconsider that. When we do go forward, I hope we listen to the American people, we take serious action, and we start the process of standing up to some of the most powerful people not only in this country but in the world. With that, Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I will do what I can in 3 minutes. My good friend from New Hampshire, my colleague from across the Connecticut River, apparently does not have a problem with the fact that the largest financial institutions in this country that we bailed out because of their recklessness, greed, and illegal behavior have, since the bailout, become even larger. Three out of the four major financial institutions, all of which were bailed out, have become larger. No matter what anybody tells you, when one of these institutions is about to tip over and take a good part of the economy with them, despite the rhetoric today, people are going to be bailing them out, and they are going to lose millions of jobs if we don't. The reality is, we have a situation now where the top six banks in this country, despite what the Senator from New Hampshire has suggested, now have total assets in excess of 63 percent of GDP. We are talking over $7 trillion. When you have six institutions with 63 percent of total assets compared to GDP, I think we have a problem, and we have a problem for two reasons. No. 1, we have a problem in terms of taxpayer liability and the fact that we will, once again, have to bail these behemoths out. Secondly, as Teddy Roosevelt told us 100-plus years ago, it is time to break up these guys because they have incredible concentration of ownership over our entire economy. It is incomprehensible to me that the Senator from New Hampshire can be comfortable as a conservative--doesn't like big government but apparently doesn't mind huge financial institutions. So I think that anyone who is not worried about the concentration of ownership within our financial institutions is missing an enormously important point, not just from too big to fail but economic concentration of ownership. With that, I thank my friend from Connecticut and I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, if my friend will yield for a few minutes, I understand my friend from New Hampshire had something to say.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes and that I be followed by Senator Burris for 5 minutes, at which point the Senate will recess for the party caucuses.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, a front-page story of the New York Times today points to the fact of the enormous power of big money in terms of financial reform. They say: With so much money at stake, it is not surprising that more than 1,500 lobbyists, executives, bankers and others have made their way to the Senate committee that on Wednesday will take up legislation to rein in derivatives. . . . When Congress deregulated Wall Street and allowed them to do pretty much anything they wanted to do--which brought us to where we are today; i.e., a massive recession--they spent, over a 10-year period, $5 billion--$5 billion--in order to work their way on Congress. Last year, as we began to address financial reform, they spent $300 million. So the issue we are debating now is not whether Congress will regulate Wall Street, it is whether Congress will continue to be regulated by Wall Street. Their power is extraordinary. Their money is unlimited. If there was ever a time in American history where the Senate had to start standing up to big money interests and represent the needs of ordinary Americans, this is the time. The American people are looking. Let me just touch on four issues that I think are key, if we are serious--underline ``serious''--about financial reform. No. 1, we have to break up the huge financial institutions which are at the cause of the crisis we are in and which exert so much power over our economy. The four major U.S. banks--Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo--issue two-thirds of the credit cards in this country, write half of the mortgages, and collectively hold $7.4 trillion in assets, about 52 percent of the Nation's estimated total output last year. Despite the fact that we bailed these banks out because they were too big to fail, incredibly, three out of four of these institutions are now larger today than they were when we bailed them out. Enough is enough. I am joined as a progressive by many conservatives who understand that we cannot continue to have that concentration of ownership, not just in terms of the liability to the American people in terms of too big to fail but in terms of their monopoly control on the entire economy. So if we are serious about financial reform, now is the time to start breaking up these behemoths that exhibit certain enormous impacts on our whole economy. No. 2, we have to end the absurdity of a Wall Street selling trillions of dollars in exotic financial tools, instruments, at the same time small and medium-sized businesses are unable to get the loans they need in order to create the jobs our country desperately is in need of. At a time when we are in the midst of a major recession, at a time when we are losing our competitive advantages in the global economy, it is absolutely absurd that our largest financial institutions continue to trade trillions in esoteric financial institutions which make Wall Street the largest gambling casino in the world. We need to have them start investing in the real economy, the productive economy, in small and medium-sized businesses, in transforming our energy system and helping us rebuild our infrastructure, and in transportation and other desperate needs. They can no longer live isolated from the real world and engage in bets on whether oil is going to go up 6 months from now or whether the housing market goes down. If we are serious about real financial reform, we need to pass national usury legislation. I get calls every week from Vermonters who are sick and tired of paying 25-percent or 30-percent interest rates on their credit cards. Every major religion points out that usury is immoral. It is wrong to charge people outrageously high interest rates when they are in desperate need. We need national usury legislation. I will be offering an amendment which will cap at 15 percent the amount financial institutions can charge on credit cards, which is exactly what exists for credit unions today. Lastly, if we are serious about real financial reform, we need transparency at the Federal Reserve. The Fed cannot continue to operate in almost total secrecy. During the bailout, large financial institutions received trillions of dollars in zero or near-zero interest loans. Who received those loans and what were the terms? The Fed is not telling the American people. Did some of those banks turn around and in a mammoth welfare scam invest that Fed money, zero- interest money, in government Treasury bonds at 3 percent or 4 percent? The Fed is not telling us the answer to that question as well. It is time we had transparency at the Fed so the American people know what our Central Bank is doing. Most of all, we need to end the ``heads bankers win, tails everybody else loses'' financial system that currently exists in the United States today. The American people are profoundly disgusted with the greed and recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street. They cannot understand how the very same people who created this recession in which millions of workers have lost their jobs, people have lost their homes, people have lost their savings, that these very same people are now receiving multimillion dollar bonuses. People don't understand that, nor do I, in fact. So we need a new Wall Street. We need real financial reform. I hope, in fact, that the Senate and the House are prepared to stand up to the very powerful special interests who do not want us to do that. With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

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

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, my understanding is, our Republican colleagues have been on the floor and have expressed their concerns about financial reform and their desire to work in a bipartisan way. I welcome that. I am going to lay out some ideas I hope could have Republican support. I am not sure they will, but I would love to see it because the vast majority of the people in our country are profoundly disgusted with the behavior on Wall Street, the greed, the recklessness, the illegal behavior which has led us to the terrible recession we find ourselves in today. I wish to tick off a couple issues I hope my Republican colleagues would be interested in working with me on. Every week I receive--and I suspect others do as well--telephone calls and letters and e-mails from people in my State who are outraged by the kind of interest rates they are forced to pay, interest rates which are nothing less than usury, usury which has been condemned by every major religion in this world, which has been condemned throughout history by some of our great philosophers and writers who have basically said it is wrong and immoral to force desperate people who are in need of loans to pay outrageous interest rates. Yet today more than one-quarter of all credit cardholders in this country are paying interest rates above 20 percent and, in some cases, as high as 79 percent. That is not providing credit. That is loan sharking. That is doing precisely what criminals do when they lend people money and then break their kneecaps if they don't pay it back on time--except the loan sharks who are doing this now wear three-piece suits. They don't break kneecaps, but they destroy lives by forcing people to pay outrageously high interest rates when people are using their credit cards to buy groceries, to fill the gas tank to get to work, to pay for basic needs their families have. Millions of credit cardholders have received letters from Citibank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan Chase notifying them that their interest rates are going up, in some cases to 30 percent. A point that has to be made is that these four large banks, the four largest banks in a America, issue two-thirds of the credit cards. These four banks are ripping off the American people from one end of the country to the other. It is time that outrageous behavior ended. I hope my Republican colleagues who have come to the floor expressing concern about Wall Street, I hope what they are saying is more than just rhetoric, that they truly want to do something. If they want to do something, I hope they will join me when I offer an amendment as part of financial reform to cap credit card interest rates at 15 percent. That is the same statutory cap that has been in existence for 30 years at credit unions all over the country. Credit unions are doing just fine, but by law, they cannot ask for more than 15 percent, except under certain circumstances, when it can go up to 18 percent. If that is good enough for credit unions, it should be good enough for Citibank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and other large financial institutions. If my Republican friends are sincere, I hope they will join me in supporting efforts to bring transparency to the Federal Reserve. An amendment I intend to offer will do that. What we need to do, among many things, is to understand which financial institutions during the bailout received over $2 trillion in secret taxpayer-backed loans virtually interest free. Who are they? Last year, as a member of the Budget Committee, I asked Fed Chairman Bernanke that simple question. He said, no, he is not going to tell me which financial institutions, he is not going to tell the American people which financial institutions received trillions of taxpayer dollars. I have a problem with that. I believe the American people do. We are going to offer an amendment as part of financial reform in order to understand what, in fact, is happening, to demand transparency there. In April of last year, the Senate voted 59 to 39 on an amendment I offered with Senators Webb, Bunning, and Feingold to the budget resolution calling on the Fed to release this information. Yet as of this day, the Fed has refused to do so. In August of last year, Federal U.S. district judge Loretta Preska, nominated by President George W. Bush, ordered the Federal Reserve to release this information. The Fed appealed that decision and last March the U.S. appeals court in Manhattan upheld that decision. Yet the Fed has still not disclosed this information. Over 300 Members of Congress have cosponsored legislation calling for an independent audit of the Fed. In other words, we now have 59 Senators, over 300 Members of Congress, a U.S. district court judge, and a U.S. appeals court that have said to the Chairman of the Fed, Mr. Bernanke, in no uncertain terms, that the American people have a right to know the names of the largest banks that have received over $2 trillion in taxpayer-backed loans from the Federal Reserve. If my Republican friends are sincere, if they truly want to take on the greed and the recklessness of Wall Street, if they want to give the American people transparency as to what is happening on Wall Street, I certainly hope they will support that amendment. I also hope we can receive support to address the issue of too big to fail. In that regard, I have offered legislation which is pretty simple. It says the Treasury Department would provide a list to Congress of all the too-big-to-fail banks in this country within 90 days of passage of that legislation and break them up within 1 year so they can no longer threaten to bring down the economy if, once again, they get into trouble. Quite amazingly--and I think most people don't understand this--under the leadership of the Bush administration and Fed Chairman Bernanke, the largest financial institutions since the bailout have not gotten smaller; in fact, they have become larger. In 2008, the Bank of America, the largest commercial bank in the country, which received a $45 billion taxpayer bailout, purchased Countrywide, the largest mortgage lender in the country, and Merrill Lynch, the largest brokerage firm. In other words, what we are seeing in at least three out of the four largest banks is, since the bailout, they have become even larger, becoming an even greater threat to the financial stability of the country if, once again, they are ever in a position to fail. The issue of large banks is not only that they are a threat to the stability of our economy, if they are about to fail. The other aspect of the problem is the concentration of ownership that currently exists. When we have four large financial institutions that issue two-thirds of the credit cards in the country and half the mortgages, we have a very dangerous and noncompetitive type of situation. Given the fact that we have seen these financial institutions issue esoteric and not understandable financial instruments whose only goal is to secure more money and profits and compensation packages for the CEOs of these institutions, we need to start breaking them up and have financial institutions that understand that their role is to provide credit to the productive economy, the businesses that actually produce real products, provide real services, and create real jobs. In other words, we need to break them up to create a new Wall Street which becomes part of the United States, part of our economy, not an isolated island whose only goal in life is to issue worthless financial instruments in order to make outrageous short-term profits. That is a huge issue that we have to deal with. If my Republican colleagues are, in fact, sincere, if they want to do more than follow pollster Frank Luntz's playbook and throw out certain words they think will work for them politically, I look forward to their support for real financial reform. The Bottom line is, we cannot continue to do what we have done for a number of years. We have to summon the courage, and it will take courage because Wall Street is enormously powerful. In order to get the deregulation that led us to the financial disaster we experienced a year and a half ago, over a 10-year period, Wall Street spent the unbelievable sum of money of $5 billion on campaign contributions and lobbying. Frankly, I don't even know how one can spend that kind of money. But nonetheless, it certainly worked. Against my vote, when I was in the House, they got the deregulation they wanted. Lo and behold, once they were deregulated, not to my surprise, they went out and did all kinds of strange things, reckless things, illegal things, which brought us to where we were a year and a half ago. What we need is real financial reform. We need a cap on interest rates so Wall Street cannot continue to rip off ordinary Americans. We need transparency at the Fed. We need to know which financial institutions are receiving trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. We need to begin the process of breaking up these huge financial institutions, not only from a too-big-to-fail concern but also from a concentration of ownership issue because we are going to need a lot more competition in the financial industry than we have now. We will find out soon enough whether our Republican friends are doing more than reading from a pollster's playbook or whether they are serious about taking on Wall Street. I have my doubts, but I hope I am wrong. I hope we will gain their support in bringing real reform to our financial institutions. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I think most Americans understand that in the Senate, and in government in general, honest people will have honest differences of opinion. They debate issues, represent constituencies, and vote. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. I think there is a growing anger and frustration when a lot of what takes place on the floor has nothing to do with an honest debate on the issues but simply obstructionism, obstructionism, obstructionism. The American people have a hard time understanding when you have well-qualified nominees for the judicial positions, when some of these nominees have gotten out of committee with unanimous or almost support, it takes months and months to get these nominees approved so they can do their job. As the Senator from Minnesota said a moment ago, the issue is that justice delayed is justice denied. We have some dangerous people out there who should be tried and found guilty and sent to jail. We have ordinary citizens who have claims before courts and they want their day in court. Right now, they cannot get that day because the courts are backed up because we don't have enough judges. So I hope very much that we can get moving and do what has to be done, and that is to appoint these judges. I hope we can get an up-or-down vote on them. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I thank my friend for yielding. Madam President, the Senator from Oklahoma and the Senators who spoke before him are obviously right. This country has a record-breaking deficit, a huge national debt, and it is an issue that has to be dealt with. The debate is, how do we deal with it? Let me very briefly mention some of the factors--not all, but some of the factors, some of the policies that got us into the national debt situation we are in right now. Six years ago or so, President Bush decided to take us to war in Iraq. That war was misguided. It was a mistake. But in terms of the issue of tonight, that war was not paid for and will end up costing this country some $2 or $3 trillion. Many of my friends on the other side who now decry the national debt voted for that war without worrying about how it was going to be paid for. During the Bush era, despite the growing gap between the very wealthiest people and everybody else, our Republican friends, who then controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House, decided that the very richest people, millionaires and billionaires, needed huge tax breaks, hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks. That is what they wanted. I didn't want it. I didn't vote for it. During the Bush era, we passed a Medicare Part D prescription drug bill, a huge bill written by the insurance companies. We could have had a much better bill, if we negotiated prices with the pharmaceutical industry. We chose not to do that. A prescription drug Part D bill, unpaid for. That is what they voted for. After the bailout, after the collapse of Wall Street, President Bush and others came together and said: We ought to bail them out. Unpaid for. I brought an amendment on the floor to pay for that. It fell. Unpaid for. Ironically, within the next couple of weeks or months--I am not sure which--many of our friends are going to come back to the floor and say: We need to loosen up the estate tax. We need to give massive tax breaks to the wealthiest three-tenths of 1 percent of the population, the very richest people in the country. Estimates are it is going to cost $350 billion over 10 years, giving it to the richest people. My point is, if we are going to deal seriously with our national debt and our deficit--enormous problems--let's be honest and let us get our priorities right. In terms of today's debate, let us not on the one hand say we are going to give massive tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires by loosening up on the estate tax, but today we cannot regard as an emergency situation extending unemployment compensation to people who are in desperate economic trouble. Since December of 2007, over 8 million Americans have lost their jobs. Sixteen-and-a-half percent of the American workforce is today either unemployed or underemployed. Here is the important point. Over 6 million Americans have been out of work for more than 6 months, the highest on record. What we are experiencing now is not only unacceptably high unemployment but a level of long-term unemployment this country has never seen before. In other words, people are losing their jobs, but they are not getting them back, not in 2 weeks, not in 4 weeks. Month after month people are wondering how they are going to get a job, how they will feed their family, how they will take care of basic needs. That is what we are talking about today. When we talk about deficit reduction and dealing with the national debt, in my view we don't do that by denying unemployment benefits to families in desperate need. I think we take into consideration the reality that the top 1 percent of this country now earns more income than the bottom 50 percent. And those very same people, the top 1 percent, over the last number of years have been given huge amounts in tax breaks. We take into consideration the fact that as a nation, we are spending a very significant and growing amount of money on the military. There is study after study which indicates there are significant amounts of money that can be saved, if we take a hard look at military spending, including a number of weapons systems that are not designed to fight international terrorism but to continue the effort in the Cold War which no longer exists. It seems to me we have two issues we have to address. No. 1, how do we create the jobs this country desperately needs? How do we protect the most vulnerable people? And simultaneously, how do we address the deficit crisis and our national debt? I suggest now is the time to rethink the priorities that have existed for a number of years. Now is the time to ask the wealthiest people to start paying their fair share of taxes. Now is the time to take a hard look at all of our Federal agencies for waste and fraud and abuse but also including the military. The issue is not whether we deal with the national debt and our deficit. The question is, how we do it, and how we do it in a way that protects the middle class and some of the most vulnerable people in society. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I thank the Senator from Montana for yielding. Mr. President, my Republican colleagues have reached the conclusion that this is not a perfect bill. Well, they are right. While my problems with this bill are very different than theirs, I do hope that in the weeks and months to come, after we pass this reconciliation package, we will improve it. But I would ask my Republican colleagues to tell me something: When they controlled the White House and they controlled the Senate and they controlled the House, when President Bush was our President--during that period--7 million more Americans lost their health insurance and health care costs soared. Where were they then in talking about health care? Did they have one substantive idea during that period about how we were going to lower the cost of health care for Americans and provide health insurance for all of our people? I do hope that after we pass reconciliation we are going to improve this bill. In that regard I want to thank Majority Leader Reid who has promised us--Senator Merkley, myself and others--that we will have the chance to vote on a public option provision. I think millions of Americans understand that public option is a choice that people should have--the right to go outside of the private insurance companies for their health insurance. That public option will provide competitive pressure on the insurance industry to control soaring health care costs. So I very much appreciate Senator Reid telling us that we are going to have a vote on that issue within a couple of months. This bill is a strong step forward. It is no small thing that we are providing health insurance to 32 million more Americans. It is no small thing that we are moving to eliminate preexisting conditions as a grounds for rejecting someone for health care. It is no small thing that we are going to begin to fill that doughnut hole so that seniors will be able to get the prescription drugs they need in an affordable way. Those are, among other achievements, quite significant. But having said that, after the passage of this legislation, we still have to deal with the reality that we will continue to spend far more per capita on health care than any other major country. A few days ago, we had the Ambassador from Denmark visiting Vermont. In that country, they provide quality care for all of their people, and they do it spending about 50 percent of what we do because they have eliminated private insurance companies and all of the administrative and profiteering costs associated with private insurance companies. I hope we will one day at least allow States the option to move forward with a single-payer, Medicare-for-all program, which I think ultimately is the way we are going to go as a nation if we are going to solve the need for comprehensive universal and cost-effective health care for all of our people. I do want to say a word on one aspect, one provision of this bill which I think is enormously important, and I am very excited it is included in this bill. Again, I thank Senator Reid for his help in making sure it remained in and is amply funded. That is that in this legislation we are going to take a giant step forward in providing primary health care to the people of this country through a major expansion of Community Health Centers and the National Health Service Corps. This legislation provides enough funding so that we are going to create, over the next 5 years, 8,000 new health center sites, more than doubling the number that now exists. We are going to increase access for primary health care, dental care, mental health counseling, and low-cost prescription drugs by doubling the number of Americans with access to community health centers from 20 million to 40 million in every State, and in every region of this country. That is a huge step forward in providing basic health care to millions of Americans who today cannot access that care. While we do that, we are also going to significantly expand the number of doctors, the number of nurse practitioners and dentists that we desperately need in order to provide primary health care to our people. This legislation--over a 5-year period--triples the amount of money going into the National Health Service Corps, a program which provides debt forgiveness and scholarships for those doctors and dentists who will be serving in underserved areas throughout this country. Through the National Health Service Corps, we are going to support an additional 17,000 new primary health care doctors, dentists, nurse practitioners, and mental health professionals. What this means is that if somebody has no health insurance, if somebody has Medicaid, if somebody has Medicare, if somebody has private health insurance, that individual is going to be able to walk into a community health center and get the high quality care they need. The incredible thing, and this is quite remarkable, is that by doing this we are going to actually save taxpayers money because we are going to keep people out of the emergency room, which is the most expensive form of primary health care; we are going to prevent people from becoming sicker than they should and ending up in the hospital at great expense. Based on a study by the Geiger-Gibson Program at George Washington University, it is conservatively estimated that, by investing $12.5 billion in health centers and the National Health Service Corps, we will save Medicaid alone over $17 billion over the next 5 years. This legislation is going to be very significant in providing the primary health care that we need as a nation, and I am very appreciative it is part of the bill. Mr. President, as I conclude, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the findings of the study by the Geiger-Gibson/RCHN Community Health Foundation Research Collaborative, George Washington University, dated October 14, 2009.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, as a result of the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior by a small number of executives on Wall Street, the American people today are suffering through the most serious economic conditions we have seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Since the recession started in December of 2007, 8.4 million Americans have lost their jobs and, while the official unemployment rate is 9.7 percent, according to the latest Gallup Poll, nearly 20 percent of the American workforce is either unemployed or underemployed. In other words, we have people who are working, but they are working 20 hours when they need to be working 40 hours. Further, long-term unemployment is soaring. Today, over 6 million Americans have been unemployed for over 6 months, the highest on record. This is not a situation where people are losing their jobs and a few weeks later they go out and get another job. People are losing their jobs and they cannot find another job, which is why it is so important that we extend unemployment benefits and so reprehensible that there are those in this Chamber who have resisted that effort. Today, there are fewer jobs in the United States than there were in the year 2000, even though the workforce has grown by 12 million since that time. Today, we have the fewest manufacturing jobs than at any time since April 1941, 8 months before the start of World War II. Today, home foreclosures are the highest on record, turning the American dream of home ownership into an American nightmare for millions of our people. Further--and we do not discuss this enough--in the United States today, we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on Earth. That means that while the middle class is in rapid decline, while poverty is increasing, the gap between the people on top and everybody else is wider than in any other major country on Earth and growing wider. The reality is, today the top 1 percent now earns more income than the bottom 50 percent and the top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. Meanwhile, while the folks on Wall Street give themselves tens and tens of millions of dollars in bonuses for having destroyed our economy, the United States has, by far, the highest rate of childhood poverty among major countries. Almost one-quarter of our children today are dependent on food stamps. Approximately 19 percent of our kids are living in poverty, and one out of four kids in the United States, in order not to be hungry, is dependent on food stamps. While the Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke, recently talked about how ``the recession is likely over,'' I urge him to meet with America's blue- collar workers or those few people left who do manufacturing in this country. As the Boston Globe reported several months ago: The recession has been more like a depression for blue- collar workers, who are losing jobs much more quickly than the nation as a whole. . . . [T]he nation's blue-collar industries have slashed one in six jobs since 2007, compared with about one in 20 for all industries, leaving scores of the unemployed competing for the rare job opening in construction or manufacturing, with many unlikely to work in those fields again. . . . Up to 70 percent of unemployed blue-collar workers have lost jobs permanently, meaning their old jobs won't be there when the economy recovers . . . That is a staggering fact. So when talking about the recession hurting people, it is hurting some of the people who already are in the most serious trouble; people who do not have a whole lot of money to begin with. That is what is going on in the real world today. But, sadly and significantly, what is going on today simply is an acceleration of what was going on the previous 8 years. It is not like, oh, times were good, the middle class was doing well, and, oops, the reckless behavior of Wall Street plunges us into a major recession. What is not talked about enough is that this continues and accelerates a trend that has been going on for a number of years. During the 8 years of the Bush administration, here is what happened: Over 8 million Americans slipped out of the middle class and into poverty. Over 7 million Americans lost their health insurance. Our Republican friends are vehemently objecting to us going forward in terms of health care. When they had the power, when they had the Presidency, when they had control over the House and the Senate, during that period millions of Americans lost their health insurance. Do you recall them coming forward and saying: We have to do something about this crisis; more and more people are losing their insurance; more and more people are unable to afford their insurance? I did not hear a word. But they are very vocal now. They are very loud: Stop it. We cannot do anything. No. No. No. They had their chance, and it is sad to say that right now, all they can do is play the obstructionist role and be the party of no. I make this point not to just relive history but to understand where the anger comes from today. It is not just in the last year and a half millions more people lost their jobs, lost their health insurance. During the 8 years of President Bush, median household income declined by over $2,100--$2,100. So people came out of that period, from 2000 to 2008, staggering. They were earning less than they did before that decade began, and than they walked into the greed and recklessness of Wall Street, which created a massive recession. The Washington Post reported last January: The past decade was the worst for the U.S. economy in modern times. That was before the Wall Street crash. Let me say it again. The Washington Post last January: The past decade was the worst for the U.S. economy in modern times. It was, according to a wide range of data, a lost decade for American workers-- a lost decade for American workers. There has been zero net job creation since December 1999. Imagine that. Since December 1999, the country has grown zero jobs. Middle- income households made less in 2008, when adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1999. The number is sure to have declined further during a difficult 2009. So there you have it. You want to know why people are angry, why people are frustrated, why people are pointing their finger at Washington and us and saying: Hey, we are in trouble: massive unemployment; real wages have gone down; people are working incredibly hard, if they are lucky enough to have a job; and, at the end of the day, they are worse off than they were 10 years ago. According to a September 2009 article in USA Today--this is quite incredible--and these are statistics that we do not talk about enough: from 2000 to 2008, middle-class men experienced an 11.2-percent drop in their incomes. Can you imagine that. From 2000 to 2008, middle-class men experienced an 11.2-percent drop in their incomes, which amounts to a reduction of $7,700 after adjusting for inflation. So imagine that you work hard for 8 years. At the end of those 8 years, you have lost $7,700. Even worse, the USA Today article goes on to report that many age group Americans are poorer today than they were in the 1970s. We talk about the American dream and that parents work hard so that their kids will do better than they did. Well, we are moving in the wrong direction. Today the average American worker, or at least millions of American workers, in terms of inflation-accounted-for dollars are worse off than they were in the 1970s. Without going through all of the reasons the middle class is collapsing and poverty is increasing, without going into great length about the growing gap between the very rich and everyone else, I think it is important to say a few words about our good friends on Wall Street, people who have made it clear to everybody in this country that the only thing they care about is making as much money as they possibly can in any way they possibly can. Recently, in the last several years, 40 percent of all profits in this country went to the relatively few people in the financial industry--40 percent of the profits. We have seen hedge fund managers and owners earning billions of dollars. We have seen CEOs of major Wall Street banks being worth hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, all the while the middle class collapsed. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty. Millions of people are losing their health insurance. We talk about people living in a gated community, people living in very expensive homes protected by armed guards and surrounded by gates, driving around in their chauffeured limousines, getting into their private jets, having no clue about what is going on in the real world. That is what Wall Street is about. They are engaged in producing esoteric financial instruments which very few people understand which are producing nothing real in the real world. They are not creating real jobs. They are not creating real products, real services. They are a gambling casino whose function in life is to make more money for the people who own that casino. Now, after we deal with health care, and I hope we can finish that as soon as possible, the issue of financial reform is going to come into this Chamber. I hope very much that we can respond to the frustration and the anger of the American people about what Wall Street has done and promise them, through legislation, that those people will never again get away with the crimes they have committed against the working families of this country. Let me suggest a few of the areas I think a serious and real financial reform bill should address. Every week I hear from constituents in Vermont, and I suspect you hear from constituents in Illinois who say: How in God's name can these large financial institutions we bailed out with our tax dollars now charge us 25 or 30 percent interest rates on their credit cards? I hear this all of the time. And let's be clear. When a large bank-- and about two-thirds of the credit cards in this country are issued by the four largest financial institutions in America--when a large financial institution is charging a working American 25 or 30 percent interest on their credit cards, we have to be very clear and call that what it is. That is loan sharking; that is usury; that is immoral. The Bible, in all of the major religions--Christianity, Judaism, Islam, all of them--talk about the fact that usury is immoral; that you cannot lend money at excessive rates to struggling people who need that money to survive. That is what is happening today. The loan sharks today are not gangsters out on the street who break kneecaps. These are guys in three-piece suits who, in some cases, make hundreds of millions of dollars a year by stealing money from working people through excessively high interest rates. The middle class is collapsing, poverty is increasing, and often, in order to deal with the day-to-day needs of a family, whether it is food, whether it is gas to get to work, whether it is money to heat their homes, people are using credit cards. To be charged 25 or 30 percent is simply immoral, in my view, and it is something that has to be eliminated. As you know, a number of States all over the country have passed usury laws. But as a result of the Marquette Supreme Court decision a number of years ago, these credit card companies go to certain States-- South Dakota--where there are no usury laws and charge anything they want, all over the country. They have nullified State usury laws. Well, you know what. We need a national usury law. We have to say straight out it is immoral; it is wrong to be charging working people 20, 25, 30, 35 or more percent interest rates on their credit cards. As part of any serious finance reform legislation, the American people have to know we are going to end usury. My view is--and I have introduced legislation to this effect--that we should do for the private banks what we do with credit unions right now: 15 percent max, except under certain circumstances, which now take them up to 18 percent. No more 25 percent. No more 30, 40, 50 percent. No more payday lending. We are going to end that. I think that has to be incorporated into any serious financial reform legislation. Any part of a serious financial reform bill has to deal with the need to increase transparency at the Federal Reserve. I will never forget, about a year ago, the Chairman of the Fed, Ben Bernanke, came before the Budget Committee on which I serve. I asked him if he could tell us which banks received trillions of dollars in zero interest or almost-zero interest loans, trillions of dollars, placing the taxpayers of this country at risk. Mr. Bernanke said: No, I am not going to tell you that. Well, we have introduced legislation to demand that he tell us. The American people have a right to know which financial institutions have received trillions of dollars in loans. One of the great scams of our time--you want to talk about welfare. There is abuse. These are ``welfare queens.'' We have heard that expression before. Those guys are getting zero-interest loans from the Fed, or maybe they were paying one-half of 1 percent, and then they go out and lend that money to the Federal Government, they buy government securities at 3\1/2\ or 4 percent, having taken money from the government at zero percent or half a percent. How is that? You get a nice spread there. You have a 3-percent spread on that. The money that you are lending is guaranteed by the faith and credit of the United States, never once failed. That is a pretty good deal. We give you money at zero interest, and you go out and get guaranteed money at 3 percent. Not a bad deal. That is welfare for billionaires, and that is unacceptable. We have a right to know which financial institutions are engaged in that. Most importantly, we have to end that right now. So we need transparency at the Fed. They cannot continue to operate in that kind of secrecy. We also have to end the too-big-to-fail phenomena. Here is a fact that I think many Americans do not know; that is, while we bailed out Wall Street because institutions were too big to fail--if they went down, they would take the whole economy with them--well, guess what. A year later, three out of the four financial institutions are bigger today than before we bailed them out. Now, what am I missing? It does not make a whole lot of sense to me. Not only that, not only are they a greater danger to the economy today than they were before, but there is something else which is going on which we also do not talk about too much. Maybe as the only Independent in the Senate--I am not a Democrat or Republican. Maybe it is my job to be raising these issues, but somebody has to raise them; that is, the top four financial institutions in this country have enormous amounts of economic power over this country. As I mentioned earlier, they issue two-thirds of all of the credit cards in this country. Does that sound like a very competitive situation to you? The four largest financial institutions issue two- thirds of the credit cards in America. I do not think that is a healthy thing for our economy. So not only do we have to end this, these huge financial institutions, because they are too big to fail, but we also have to allow for increased competition within the banking industry, in doing away with this huge concentration of ownership. Not only do the top four--which is JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup--issue two-thirds of the credit cards, they also issue half of the mortgages. I don't think that is a healthy state for this country. We have to start breaking up these guys. The last point I would make is maybe the most important. In Vermont and all over the country, small and medium-size businesses are in desperate need of capital, of affordable loans so they can better produce the products and services they need and, in fact, create the jobs our economy desperately needs. I am sure the case is similar in Illinois, but in Vermont, I have small businesses coming into my office saying they can't get the credit they need to expand and create jobs. You have Wall Street operating as a gambling casino, selling and playing with esoteric financial instruments. It is time they started investing in a productive economy and creating jobs. The American people are hurting. They are suffering through a terrible moment economically. People are wondering whether, for the first time in the modern history of America, our kids will have a lower standard of living than their parents. This is the reverse of what the American dream is about. People are wondering how they will be able to afford to send their kids to college, how they will pay for childcare, how they will pay for the mortgage on their home, when they are either losing their jobs or real wages are going down. They are looking to Washington. They are becoming increasingly frustrated by the Republican party of no which seems to gain satisfaction every time they can stop legislation which attempts to address real problems, whether it is health care, jobs, extending unemployment benefits. It is no, no, no from the Republicans. The American people are beginning to catch on that there have been a record number of filibusters in this session, a recordbreaking number of obstructionist tactics. What the American people are saying is: Hey, Congress, Mr. President, we are hurting. We need action or else the middle class is not going to survive. As difficult as it is, as much as we understand that when we deregulated Wall Street, they spent $5 billion in 10 years in lobbying and campaign contributions, making sure the Congress did what Wall Street wanted--in 2009, Wall Street spent $300 million on lobbying. I don't know how you spend $300 million on lobbying. There are 100 Members in the Senate and 435 in the House. These guys will spend and spend and spend to make sure Congress does nothing to prevent them from going on their merry way of doing whatever they want without any serious kind of regulation. In these difficult moments, I hope the Senate and the House will summon the courage to do the job we were elected to do and what we are paid to do, and that is to represent working families and the middle class and not only big money and Wall Street. Amendment No. 3548

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 3548 be designated as a Pryor amendment.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I wish to say a few words about the nature of the economy today, the cause of the very deep recession we are currently in, and what I think we have to do about it. Right now, our country is experiencing the worst economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s. While officially unemployment is 9.7 percent, the reality is that we have some 19 percent of our people who are either unemployed or underemployed, people who would like to work 40 hours a week but they are only working 20 or 30 hours a week. The crisis we are addressing today is magnified by the reality that the recession for the middle class and working families of this country did not just begin in the fall of 2008 with the financial crisis. In fact, the middle class has been collapsing for a very long time. During the Bush administration, over 8 million Americans slipped out of the middle class and into poverty. Today, some 40 million Americans are living in poverty. During the Bush years, median household income declined by over $2,100. Middle-class Americans earned more income in 1999 than they did in 2008, and middle-class men earned more money in 1973 than they did in 2008, with inflation being accounted for. When we look at people in this country who are angry, there is the reason. After working long and hard hours, tens of millions of Americans find themselves in worse economic shape today than they were in 10 years ago or even 20 years ago. Meanwhile, while the middle class shrinks and poverty increases, while more and more people lose their health insurance--so today we have 46 million with no health insurance at all--while 4 million American workers have lost their pension over the last 9 years, we continue to see in this country the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on Earth. That growing inequality is a moral obscenity, but it is a very serious economic problem as well. Because we become a nation in which very few have a whole lot, while a whole lot of people have very little. The immediate recession was caused, as I think everybody knows, by the greed, the recklessness, and the illegal behavior of a small number of giant financial institutions on Wall Street. These people were not content to be making 40 percent of the profits being made in America. Their CEOs were not content to earn bonuses of tens of millions of dollars a year. The hedge funds were not content to have their owners and managers become billionaires. No, that was not good enough. So what these financial tycoons had to do was to develop and produce worthless, complicated financial instruments which plunged our country and much of the world into a deep recession. To the frustration of the American people, a year and a half has passed since the financial collapse and what has happened? What actions has the Congress taken to rein in Wall Street, to tell Wall Street that their greed is not acceptable in this country, that they cannot continue to go forward with actions that destroy our economy and the lives of millions of people? Within a short period of time, the Senate will be considering legislation dealing with financial reform. I wish to congratulate Senator Dodd and others on the Banking Committee for the hard work they have done in producing a bill which, in a number of ways, moves us forward. But what I wish to say this evening is that moving us forward is not good enough. The American people want an end now to the recklessness and irresponsibility of Wall Street. They want an accounting and they want real change. They want, in my view, a new Wall Street which invests in the productive economy of small- and medium- sized businesses that actually produce real products and real services and which actually create real jobs, rather than the activities of Wall Street, which is a giant gambling casino, playing with financial instruments that nobody understands and which, at the end of the day, produces nothing real. As the debate over financial reform moves on, I intend to play an active role in fighting for a number of concepts. Let me enumerate a few of them. No. 1, right now, people in the State of Vermont, in the State of Colorado, in the State of Rhode Island, and all over this country are paying usurious interest rates on their credit cards, and I use the word ``usury'' advisedly. We now take it for granted, and we accept the fact that our friends and neighbors and family members are paying 20, 25, 30, 35 percent interest rates on their credit cards. That is wrong. That is unjust. In fact, according to every major religion on Earth-- Christianity, Judaism, Islam--it is immoral. It is immoral to lend money to people who desperately need that money and then suck the blood out of them because, when they are desperate, they are going to have to pay 30 or 35 percent interest rates. That is immoral. That is wrong. Over the years, a number of States, including Vermont, have said: We are going to prohibit usury. You can't do it. You can't charge more than 10 percent, 12 percent, 15 percent, whatever it is. But all those laws were made null and void by a Supreme Court decision which resulted in credit card companies being able to go to States which had no usury law and, therefore, they could sell their product all over this country with no limit. Let us be clear. Those large financial institutions that are charging Americans 25, 30, 35 percent interest rates on their credit cards are no better than loan sharks. In the old days, what loan sharks used to do was break kneecaps if people couldn't repay their loans. Well, these guys don't break kneecaps, but they are destroying lives just the same. People are desperate. They are borrowing money. We have all been to the grocery store and have seen people buying bread and milk with their credit cards, gas to get to work with their credit cards, because that is the only source of revenue they now have available to them, paying 25 to 30 percent. We have to eliminate that once and for all. I will be bringing forth an amendment which does nothing more than what credit unions now exist under. Credit unions in this country, by law, cannot charge more than 15 percent interest rates, except under exceptional circumstances, and now they can go up to 18 percent, but most of them don't; the vast majority of them don't. I don't think that is asking too much. Secondly, I am going to bring forth language which will increase transparency at the Federal Reserve. This is an issue, interestingly enough, that brings some of the most conservative Members and some of the most progressive Members together. I remember a year or so ago the chairman of the Fed, Ben Bernanke, came before the Budget Committee on which I serve, and I asked him a very simple question. I said: Mr. Bernanke, my understanding is that you have lent out trillions of dollars of zero interest loans to financial institutions. Trillions of dollars. Can you please tell me and the American people which financial institutions received that money and what the terms were. I don't think that was an unreasonable question--trillions of dollars. He said: No, Senator, I am not going to do it. We have since introduced legislation to make them do it, and so forth and so on. It is beyond my comprehension that we do not know which financial institutions have received trillions of dollars of zero or close to zero interest loans. We don't know about the conflicts of interest that may have existed. In that regard, let me talk about a scam which is quite unbelievable that goes on today. What goes on today is, companies such as Goldman Sachs borrow money from the Fed--and I have no reason to doubt that Goldman Sachs also was on the receiving end of these zero interest loans--and they borrow this money for a tenth of a percent, maybe a quarter of a percent, and then they take that money and they invest it in U.S. Treasury securities at 3.5 to 4 percent. That is a pretty good deal. Talk about welfare. Borrow money at zero or half a percent, lend it to the U.S. Government, which has the entire faith and credit of American history behind it, and you make 3 percent, 4 percent. What a deal. That is a pretty good deal. I think we have to end those types of practices and we have to move forward with real transparency at the Fed. The other thing we have to do, which is enormously important, is have these large financial institutions start lending money to small- and medium-sized businesses that are prepared to create meaningful jobs in this country. Earlier today, I think the Presiding Officer and I heard from former President Clinton, who made a very important point. He believes--and I agree with him--we can make profound changes in our economy; that over a period of years we can create millions of jobs as we transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and to sustainable energy. There are small businesses in the energy business in this country that are ready to go, to create the jobs, if they can get reasonable loans, and they can't get that money today. We can transform our energy system. We can give a real spirit to our economy. We can create good-paying jobs, but we have to demand that Wall Street start investing in the real economy. Another issue I intend to play an active role in is this issue of too big to fail. I have said it once. I have said it many times. If a financial institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. We now have four major financial institutions which, if any one of them collapsed today, would bring down the entire economy, and what we have to do is start breaking them up now--now. We have to take action at this point. I think the American people are angry and they are angry for some good reasons. They are hurting financially. As I mentioned earlier, there are millions of Americans today who have seen a substantial decline in their income and are working incredibly hard and they are wondering what has happened. Then, despite all that, with the trend that has led to the collapse of the middle class as a result of Wall Street greed, we have been driven into a major recession. The American people want us to have the courage to stand up to Wall Street. I should say that in 2009 alone, our good friends on Wall Street who have unlimited resources spent $300 million in lobbying this institution. They spent $300 million. When they fought for the deregulation over a period of 10 years, they spent $5 billion to be able to engage in the activities which they did engage in and that led us to the recession we are in right now. So these guys, I guess they can borrow zero interest loans from the Fed--I don't know if they can use that for lobbying or whatever--but they have an unlimited sum of money. I think the American people want us to have the courage to stand with them, to take these guys on no matter how powerful and wealthy they may be. I think the eyes of the country and the eyes of the world will be on what we do. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, as senior citizens and disabled veterans all over this country know, this is the first year since 1975--36 years ago--that there will not be a Social Security cost-of- living adjustment or COLA. In my view, the fact that people in need-- seniors, disabled veterans, people who have disabilities--will not be receiving a COLA this year is wrong and it is an issue we have to address and I hope we will address it successfully this afternoon, in terms of the amendment I will offer. The reality is, in recent years, senior citizens, veterans, and persons with disabilities have slipped out of the middle class and into poverty. That is a reality--out of the middle class and into poverty. The reality is, today prescription drug costs are soaring, medical care costs for seniors and disabled people are soaring, and heating oil has gone through the roof, especially relevant to those of us in cold- weather States. At a time when millions of seniors have seen the value of their pensions, their homes, and their life savings plummet, we cannot turn our back on some of the most vulnerable people in this country. They are hurting and they need our emergency support and that is why I am offering, today, along with Senators Dodd, Leahy, Whitehouse, Gillibrand, Lautenberg, Begich, Stabenow, and Menendez, an amendment which will provide over 55 million seniors, veterans, and persons with disabilities $250--a one-time payment--in much needed emergency relief. This $250 emergency payment is equivalent to a 2-percent increase in benefits for the average Social Security retiree, and it is the same amount seniors received last year as part of the Recovery Act. Two percent is not a lot of money, but it will, in fact, provide much needed help to millions of people who are demanding we not turn our back on them. This amendment is supported by a wide array of seniors and veterans organizations representing tens of millions of Americans. Let me give some of the organizations that are supporting this amendment: the AARP, which is the largest senior group in America; the American Legion, the largest veterans group in America; the Veterans of Foreign Wars; the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare; the American Federation of Teachers Program on Retirement and Retirees; the Disabled American Veterans; the Alliance for Retired Americans; Easter Seals; the Military Officers Association; the Vietnam Veterans of America; the National Council on Aging; AMVETS; and many other organizations. One of the side benefits of this amendment is that funds directed to this population will go almost immediately into the economy. These are folks who will spend that money, providing the quickest possible stimulus to local economies and thus creating jobs in every community in our country. President Obama is strongly supportive of this $250 in emergency relief to seniors. The President has included it in his budget, and he has also recommended it be included in the underlying legislation we are debating today. Here is what the President has said about this issue: Even as we seek to bring about recovery, we must act on behalf of those hardest hit by this recession. That is why I am announcing my support for an additional $250 in emergency recovery assistance to seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities to help them make it through these difficult times. I very much appreciate the President's support for what we are trying to do here today. In Vermont and all across this country, ordinary people believe the Congress is way out of touch with the realities of their lives. They believe that we just do not get it, that we do not understand that all over this country millions of people are hurting and that sometimes they are hurting desperately, that people are frantically trying to keep bread on their tables. People are trying to make sure they and their families can live with dignity, and they wonder if we in Congress get it. They know we are there for Wall Street. They know that. They know we are there to take care of big banks and insurance companies and drug companies, but they are not quite sure we are there to take care of vulnerable people who are elderly and who are disabled veterans. Let me read some quotes from organizations and individuals on this issue. This is what the VFW has to say in support of this legislation: This year veterans and seniors will not receive COLA. This could not come at a worse time. Your legislation would provide a one-time check of $250 to 1.4 million veterans, 48.9 million Social Security recipients, and 5.1 million SSI recipients. We believe that this will provide some relief to those veterans and seniors living on fixed incomes. . . . We thank the VFW very much for their support. Let me quote very briefly from the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare: The National Committee strongly urges you to pass legislation to provide a $250 payment to our Nation's seniors who did not receive a COLA this year. It is vitally important that we provide help for seniors of modest means who have been adversely affected by the economic recession and rapidly rising health care costs. Here is a quote from AARP, a group that represents over 40 million Americans age 55 and older, in support of this amendment. This is what they say: For over three decades, millions of Americans have counted on annual increases to help make ends meet. In this economy, having this protection is even more critical for the financial security of all older Americans. AARP applauds the President for urging Congress to extend for 2010 the $250 economic relief provided to older Americans last year. Let me quote again from another statement by AARP which I think makes this case very cogently. I think they nail it, and they tell us why it is absolutely imperative that we pass this legislation. Last year, the Social Security Administration announced that for the first time since it began in 1975, seniors will not receive an automatic cost of living adjustment for 2010. Although the lack of a COLA was triggered by low overall inflation-- And here is the point-- the costs of the things seniors depend on most--prescription drugs and health care--have continued to increase above inflation. Seniors spend an average of 30 percent of their income on health care costs, 6 times greater than what those with employer-sponsored health care coverage spend, and these prescription drug costs, premiums, and copays have skyrocketed. I think that is the main point to be made today. That is why we should support this one-time payment. AARP, of course, is a large national organization. Let me give some quotes from letters I have received from Vermont and from around the country. A gentleman from central Vermont writes: As you know, Social Security has not given a COLA increase on benefits in 2010, based on the CPI. I did some research and found these increases from January 2009 to January 2010. This is what he has calculated. Power rates are up by 7 percent; heating oil up by 15 percent; propane up by 24 percent; property taxes up 3.7 percent; gasoline up 16.6 percent; food up, conservatively speaking, 3 percent. Here is where he said: The CPI was obviously done by statisticians on vacation in Jamaica while sipping some tropical concoctions that impaired their judgment. These things above add up to nearly $3,000. To cover this, I would require a 12 percent increase in my disability benefits. This is from central Vermont. I do not agree with the writer of this letter that the statisticians came to their conclusions by sipping tropical concoctions in Jamaica. I don't think that is the case. But I do believe he is correct in suggesting that the methodology by which COLAs for seniors are established is not right. Here is why. COLA increases are determined by a look at the purchasing practices of the entire population--all of us--and that is not fair to seniors today, whose purchasing needs are very different from the average person's. As the AARP pointed out, seniors spend a very disproportionate amount of their limited incomes on health care, prescription drugs, et cetera. Those costs have gone up. In other words, while costs may have gone down for younger people who may be purchasing laptop computers, IPODs, GPSs, flatscreen TVs, cell phones, and other products, they have not gone down for millions of seniors who are dependent and spend a whole lot on health care. By the way, that is why, when I was in the House, I offered legislation which received very strong bipartisan support to create a separate index for seniors in determining their COLAs. I do believe that is the direction we have to go. I have received many letters. Let me read one more. This comes from New Jersey. This is Claire from New Jersey: I am 82 years old. Having been widowed and bankrupt at age 37 to raise my 3 young children alone, I thought that with my Social Security and my small pension plus by savings, I would never have to depend on my children to care for me in my old age. But now that my savings have been depleted by 30 percent and my health care insurance is costing me $3,200 a year, I am very worried if my savings will last me much longer. Elizabeth in Spur, TX, writes: Social Security is my main source of income. I have bills that I couldn't pay if it wasn't for this income. I think that it is a disgrace that the Government will bail out the banks and car manufacturers but not sure if the elderly will get a COLA. The elderly are the people that have kept this country together for years and they are considering not giving them a little raise? I wish that some Members of the Congress and the Senate had to live on the income that we have to and see how they can manage, like the saying goes, if the shoe was on the other foot. Let me conclude by pointing out that there is bipartisan support for the concept we are talking about today, especially in the House of Representatives. In that body, in the House, Congressmen Walter Jones, Rodney Alexander, Phil Gingrey, and Roscoe Bartlett--all Republicans-- have introduced legislation which, frankly, goes further than the amendment I am offering. Instead of a one-time payment, they are proposing a 2.9-percent COLA for Social Security, which ends up, obviously, costing a lot more than a one-time payment of about 2 percent. Here is what Congressman Alexander, a Republican from Louisiana, said about his legislation: Although the annual adjustment is a small increase, it is a much-needed benefit for our Nation's seniors to help them compensate for inflation and to sustain the skyrocketing prices of health care and prescription drugs. It is evident that the current Social Security system is not keeping up with our seniors' basic needs. Congress must take action today so that our Social Security beneficiaries are protected tomorrow. That is from Congressman Alexander, a Republican from Louisiana. I agree with the Congressman, and I hope all of my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, will agree that seniors need emergency relief and they need it now. Over 90 percent of the individuals who will receive this emergency relief make less than $75,000 and over 8 million who will receive help under this amendment make less than $14,000 a year. That is where we are. Millions of people are wondering whether, in their times of need, when their costs are going up, when they are struggling to maintain their dignity--they are wondering whether a Congress that was there for Wall Street, a Congress which over a period of years has been there for the wealthiest people in this country, whether that same Congress will be there for disabled veterans and our seniors. I hope and believe we will be, and I ask for support for the amendment that will be voted on soon. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS. Pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1964 and section 4(g)(3) of the statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, I move to waive all applicable sections of those acts and applicable budget resolutions for purposes of the pending amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, for the first time in 36 years, seniors and disabled veterans and persons with disabilities will not be receiving a cost-of-living adjustment, a COLA on their benefits. The argument for that is that they are not seeing inflationary costs. Go back home and talk to seniors, talk to disabled veterans. They will tell you they are paying sky-high costs for prescription drugs and health care. This amendment is supported by AARP, the American Legion, the VFW, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security, and a wide number of veterans organizations and senior citizens organizations that know it is wrong to turn our backs on seniors in this moment of economic difficulty.

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

Mr. SANDERS. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Menendez of New Jersey be added as a cosponsor.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my amendment which is pending, No. 3353, be modified with the changes that are at the desk.