Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding its adoption the Landrieu amendment No. 4389, as further modified, be further modified with the changes at the desk.

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 Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, last Saturday, I held two town meetings in Vermont on the collapse of the middle class, and both of them were very well attended. Our guest speaker was Elizabeth Warren, who is a professor of law at Harvard Law School and one of the leading writers in this county on economic matters. In preparation for that meeting, I sent out an e-mail on my Web site just asking people in Vermont to tell me their personal experiences regarding what is happening to the middle class. We have done that in the past and, frankly, I expected we would get a couple dozen responses. What happened was really astounding to me and speaks about what is going on in the economy in this country today. Over a period of a few days, we have now had some 500 responses, mostly from Vermont, but also I do a national radio show, and we made a similar request nationally, and we have had some from out of State. They are mostly from Vermont, some from out of State, but a total of some 500 responses. What was absolutely astounding was the nature of these responses. They were so powerful, so overwhelming, that, in fact, they were sometimes difficult to read. Person after person wrote with amazing honesty and with an articulateness which comes from telling the truth. They were not giving a great speech, as we often do here in the Senate, talking about everything under the Sun. They were talking from their own hearts. They were talking about what it means to be trying to raise kids, trying to send your kids to college, trying to pay your fuel bills, fill up your gas tank when you get to work--amazing stories. We are going to post many of them on our Web site. What I want to do this morning, because I think it is terribly important that the Senate hears from ordinary people to get a sense of what is really going on in America, the struggles people are having-- maybe it is a good idea we hear from the people rather than just campaign contributors, rather than just lobbyists. The language I heard that came to my Web site was extraordinary. So what I want to do this morning--I have the feeling I will be doing it more than once--is just have you listen to what people have to say, reading exactly the words they have written to me. Let me begin by reading an e-mail that came from a small town in northern Vermont. I am going to do my best to disguise the identities of the writers. But this is from a small town near the Canadian border. This is what this writer says.: My family has been squeezed for years now. My husband and I have two children. My husband works full time and has a degree. He works 60 miles away from home, and has tried to find a new job closer but has been unable to do so. I tried for 2 years to find a job, when I could not find a job I went back to school. I am hoping that my degree will help our family. The price of gas and oil now consumes 30% of our disposable income. We have cut back on groceries, and recently was only able to get groceries because my parents were nice enough to give us money. We are going to buy a woodstove because we are afraid we will not be able to afford oil next year. We do not qualify for LIHEAP. My husband got a raise last year that disappeared on Jan. 1st when the cost of our health insurance increased. We have to have reduced cost lunch for our children, we cannot afford to put our children on his health insurance plan, and luckily they are on Dr. Dynasaur-- Which is the SCHIP program in Vermont-- but now we have to pay a premium where we didn't last year. We have stopped doing any fun things. We have not been able to go out to eat in a long time, or to bring the kids to see a movie. There are no treats. I am praying that after I graduate I will be able to find a job to help my family out. Of course when I go back to work both my husband and I will have to start paying our student loans, and this payment will amount to about $500 per month. But what other option do we have? I couldn't find work. He can't find a better job closer to home. Both my husband and I have degrees, we did everything right, we are not doing better than our parents when they were our age. If it wasn't for our parents we would be worse off. Our parents have helped us with oil. My parents gave us $600 last year to pay for our oil, my husband's parents helped us with car repairs so we wouldn't go into debt. My parents have given us grocery money and bought our kids school clothes. I don't know what we would do without our parents. This is demoralizing, my husband keeps asking when will we be able to actually afford to support our own family? I'm not sure what the answer is. Thank you for listening. That is a letter from a woman in northern Vermont. This is a letter from a woman in north central Vermont whose job, it turns out, was outsourced. This is what she writes: My husband and I are in our mid-fifties. At this time of our lives we should be at our peak earning power, putting money away for our retirement. Two years ago, we were, but now we are making about $42,000 between us and struggling through this Vermont winter. I was an international IT manager, making a nice salary then. I spent 14 years getting my AS, BS and then my Masters degree from Champlain College. Which is a college in Burlington, VT. We were comfortable, and able to go on a nice vacation every couple of years. Then the company I worked for for 18 years outsourced its entire IT operation to India. I received a layoff package, but at my age it took me a while to find a job for one third of my previous salary, and that job is not even in my field--I am an accounting technician now. My husband was laid off from a job as an electrician's assistant and he is now working in a hardware store. He makes $3 less per hour now. Both of our moms are near 80 and live with us. We also help to take care of our next-door neighbor, who is 83. We are struggling to keep up with our bills. Fortunately when we refinanced our home several years ago, we took a fixed rate mortgage. Even so, our heating, gas and even grocery costs are rising so quickly and our salaries are not. When I was younger, I found it easier to regroup from a loss like this, but then everyone wanted to hire me when I was younger. I thought the government was ``of the people, by the people and for the people,'' but it seems to me that it's mostly ``of the people, by the lobbyists and for the rich.'' By the time we get to retirement, maybe when we're 70 at this rate, Social Security and Medicare will be gone and we'll be on our own. I feel as though our government has sold us out and even if we elect a new President who cares for the people, it will take too long to recover for us to reach a comfortable place again. Thank you for listening Senator Sanders. This is a very brief e-mail that we received from a small town in central Vermont: Between my retirement & SS [Social Security], I get a grand total of $804 a month. My last oil delivery was over $600 for the month of March. That's my story--and I'm stuck with it. Thank you, Senator, for trying to ``make it better.'' This is from the wife of a logger in northern Vermont. A lot of people in the State of Vermont earn their money in the woods. They go out and they cut trees. This is the toughest time I have seen since I was a child. My husband is a self employed logger and has an excavation business. The way the economy is has really hit in both of his employment very hard. The price of logs have dropped drastically and no one is building. He has extremely high blood pressure but some how we can't receive any help. We do have catamount blue health insurance that we pay $250.00 a month for but that does not cover some of his medicine nor does it cover all hospital bills. We have exhausted any savings we had but still have a small IRA but cannot touch that with out being penalized. We have had to refinance our home of 34 years and I have just started a job but it requires me to travel 35 miles one way to work and with the price of gas it is almost a hopeless case. I'm sure there are other people in worse shape than us, but I have to wonder why the government is not helping the working person? The only thing I guess a working person has is pride. Is it worth it?????? I'm really beginning to wonder! This is from a 57-year-old working widow, again from the central Vermont area. This is what she says: I have no-- Underline ``no''-- disposable income. Like many Vermonters I drive a long way to my job and consider myself lucky to have one and like most jobs in Vermont it does not pay as well as the same job in other areas of the country. My roundtrip mileage is 60 miles per day. I invested in an America made hybrid in 2004 which gets between 25 to 30 mpg [miles per gallon]. Also, the organization I work for does not reimburse me at the federal rate for the miles charged to them. I have to have more and more money each week to pay for that week's gas and then wait to be reimbursed. It really is a tough squeeze and some of my co-workers are in tighter spots. I was fortunate to have locked in fuel oil last Spring at $2.46/gallon for 800 gallons. This is to supplement wood burning. However, I fell on the ice in December and hurt my shoulder which makes lifting wood difficult therefore I turned the thermostat back to 60 and live that way. Now the thermostat is back to 50 and the burner only comes on to heat hot water. I stopped using hot water to wash my clothes over a year ago and just use cold water. I don't notice a difference. I have not had a vacation except a long weekend in years. At 57 and a widow and a woman, I can look forward to living in poverty. I am thankful for the things I have and pray that I can hold onto them. I have first hand experience that there are many, many Vermonters that have much less and are falling through the cracks. They do not have enough food to eat and are ``too rich'' for fuel programs. I have a friend who is legally blind and lives on less than $800 per month. She lives in Senior housing so her rent is subsidized but she still has to pay for utilities and food. How does she buy food and clothing on this pathetic amount of money? How can we be the richest nation in the world and allow this to happen? I vote. I give to charities when I can albeit small amounts but how can I move mountains? I pray for peace and justice because I don't know what else to do and I am thankful for what I have and for what I am able to do. I appreciate your keeping important issues before the public. As I said, these are stories from Vermont. But we have received similar-type stories from all over America. Let me conclude with four stories from families in States other than Vermont. This is from a young man in Tulsa, OK: Thank you so much for allowing me to tell the story of how our family is being squeezed by the current economic conditions in our country. . . . In December of 2000, I started work for my current company at the ``bottom rung of the ladder.'' I was changing careers yet again and the old saying ``you can't start at the top'' certainly applied. I have since worked my way up from a starting position, part time at $7.65 an hour, through 3 promotions and into a management position in the mid $30k a year salary range. That used to be an ok salary here in Oklahoma. Not anymore. The rising cost of fuel, food, utilities and other necessities has turned my ``ok'' salary into a near poverty- level experience for my family. In addition to the above mentioned costs, I experienced a $102 per month increase in my portion of the premium for my ``employer provided'' family health coverage. I don't get it. I work hard, every day. I show up on time every day, give it everything I have and never back off and somehow everything except my salary is going up at an alarming rate. My parents taught me that no matter what, if we worked hard enough and never gave up, we'd get somewhere. It seems these days, that doesn't hold true anymore. Please encourage your colleagues in D.C. to do something, and hurry. I am doing all I can and it just isn't enough. This one is from a young engineer in Gladstone, OR: I am a 26-year-old college graduate with a master's degree in mechanical engineering. I have been working for two years as an engineer in the Portland, OR metropolitan area, and though I consider my compensation for my job to be appropriate for my level of education and expertise (about $60,000 a year), I am still struggling to make ends meet in this economy. Despite the fact that my home mortgage payment has remained stable, I am finding that the average price of energy and commodities has increased such that I can no longer afford to contribute to my 401(k) retirement plan, and I am living month-to- month with only about $200 in savings. I pay about $300 for gasoline, $200 for heat, $100 for electricity, and about $400 for food every month. This is fully twice as much as I was paying for the same expenses just 2 short years ago. Ouch! My situation is ironic and a bit frustrating. Whereas I now make over four times what I made as a graduate student, I live with the same quality of life as I did in college. I cannot afford vacations or extravagant purchases, and I am burdened as so many people are these days with a persistent worry about getting sick or injured and stuck with a medical bill that I cannot afford. I realize that I am nobody special in terms of how hard I work or how much I pay for food and gas or how ``sad'' my story is, and that is why I write to you. I am moved by the stories of how these middle-class families are surviving, and I can sympathize with them in terms of some of the financial worry they are experiencing. It is hard for me, it must be incredibly difficult for them. Thank you for your time and thank you for your service as a U.S. Senator, and thank you for providing a forum like this. This is from a 30-year-old man from the Pacific Northwest who feels the American dream has failed him. This is what he writes: I was raised in extreme poverty. My mom had a 9th grade education and my father dropped out in 6th grade. My brother, 3 years my senior, dropped out of high school in 1996, the year I graduated. I never knew a house; we grew up in one and two bedroom apartments. I also never knew I was raised in poverty until adulthood--when I tried to transcend this state of economic marginalization. I was the first of my family to graduate high school. Four years later I entered junior college; transferred to a private four-year institution and earned both an undergraduate and graduate degree. I also earned $70,000 in student loan debt. At that point, I had never earned more than $7,000 in my life. Three years after college, I purchased my first home. You guessed it--my loan was predatory and was one of those ARMs. This was the first home ever purchased in the Ryan family. As you know, to truly gain a firm stance in the middle class, one must own property. I earned $50,000 in 1997, more money than I've ever known. Yet I still have to charge my groceries or medications. My ARM matured and my mortgage raised $300 over night. The first home in my family is likely to go back to the bank and I'm falling short of the finish line in the race out of poverty. I'm now in credit card debt just to buy the essentials and my student loan debt haunts me most days of my life. I feel disillusioned by the ``American dream and the American middle class.'' If you graduate, if you go to college, if you . . . then you will rise above the poverty line. Let me tell you, Mr. Sanders, I feel more impoverished today than I ever have. Why? Because when I was poor, I didn't have nearly $100,000 of debt; essentially making me indentured to my country. That isn't freedom. Finally, an e-mail from a woman in California in a city near San Francisco. This is the last letter: Both my husband and I have faced significant pay cuts the last year. We feel grateful to still have jobs, however. Many of our friends our age have no jobs and have been out of work for many months with no prospects in sight. We have 3 children and live in the high-cost San Francisco Bay Area, where we were born. A combined income of $100,000 to $150,000 doesn't go very far at all here when a modest townhouse costs almost $600,000 and everything else is proportionately more expensive. (The difference in the cost of living across the country is never taken into account by politicians planning tax breaks and should be . . . ) Our oldest daughter completed 2 years in Ameri-Corps after graduating from the University of Vermont where she got a Bachelor's degree in environmental science and conservation biology. Some of her student loans were forgiven by Ameri- Corps, but not many. Now she works for an environmental consulting firm in Boston but her wages are so low she can barely support herself and we are still paying $350 per month on her student loans that remain. We will owe $350 a month on those loans for the next 30 years--she has close to $70,000 left to pay off. My husband is almost 61 and I am 52. We have nothing saved for retirement. One small IRA we have will be cashed out this year to pay for a new roof on our townhouse. We can barely meet our mortgage payments, property taxes and pay our bills. We live month to month. Over the past year we have cut out many of the extras we used to consider necessities. My husband felt extremely guilty running up a charge card to buy much needed clothes for himself for work. He had not bought clothes for himself in about 5 years. Our home is now worth less than the loans we have on it. There is no money to replace our old rug, (or even have it professionally shampooed), no money to fix our broken clothes dryer, no money to repair our bathroom sink, no money to take even a modest vacation for a few days. The list goes on and on. We no longer have what we once considered a middle-class standard of living. Now we are nearing retirement years realizing we will have to work (if we have jobs) until we die. How could we ever exist on Social Security alone in this area? It would be impossible since we will not have our home even close to paid off. I have never felt so despondent about the state of our life and our family's prospects for the future. We have slid down the economic ladder one rung at a time. I used to believe if we worked hard enough we would be rewarded for our work--but no longer believe that. We are working harder than ever and now make far less money. I see no improvement in our financial well-being in the future whatsoever. I am beyond anger. I have no more tears. I only have two questions that no one seems to be able to answer. Mr. President, I think it is appropriate to end on this note, and this is what she says: I have only two questions that no one seems to be able to answer. Is everyone in Washington so far removed from the plight of our country's middle class that they cannot see what we are going through? Or do they see and simply not care? I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the unanimous consent agreement, the Murray amendment No. 4478, as amended by the Mikulski amendment, be agreed to.

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

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Airland of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, April 9, 2008, at 2 p.m., in open session to receive testimony on Air Force and Navy aviation programs in review of the Defense authorization request for fiscal year 2009 and the Future Years Defense Program.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for the Committee on Veterans' Affairs to be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, April 9, 2008, to conduct an oversight hearing on Making the VA the Workplace of Choice for Health Care Providers. The committee will meet in room 418 of the Russell Senate Office Building, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, April 9, 2008, at 3:15 p.m. to hold a nomination hearing.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, April 9, 2008, at 9:30 a.m. to hold a hearing on sexual assault in combat environments.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, April 9, 2008, at 10 a.m. in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to hold a hearing entitled, ``Legislative Hearing on S. 1870, the Clean Water Restoration Act of 2007.''

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, April 9, 2008, at 9:30 a.m., in open session to receive testimony on the situation in Iraq and progress made by the Government of Iraq in meeting benchmarks and achieving reconciliation.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, April 9, 2008, at 2:30 p.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on National Parks be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate to conduct a hearing on Wednesday, April 9, 2008, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance Subcommittee on Health Care be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, April 9, 2008, at 2:30 p.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Covering Uninsured Children: The Impact of the August 17 CHIP Directive.''

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Bill Hutzel, a fellow in my office, be granted floor privileges for the duration of debate on H.R. 3221.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside, and I call up Sanders amendment No. 4485.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I seek recognition to modify Sanders- Durbin amendment No. 4401, and I send the modification to the desk. The original amendment I offered would cap all interest rates on consumer loans using a similar formula that Senator D'Amato used when he offered an amendment to cap interest rates on credit cards in 1991. Mr. President, I call for the regular order with respect to the amendment.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, that amendment passed on the floor by a vote of 74 to 19. The modification I have sent to the desk would only cap interest rates on mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration. If this amendment were in law today, interest rates for mortgages insured by the FHA could be no higher than 14 percent, which is 8 percentage points above what the IRS charges to income tax deadbeats. The reason I am modifying this amendment is because if cloture is invoked on this legislation, capping interest rates on all consumer loans would not be germane. But capping interest rates on mortgages insured by the FHA would be germane to the underlying bill. In the future I will have more to say about this amendment. That is where we are.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senators Brown, Schumer, and Harkin be added as cosponsors of this amendment.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and that the Sanders amendment at the desk, No. 4384, be called up, and I ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, first, I wish to commend Senator Dodd and Senator Shelby for their work on this legislation. In particular, I wish to congratulate them on the provisions already in the bill to help our servicemembers and veterans. I also wish to thank Senator Akaka, the chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and Senator Burr, the ranking member, and their staffs, for helping to clear this amendment. The amendment I am offering today will provide another piece of needed help to disabled veterans trying to stay in their homes. This amendment increases funding for a VA grant program that assists disabled veterans needing to adapt their homes to accommodate their disabilities. As the Presiding Officer knows, many thousands of soldiers, coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan as amputees, who are blind and who have a number of disabilities, and this amendment attempts to address some of those problems by helping them adapt their homes so they can live in those homes with their disabilities. This amendment is supported by some of our Nation's largest veterans organizations, including the VFW, the DAV, AMVETS, Paralyzed Veterans of America, and the Vietnam Veterans of America. It is also important to note the policy changes we are advocating are contained in the independent budget, the document authored every year by many of the same organizations. It is also a policy that has the unanimous support of the majority members of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, which endorsed this policy change in the 2007 and 2008 Views and Estimates letter to the Budget Committee; in other words, this policy in this amendment has broad support. Veterans with certain severe service-connected disabilities are entitled to what are known as specially adapted housing grants of up to $50,000. Veterans with service-connected blindness only or with loss of use of both upper extremities may receive a grant of up to $10,000. The authors of the independent budget note increases in these amendments have been sporadic, despite the increases in real estate costs. In particular, veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are finding the current VA program does not cover the cost of adapting their homes to accommodate wheelchairs or loss of vision, to create physical therapy space or other needed changes. This amendment increases the specialty adaptive housing grant to provide $10,000 in additional benefits for those veterans eligible for the $50,000 grant and $2,000 in additional benefits for those veterans eligible for the current $10,000 grant. So we are raising the cap on each program to $60,000 and $12,000, respectively. According to CBO, for fiscal year 2009, this amendment would cost about $6 million. The Senate is now debating an important piece of legislation to try to bring relief to so many of the middle-income Americans who are struggling to keep their heads above water in today's economy and housing crisis. I think, given the context of this bill, certainly we can reach out to disabled veterans to adapt their homes so they can try to live as full lives as possible. I wish to again commend Senator Dodd, Senator Shelby, and the Banking Committee for the proveteran, proservicemember provisions already in this legislation, and I ask that my colleagues support this small additional benefit. I ask for my colleagues' support on this amendment, and if it is appropriate, I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

Mr. SANDERS. I thank the Senator for his kind remarks.