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Government Funding
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, I want to say a few words about some of the important budgetary issues that Congress is now facing. I want to focus on the
$3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, but before I do that, I want to comment on the looming debt crisis that we face.
The Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, this morning once again reiterated that the Republican Party will not vote to lift the debt ceiling; and in an extraordinarily irresponsible manner, Republicans have indicated that they will not pay the debts incurred under the Trump administration.
In his statement, as he has done time and time again, Senator McConnell implies that this debt ceiling has something to do with future spending. It does not.
In his statement, as he has done time and time again, Senator McConnell implies that this debt ceiling has something to do with future spending. It does not. Like anyone who owns a credit card, the payments that are made are for past spending--in this case, spending incurred under the Trump administration.
Let us be clear. If the United States, the largest economy in the world, defaults on its debt, it will plunge not only our country but the entire global economy into what could become a severe economic depression. That means massive unemployment, higher interest rates, severe reduction in government services, and possible cuts in such programs as Social Security and Medicare.
The irresponsibility of the Republican leadership is not just something that I worry about. According to press reports, former Republican Secretaries of Treasury Hank Paulson, who worked under George W. Bush, and Steven Mnuchin, who worked under Donald Trump--
Republican Secretaries of the Treasury--both of them visited with Senator McConnell to make the case about the need to extend the debt ceiling. They understand, as I think all of us do, how important it is that the United States of America does not default on its debt, and it is about time that my Republican colleagues listen to them.
Now, let me say a word about the $3\1/2\ trillion reconciliation bill. There has been a lot of talk lately about the need to compromise. Well, let me be clear. To a very significant degree, that has already taken place. Of the 11 Democratic members of the Senate Budget Committee, 9 understood the need for a $6 trillion bill, which would finally address the unmet needs--the long-ignored needs--of the working families of our country, as well as begin the process of tackling the existential threat of climate change. My guess is that at least 40 out of the 50 Members of the Democratic caucus supported the $6 trillion proposal. We compromised big time. We cut that proposal--agreed to cut that proposal--almost in half, down to $3\1/2\ trillion. That, to my mind, is a major, major compromise.
As we go forward in this debate, let me be as clear as I can be as to why every penny of that $3\1/2\ trillion is absolutely needed, and let me also make clear that this bill, despite some of the rhetoric coming from my Republican colleagues, will not add--should not add and will not add one nickel to the deficit.
It will be paid for. It will be paid for by finally demanding that some of the wealthiest people in this country, who in any given year--
we are talking about multibillionaires who in a given year do not pay a nickel in Federal income tax or dozens of large, profitable corporations that in a given year do not pay a nickel in Federal income tax. Well, we are going to demand that these people start paying their fair share of taxes, and that is more than enough money to cover the
$3\1/2\ trillion that is in this proposal. So anyone who suggests to you that this bill is not going to be paid for and that it is going to add to the deficit is simply not telling the truth. It should and will be fully paid for.
Now, the media is very worried about process. When are we going to do this? What about that person? What about that Senator? But they have forgotten to a large degree to talk about what is in the bill. I am not quite sure that the average American is staying up nights, worrying about whether it is completed on a Wednesday or a Friday or what this Senator thinks or what that Senator thinks; they would like to know what is in the bill.
The reality is that for many, many decades, while Congress has paid rapt attention to the needs of the wealthy and large campaign contributors, it has significantly ignored the needs of working families, the middle-class, and low-income people. I think the reason that many of my Republican colleagues are so upset about this legislation is that we are changing the dynamic. We are now beginning to pay attention to the needs of working families and not just the wealthy and the powerful.
So what is in this bill? First, as a result of the extraordinarily successful American Rescue Plan, which went a long way to pull this country out of the severe economic decline that we experienced as a result of the COVID pandemic, as a result of the American Rescue Plan, we cut childhood poverty in the United States of America by over 50 percent, and for Black and Brown families, that cut was even higher.
Year after year, the United States has the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on Earth. We took a major step forward in cutting childhood poverty. Now it is clear to me and I think to people all across this country that we must extend the $300-a-month-per-child direct payment that working-class and middle-class families now receive.
Let me be very clear. If we do not pass the reconciliation bill and not continue those payments, we would once again plunge the children of this country, millions of them, back into poverty, and that is morally unacceptable.
Furthermore, in the United States of America, every person should be outraged by the dysfunctionality of our childcare system. I don't think there is anybody who disagrees with that. We have millions of people who cannot find childcare. We have families in Vermont and Maine paying 20, 30, 40 percent of their limited incomes for childcare, which is pretty crazy. We have childcare workers who are employed at starvation wages. The system is not working. It is broken. It is dysfunctional.
It is not a radical idea to say that every family in America, when mom goes to work and dad goes to work, should be entitled to high-
quality and affordable childcare. There are a lot of studies out there that say that the best investment we can make of Federal dollars is to our children, and that is why we have got to expand what we are doing in childcare. Under this legislation, no working family in this country will be paying more than 7 percent of their income for childcare. So if you are paying 20 percent now or you are paying 30 percent, we will reduce that to no more than 7 percent.
On top of that and of extraordinary significance, we are going to make pre-K education for 3- and 4-year-olds universal and free, and we are going to do, bottom line, what almost every other industrialized country on Earth does and understand that the most important investment we can make is in our children.
By the way, importantly, when we do that, we are going to allow well over a million women to go back into the workforce because they no longer will have to stay home because of a lack of affordable childcare. So if you are worried about labor shortages all over this country, you must support significantly expanding our childcare capabilities.
Further, what is in this legislation is, at a time when the pharmaceutical industry charges us the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, we are going to demand that Medicare start negotiating prescription drugs with the pharmaceutical industry.
I know that Americans now have seen a lot of the ads--the completely dishonest ads from the pharmaceutical industry, and let's be clear. Over the last 20 years, the pharmaceutical industry has spent well over
$4 billion on lobbying and hundreds and hundreds of millions more on campaign contributions. Guess what. They own the U.S. Congress. And that is why--when you walk into a pharmacy and you find that the price of your medicine has doubled, it is because they can do anything they want to do. They write the laws. They, right now, have 1,400 lobbyists running all over Capitol Hill, trying to make sure that we do not lower the cost of prescription drugs. And that is what this struggle is about.
These guys, year after year, make outrageous profits. Their CEOs get extraordinary compensation benefits, and they do that by charging us by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Well, those days are coming to an end if Members of the Congress finally have the guts to stand up to them.
Now, I understand that the pharmaceutical industry owns the Republican Party. I got that. And I understand that there will not be one Republican in the Senate who has the guts to stand up for his or her constituents and lower the cost of prescription drugs. Well, there should not be any Democrat who is in that position. There should be no Democrats who are not prepared to stand up to the pharmaceutical industry.
When we have Medicare negotiate prescription drug prices, we can save over $500 billion. One of the things we are going to do with that $500 billion is do what the American people desperately want us to do, and that is to expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing aids. This is the United States. Elderly people should not walk around without any teeth in their mouths. They should be able to afford to go to a dentist. It is not a very radical idea. Grandparents should be able to communicate with their grandchildren because they have a hearing aid that they need in their ears that today they cannot afford. Older people should be able to read their daily newspaper because they can get a pair of glasses that works for them.
The need to expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing aids, and eyeglasses is absolutely critical. Nobody in the year 2021 denies that oral health, hearing, and vision are essential parts of healthcare. Medicare is supposed to cover the healthcare needs of seniors. Well, oral health, hearing, and vision are parts of healthcare.
Not surprisingly, out of all of the provisions in President Biden's Build Back Better plan, expanding Medicare to provide dental, vision, and hearing aids is by far the most popular. According to a June 30 Morning Consult poll, adding dental, vision, and hearing benefits to Medicare is supported by 84 percent of the American people. It is not often you get 84 percent of the American people supporting anything. And yet that includes 89 percent of Democrats, 79 percent of Republicans. This is what the American people want, and this is what we must deliver for them.
Given that, it is just hard for me to imagine that any Member of the House or Senate would oppose this very popular and important provision.
It is a bit embarrassing that our Nation, the richest on Earth, is the only major country not to guarantee paid family and medical leave. I have been all over this country, and I have met with women--low-
income women--who are forced to go back to work 1 week after having their baby because they need the income. We are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee paid family and medical leave, not to make sure that a mom can stay home with her sick kid or a dad can spend time with his dying father or mother.
This legislation finally does what should have been done a long, long time ago and guarantees paid family and medical leave.
And what this legislation does is address the reality that many of our younger people are unable to obtain the good-paying jobs that are out there because they lack the ability to get a higher education.
Now, my own view is we should make public colleges and universities tuition free. My own view is we should cancel all student debt in this country. That is not in this bill. But what is in this bill is the reality that every American will have the right to get at least 2 years of community college tuition free. And they can use that to get the training they need for jobs. They can use that to accumulate credits that can be transferred to a 4-year college, if that is what they desire.
A few blocks away from here and in every major city in America, there are Americans sleeping out on the streets. They are veterans. They are people with all kinds of issues. They are working people who simply cannot afford the housing in their community. Two blocks away from the U.S. Capitol there is an encampment of homeless people. Six hundred thousand Americans are homeless today, and on top of that, we have some 18 million households that spend 50 percent of their limited incomes on housing.
In other words, we have a major housing crisis. This legislation addresses that, and, in an unprecedented manner, invests in low-income and affordable housing. And when we do that, by the way, we create a whole lot of good-paying jobs.
We are an aging society. And whether people have severe disabilities or whether they are just getting old, people would rather stay at home in many cases rather than be forced into nursing homes. What our legislation will do is to significantly improve home healthcare in this country and make sure that those people who provide that important service, that difficult service, are adequately compensated, because today they are not. We need more of those workers, and we need to pay them decent wages.
I am sadly aware that many of my Republican colleagues do not believe that climate change is real or, at the very least, don't believe that we should do anything about it. But they are dead wrong. In my view, we cannot go home and look our children and grandchildren in the eye knowing what we know and knowing that the scientists are telling us that we have a very, very few years to address the climate crisis or else there will be irreparable harm done in our country and around the world.
We have turned on the TV this past summer, and we saw the unbelievable fires in Oregon and California and learned that in Siberia their fires were larger than all the other fires combined; smoke went thousands of miles. We learned that July was the hottest month ever and that climate is exacerbating extreme weather disturbances like Hurricane Ida, which brought havoc to Louisiana.
This legislation that we are proposing does not go as far as I think it should on climate. But make no mistake about it. It is a major, major step forward in transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy.
So that is where we are right now. We are at a moment where millions and millions of Americans have lost faith in their government. They think that we are incapable of addressing their needs, that all we do is listen to wealthy campaign contributors and the lobbyists and the billionaire class.
The question we face right now is, At this moment, do we have the courage to keep faith with the American people and show them that their democracy in fact can work for them and not just powerful special interests?
So let us go forward. Let us do the right thing. Let us pass this
$3\1/2\ trillion reconciliation package.
With that, I yield the floor.
SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 165
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