Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I wish to spend a few minutes talking about an issue that I believe has not gotten the attention it deserves, especially in the midst of the contentious Presidential campaign we are witnessing, and that is the need to discuss a program which is probably the most successful social program in the modern history of the United States, a program that provides dignity and security to well over 50 million Americans, and that is Social Security.

Just this afternoon, 29 Senators sent a letter to all of our colleagues that says:

We will oppose including Social Security cuts for future or

current beneficiaries in any deficit reduction package.

Let's be very clear. Our country does have a serious deficit problem. Our deficit this year is about $1 trillion, and our national debt is $16 trillion. That is a serious problem. However, let's be equally clear in understanding that Social Security has not contributed one nickel to the Federal deficit. So despite what we are going to hear tonight on cable television or some of the speeches my colleagues will give, let me reiterate: Social Security has not contributed one nickel to our Federal deficit.

In fact, the Social Security trust fund today, according to the Social Security Administration, has a $2.7 trillion surplus--let me repeat that: a $2.7 trillion surplus--and can pay out 100 percent of all benefits owed to every eligible American for the next 21 years.

Although many Americans now take Social Security for granted, we should never underestimate the incredibly positive impact Social Security has had on our Nation. In fact, one could well argue that Social Security has been the Nation's most successful social program-- certainly in the modern history of this country.

In the 77 years since Social Security was signed into law, it has been enormously successful in reducing poverty for senior citizens. Before the advent of Social Security, back in the 1920s, early 1930s, about half of the senior citizens in this country lived in poverty, some in dismal poverty. Today, while the number is too high, the number of seniors living in poverty is less than 10 percent. We have gone from 50 percent to less than 10 percent. That, to my mind, is a real success story and something of which this Nation should be incredibly proud.

Today Social Security not only provides retirement benefits for 34 million Americans but also enables millions of people with disabilities and widows, widowers, and children to live in dignity and security. I hear in Vermont very often--and I expect the Presiding Officer hears in New Hampshire--about young people who have been able to go to college, live with some sense of security, despite the death of a parent, precisely because of Social Security.

Yet, despite all of these success stories, today Social Security is on the chopping block. Millions of Americans, when asked in polls, make it very clear--including people all across the political spectrum-- saying: No, we should not cut Social Security. Millions of people understand that Social Security--and this is simply an extraordinary record--has been there in good times and in bad times. And in 77 years, not one American, no matter what the state of the economy, has not received all of the benefits to which he or she is entitled. It is an insurance program that has worked, and worked extraordinarily well.

What we are looking at right now are attacks on Social Security coming from Mitt Romney, from Paul Ryan, and from virtually every Republican in Congress, who are calling for major cuts in Social Security. Many of them, including Romney and Ryan, also want to begin the process of privatizing Social Security and turning it over to Wall Street, putting the retirement dreams of millions of Americans at risk. They are also pushing to increase the retirement age to 68 or 69, forcing older Americans who have worked their entire lives--sometimes in physically demanding jobs in construction; maybe they worked in restaurants being waitresses their whole lives and now some folks want these people to still be working at the age of 68 or 69.

While virtually every Republican in Congress is pushing to cut Social Security benefits, there are also some Democrats who are considering cutting Social Security as part of some deficit reduction grand bargain. I strongly disagree with that approach, and I hope President Obama will make it clear, as he did 4 years ago, that he also disagrees with that approach.

Let me quote what President Obama said 4 years ago when he was Senator Obama running for the White House. This is what he said:

John McCain's campaign has suggested that the best answer

for the growing pressures on Social Security might be to cut

cost of living adjustments or raise the retirement age. Let

me be clear: I will not do either.

End of quote of Senator Barack Obama on September 6, 2008. What then- Senator Obama said in 2008 was exactly right, and I hope that now, in 2012, we will hear the President reiterate that position.

One of the most talked about ideas, when we hear discussions about cutting Social Security--and nobody outside of the beltway has a clue about what this means. I can tell you, I have been to many meetings in Vermont, and I have asked Vermonters: Do you know what the chained CPI is? And nobody has a clue. But one of the most talked about ways to cut Social Security is moving toward a so-called chained CPI, which changes how cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security benefits and veterans benefits are calculated.

So what it does right now: There is a formula by which the government determines what kind of COLA--cost-of-living adjustment--seniors and veterans will get. It is a complicated formula. But what these guys want to do is cut back, readjust that formula so that the benefits will be less.

People who support this concept of a chained CPI, such as Alan Simpson, Erskine Bowles, and Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson--and Peterson is one of the guys, a billionaire on Wall Street, putting in huge amounts of money in order to cut Social Security and other important programs--they believe Social Security COLAs and COLAs for veterans benefits are too generous, and they want to cut those COLA benefits.

Well, I will tell you something. When I talk to seniors in the State of Vermont and I say there are people in Washington who think their COLA benefits are too generous, usually they laugh. The reason they laugh is that for 2 out of the last 3 years, they have not received any COLA whatsoever--nothing--while at the same time their prescription drug costs and their health care costs have been soaring. And they look at me and say: What? Are these people crazy? If we have not gotten a COLA in 2 out of the last 3 years, while our expenses have risen, how do they think that COLA formula is now too generous?

Let's also be very clear that when we talk about this chained CPI, this means not only cuts for seniors, it means cuts for veterans, and that is an issue we have not talked about very much.

So let me talk about what the chained CPI means. It means--and they want to implement this, by the way, very shortly. Romney and Ryan are talking about changing Medicare, as we know, over a 10-year period, and I think that is a disastrous idea. But what these guys now are talking about are immediate cuts in the COLA, starting as soon as they can pass that legislation.

What it would mean is that for a senior citizen who is 65 years of age today, by the time that senior reaches 75, there would be a $560-a- year cut compared to what they otherwise would have gotten. Some folks here on Capitol Hill may not think $560 is a lot, but if you are struggling on $14,000 or $15,000 a year, that is quite a hit. And once that 65-year-old, in 20 years, reaches 85, that cut will be approximately $1,000 a year.

Now, I have a problem; in a nation that has the most unequal distribution of wealth and income, where the rich are getting richer and their effective tax rate is the lowest in decades, some folks around here, pushed by Wall Street billionaires, by the way, say: Hey, we have a great idea on how we could deal with deficit reduction: Let's tell a senior living on $15,000 a year, Social Security, that we are going to cut them by $1,000 in 20 years. I think really that is morally grotesque, and it is also bad economics.

But this chained CPI would not only impact seniors, it would also impact 3 million veterans. Three million veterans would be impacted by this chained CPI. For example, a veteran who put his life on the line to defend this country and who was severely wounded in action and who has a 100-percent service-connected disability is currently eligible to receive about $32,000 a year from the VA. Under the chained CPI, this disabled veteran, who started receiving VA disability benefits at age 30, would see his benefits cut by more than $1,300 a year at age 45, $1,800 a year at age 55, and $2,260 a year at age 65.

In other words, moving toward a chained CPI would be a disgraceful effort to balance the budget on some of the most vulnerable people in this country, including people who have suffered severe wounds and disabilities in defending this country. Those are not the people upon whom you balance the budget.

Madam President, I will conclude by reminding the American people that when Bill Clinton left office in January 2001, this country had a $236 billion surplus, and the projections were that that surplus was going to grow every single year. But some of the same people in Congress right now, including Congressman Paul Ryan, who is running for Vice President, who are so concerned about the deficit, who want to cut Social Security, end Medicare as we know it, make devastating cuts in Medicaid and education--these very same people voted to go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan and not pay one nickel for those wars but put them on the credit card and increase the deficit. These same people who now want to go after wounded veterans gave huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country, adding to the deficit. They passed a Medicare Part D prescription drug program and forgot to pay for that as well. So, to my mind, I have a real problem with folks who went to war without paying for it, gave tax breaks to billionaires without paying for it, passed a Medicare Part D prescription drug program without paying for it, and now they say we have to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the needs of working families and low-income people. I think that is absolute hypocrisy.

So our charge is that instead of listening to the Wall Street billionaires who want to move to deficit reduction on the backs of the elderly, the children, the sick, the poor, wounded veterans, there are better ways to do deficit reduction. I hope that as a Congress we will come together and say that when the wealthiest people are doing phenomenally well, yes, they are going to have to pay more in taxes. When a quarter of the corporations in this country pay nothing in taxes, yes, they are going to have to pay their fair share of taxes. When we are losing $100 billion a year because of tax havens in the Cayman Islands and elsewhere, we

are going to have to deal with that issue before we cut programs on which elderly people and veterans and children depend.

So we have a lot of work in front of us, but the bottom line is that I will do everything I can to make sure we do not balance the budget on the backs of the elderly, the children, the sick, and the poor. That is immoral, and it is also bad economic policy.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the letter signed by 29 Members of the Senate opposing cuts in Social Security.

I thank the Chair.

(The remarks of Mr. Sanders and Mr. Franken pertaining to the introduction of S. 3562 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. President, today I am very proud to introduce the Older Americans Act reauthorization of 2012 bill along with 14 of my colleagues, including Senators Blumenthal, Kerry, Mikulski, Begich, Akaka, Durbin, Gillibrand, Klobuchar, Leahy, Wyden, Franken, Johnson, and Merkley. This bill is the result of an impressive team effort. We have reached out to a number of members on the committee and others who have brought forth ideas of their own, and I am very proud as chairman of the Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging to have introduced this bill. I wish to thank the director of the subcommittee, Ashley Carson Cottingham, for her work, as well as Sophie Kasimow and Erica Solway.

It is disappointing to me that this important piece of legislation has not been dealt with during this session, but on behalf of the millions of elderly people to whom it applies and for whom it will make life better, I am introducing it today because it will lay the groundwork for what we have to do next session.

Originally enacted in 1965, the Older Americans Act was the first edition by the Federal Government to help senior citizens remain independent in their homes and in their communities. The Older Americans Act has historically received bipartisan support.

This act provides Federal funding for some important programs with which many Americans are familiar. Among others is the Meals on Wheels Program. All over America we have seniors who are frail, who are unable to leave their homes, and every single day all over this country there are volunteers who are delivering hot, nutritious meals to seniors. I wish to thank all of those volunteers and to tell them we are going to do the best we can to increase funding to end some of those waiting lines that now exist throughout this country in terms of seniors being able to get the Meals on Wheels Program.

Another important nutrition program the Older Americans Act deals with is the Congregate Meal Program. Every day in Vermont and I know all over this country the elderly come to senior centers, where they socialize and have a good time and are able to break through their isolation and also receive nutritious meals. The meals they receive are significantly funded by the Congregate Meal Program. In my view, they are inadequately funded, and we want to increase funding for that program as well.

I would mention that in the State of Vermont alone--just one small State--almost 1 million Congregate and Meals on Wheels are served every single year. That is 1 million meals in a small State such as Vermont.

Mr. President, we are in the midst of a terrible recession. Unemployment is too high, wages are too low, and many people have lost their homes. But in the midst of this recession, we do not talk enough about the plight of many elderly people. They are living their lives, often in great financial distress, under the radar screen. I think we are not paying enough attention to their problems.

Today, incredibly enough, one in five seniors over the age of 65 is living on an average income of $7,500 per year, and the number of seniors going hungry is rising. Hunger among seniors in the United States today is a serious problem. In fact, there are over 5 million seniors who face the threat of hunger and others who are struggling every single day to make sure they have enough food in the refrigerator to take care of their most basic needs.

The very good news is that the Older Americans Act has developed programs to address these needs. Yet, because we have more seniors who are in need of these programs, it is absolutely imperative that we address the problems of hunger and make sure every senior in this country gets the nutrition he or she needs.

This bill we are submitting today with 14 cosponsors will request higher authorization for nutrition programs, for supportive services, and for jobs programs. One of the things the Older Americans Act does-- and not a lot of people know this--is it provides employment opportunities for many seniors. This is important because not only does it allow hard-pressed seniors to earn additional revenue, but it also allows them to go out into the workforce and put meaning into their lives, which is extremely important. This legislation also provides for chronic disease self-management and the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program. The bill also strengthens efforts to identify and prevent elder abuse--a serious problem in our country--support for family caregivers and care coordination activities, workforce for seniors, and increases protections for seniors living in nursing homes and receiving home care services.

Mr. President, we need to see the reauthorization of the Older Americans Act early in the next Congress. With 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 each day and middle-class families experiencing rising costs from education to health care as well as the need to provide care to their aging relatives, we are at a critical moment in terms of how we address the very serious problems facing senior citizens.

The interesting point about the Older Americans Act and about the Nutrition Program is that while, yes, it is an investment of Federal dollars, in the long run it actually saves us money. We had a very interesting hearing on this issue, and we heard from physicians who told us what common sense would suggest. If seniors do not get the nutrition they need, if they become malnourished, they are obviously more likely to become ill, end up in an emergency room or in the hospital. In addition, when we have senior citizens who are not getting the care and attention they need at home, the nutrition they need, they are more likely to suffer serious falls, break hips, and end up in a hospital, at great expense.

So the bottom line here is not really rocket science. It is that if we make sure seniors throughout the country--those who are vulnerable, who are frail, who do not have a lot of money--get the nutrition and the attention they deserve while at home, they will be healthier and less likely to end up in emergency rooms and in hospitals at great expense to our health care system. So investing in the Older Americans Act is not only the right thing to do, it is not only the humane thing to do in terms of taking care of the most vulnerable and fragile people in our society, it also makes good financial sense for our country.

Mr. President, I thank very much the 14 cosponsors we have. We are going to aggressively do our best to make sure this legislation is passed either in the lameduck session or when we return next year.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am delighted that Father Marcel Rainville has offered the opening prayer for the Senate this morning, and I thank him very much for joining us in doing so.

Father Rainville is a native of Vermont. He is a distinguished member of the Society of St. Edmund, an order which has a very long history in our State. Established in Vermont first at Keeler's Bay in 1891 and then in Swanton in 1895, the Society of St. Edmund still has its headquarters in Vermont. The society founded St. Michael's College, which was officially incorporated in 1913 as the first Catholic college in the State of Vermont with the authority to grant college degrees. The Edmundites have long stood for justice and civil rights in our country, including in Selma, AL, where they have a mission. The society has established a successful alternative school for African-American boys in New Orleans. The Edmundites have as a major part of their vocation the mission to help those who are most in need, and we appreciate all of the good work they do.

Father Rainville was born in Swanton, VT. He was ordained as a priest in the Society of St. Edmund, and this year marks the 40th anniversary of his ordination. Father Marcel spent part of his life as a priest serving in the Edmundite mission in Venezuela, working with and sustaining the impoverished in a barrio in Caracas. He currently resides in Winooski Park, VT, where he has also served as chaplain. He currently serves as the director of formation for the Society of St. Edmund.

It gives me great pride that he has given the opening prayer today in the Senate, and all of Vermont appreciates the wonderful work he has done. He is a kind and gentle human being and is much beloved in our State. I thank him again for being with us today, and I thank the Chaplain for his help in arranging this visit.

Order of Business

Mr. President, let me begin by thanking Senator Mark Udall for his continued focus on ensuring that Congress extends the production tax credit. Senator Udall has been down on the Senate floor time after time after time on this important issue, and we all owe him a deep debt of gratitude. I thank the Senator very much.

I also want to thank him for his very kind words about the NRG company. We hope when the Senator visits us in Vermont, he will see it. They are a cutting-edge company. They are an extraordinary company, and we are very proud of the work they have done and are doing, and we are cognizant of the problems they are facing today, the layoffs they have had to experience because Congress has not passed the production tax credit.

Mr. President, as you know, this important incentive, the production tax

credit, moves us forward in a direction that we must go in terms of producing safe, sustainable energy by providing a 2.2-cent-per- kilowatt-hour incentive for wind energy produced.

Let's be very clear--and I think a lot of people, perhaps, in Congress and certainly all over the country do not fully grasp this. I think some people still think wind is some kind of cute fringe technology which is not very significant in the United States of America. So let's be very clear: Wind accounts for 35 percent of all new electric-generating capacity installed in our country over the last 5 years, more new electricity capacity during that time than nuclear and coal combined. Let me repeat that. Wind accounts for 35 percent of all new electric-generating capacity installed in our country over the last 5 years. This is not some untested fringe technology; it is mainstream.

Wind today is producing electricity at very competitive rates. According to the Department of Energy, wind is producing electricity from between 4 to 7 cents per kilowatt hour. That happens to be far cheaper than electricity produced by new nuclear plants. Today the United States has over 48,000 megawatts of wind, and Texas alone has over 10,000 megawatts. Iowa and South Dakota have achieved the milestone of getting 20 percent or more of their electricity from wind. Once again, this is not a fringe technology. This is a technology that is growing and is cost effective.

In my State of Vermont, we are home to leading wind companies such as Northern Power in Barre and NRG Systems in Hinesburg. These companies sell wind energy products globally and create good-paying jobs in the State of Vermont. The wind industry supports over 470 manufacturing plants nationally and some 78,000 jobs from one end of our country to the other.

If Congress fails to act on the wind tax credit, we could see a hemorrhaging of some 37,000 wind energy jobs in the next year. We have already seen wind job losses in Vermont due in part to the uncertainty. If one opposes the production tax credit, this is what they are saying to construction workers who want to build wind farms next year: Sorry; you are out of work. In the middle of this severe recession, we should not be saying that.

Those opposing the wind credit say Congress should ``not pick winners and losers.'' Unfortunately, for many decades, for better or for worse, Congress has picked winners and losers. That is just the simple reality. One big winner is the fossil fuel industry, which is set to receive over $113 billion in subsidies over the next 10 years. So when folks come to the floor and say: We do not want to pick winners and losers, we do not want to give tax breaks and tax credits for wind or solar, the truth is that in a 10-year period, the fossil fuel industry will receive over $113 billion in subsidies.

These subsidies include rather incredible loopholes, such as allowing BP to take a tax writeoff for the cost of cleaning up their disastrous oilspill in the gulf. Many of these tax subsidies for Big Oil and coal corporations never phase out and never expire.

Another big winner in terms of support from the Federal Government is the nuclear power industry. They get tens of billions of dollars in Federal research and development. They get risky multibillion-dollar Federal loan guarantees for new plants, and they get the Federal Price- Anderson liability insurance program, which has been conveniently extended for over a half a century.

I raise these points to suggest that what we are asking for is fairly modest compared to what the fossil fuel industry and the nuclear power industry receive. It is absurd that Congress continues huge subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, for the nuclear power industry, and yet is resisting providing support for safe and sustainable energy such as wind.

If we are serious about job creation and putting construction workers back to work, if we are serious about reversing global warming and cutting back on greenhouse gas emissions, we must be investing in the growing sustainable energy sector. At a modest cost compared to the huge subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear, an extension of the production tax credit can provide wind energy companies the certainty they need to invest in job creation in America.

I wish to congratulate Senator Udall for his excellent work and his leadership on this issue. I look forward to working with him and all of my colleagues so that we extend the production tax credit and create a more level playing field for sustainable energy.

With that, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, there has been, appropriately enough, a lot of discussion about our $16 trillion national debt and our $1 trillion Federal deficit. This is, in fact, an enormously important issue, and it is an issue that Congress must address. But it must address this crisis in a way that is fair to the middle class and to working families and our seniors and our kids. It is an issue that must be addressed, but it must be addressed fairly.

When we talk about the deficit and the national debt, it is important to remember how we got to where we are today. We can simply go back 10 years or so to January 2001 when President Clinton left office and President Bush assumed the Presidency. At that particular moment in history, in January 2001, I hope everybody remembers not only did this country have a $236 billion surplus, all of the projections for the future at that point were that that surplus was going to grow and grow and grow. In fact, at that point, this was one of the great debates taking place in Congress: What do we do with all of that money? How much do we give back in tax breaks? How much do we put into Social Security? That was the debate in January 2001.

So before we discuss how we go forward in deficit reduction, with a trillion-dollar deficit, it is important to remember that, and it is important to remember how we got to where we are today.

How we got to where we are today really, in a significant way, is not complicated. President Bush assumed office and within a few years we were fighting not just one war in Afghanistan but another war in Iraq. I hope the American people appreciate that many of the ``deficit hawks''--the people who tell us: Oh, gee, we have to cut Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and nutrition and education; we have to cut, cut, cut, cut--when asked to pay for those wars had nothing to say.

Paul Ryan, Mr. Romney's Vice Presidential nominee, chairman of the House Budget Committee, voted for the wars but forgot to pay for them. Nobody knows exactly how much these two wars will end up costing, but the guess is that by the time we take care of the last veteran 70 years from now, those wars may run up over $3 trillion, and we did not pay for them to the tune of one penny, all put on the credit card, all added to the deficit.

I find it somewhat unusual that many of our Republican ``deficit hawks,'' who stand here on the floor of the Senate every day and tell us how deeply concerned they are about the deficit all voted for huge tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires to the tune of $1 trillion over a 10-year period.

Well, you do not give huge tax breaks to the rich and not offset it if you are serious about the deficit and not being hypocritical. Many of my Republican friends, during the Bush years, voted for the insurance company-written Medicare Part D prescription drug program, written by the insurance companies and the drug companies. It is going to cost us about $400 billion over a 10-year period.

How did we pay for that program? Oh, I guess we did not pay for it at all. Our deficit hawk friends voted for that program, which was good politics, I guess. They forgot to pay for it. Add another $400 billion to the deficit.

It is important to understand that today, in the midst of this horrendous recession, the issue is not just cuts, cuts, cuts. The issue is that right now, today, at 15.2 percent, revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product is lower than at any time in the last 60 years. Because we deregulated Wall Street--Republicans wanted that; some Democrats wanted that--we allowed investor banks to merge with commercial banks, to merge with insurance companies, and, as a result of the illegal behavior on Wall Street, we were driven into this recession: mass unemployment, businesses go under, less tax revenue comes in, and, at 15.2 percent, revenue today as a percentage of GDP is the lowest it has been in 60 years.

So those are some of the reasons that today we are experiencing a trillion-dollar deficit and a $16 trillion national debt. My Republican friends will say: Well, you know, Bernie, be that as it may, yes, maybe we should have paid for the wars; maybe we should not have given tax breaks to billionaires when the rich are doing very well; maybe we should have paid for Medicare Part D; maybe we should have not deregulated Wall Street. But be that as it may, that is water over the dam. We are where we are right now. We have got to go forward on deficit reduction.

So what are their ideas? Well, Mitt Romney has not been as clear as I think he should be about his ideas. But we do have a blueprint from our Republican friends in the Ryan budget. As you know, Congressman Ryan is chairman of the Budget Committee. He presented a budget. It was passed by the Republican House. Here is some of what the Republican budget is about.

What the Republicans want to do is to make cuts to Social Security and to raise the retirement age. I want to say a word about Social Security right now. It is an issue I feel very strongly about. I think a lot of Americans do not know this. Social Security, because it is funded by the payroll tax and not the general Treasury, has not contributed one nickel to our deficits. Social Security today has a $2.7 trillion surplus and can pay out all benefits owed to all eligible Americans for the next 21 years. In my view, it would be wrong, it would be deeply wrong, to consider cuts in Social Security as part of deficit reduction, because Social Security has not contributed a nickel to the deficit. But our Republican friends support cuts in Social Security. And many of them over a period of years want to move toward the privatization of Social Security.

The Ryan budget would end Medicare as we know it in a 10-year period. What does that mean? What that means is that in 10 years, if you are 70 years of age, you would be given a voucher for $8,000, as I understand the number. Let's assume that an individual, a 70-year-old, 75-year-old individual walks into a doctor's office, and the doctor says: Joe, Mary, I am sorry to tell you this, but you are dealing with cancer. We are going to have to send you to a hospital. There are a whole lot of treatments you are going to have to undertake. Those treatments are going to cost you tens of thousands of dollars, if not more. That individual then goes to his or her insurance company and says: I have $8,000 to buy an insurance policy.

What do you think that insurance agent is going to tell that individual when that person is facing tens and tens of thousands of dollars of medical bills? That insurance company's function is to make money. They are not going to say: Oh, sure, give us the $8,000 so we can spend $50,000 on health care costs for you. It is not going to happen. That insurance company is going to say: There is the door. Try somebody else. That is going to happen to a whole lot of people.

You can think of what the end of that story is. The end of the story is, if that family, that individual, does not have any money, he or she is going to go to their kids. If they do not have any money, the outcome is not going to be good, because that person simply will not have the treatment he or she needs.

The Ryan budget proposes to cut $770 billion over a 10-year period from Medicaid. That would result in at least 14 million Americans losing their health insurance and would also cut nursing home assistance in half, threatening the long-term care of some 10 million senior citizens. Many people do not know that. Many people say: Well, you know, Medicaid is for the poor. It is certainly true that millions of low-income kids, deservedly, through the Children's Health Insurance Program, get their health insurance with significant help from Medicaid and State money. But what people do not understand is that Medicaid is also a major contributor toward nursing home care.

I want the average middle-class family to understand that if their mom or their pop develops Alzheimer's or some other very difficult situation, cannot stay at home, cannot stay with their kids, has to be put in a nursing home, which is pretty expensive, understand that all over this country, Medicaid is putting money into making sure that elderly people can stay in nursing homes with some degree of dignity.

But it is not just Social Security or Medicare and Medicaid our Republican friends are going after. In my State of Vermont, and I am sure in Minnesota, we have lower income working-class kids who no longer can go to college because college is too expensive. We have other young people who are graduating college $25,000, $50,000 in debt, unable to find jobs which help them pay off that debt.

In my view, the Pell grant program, which is the major way in Washington we help low and moderate-income kids--I think that is too low; we are not helping enough kids with enough resources. But the Ryan budget would slash Pell grants by about 60 percent next year alone. So if you are a parent or you are a young person in college, that is how they intend to balance the budget.

In the midst of this horrendous recession, older people, lower income people are struggling. It is very easy to forget here in the confines of the Senate, but there are millions of Americans today wondering how they are going to feed their kids tonight, who open the refrigerator, there is no food in that refrigerator, who depend upon food stamps. Half of the food stamp money goes to the elderly and children. They want to make devastating cuts in food stamps.

My main point is pretty simple. The deficit is a serious issue and we have got to address it. But it would not only be immoral, it would be bad economic policy to move toward deficit reduction, to move toward a balanced budget, on the backs of millions and millions of seniors and children and working families who today, as a result of this terrible recession, are already struggling to keep their heads above water. You do not balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable people in this country. That is bad economic policy. That is immoral. There are ways to move forward which can achieve the same goals but without hurting people who are already in pain.

What we do not talk about too much in Congress is who is winning and who is losing in the current American economy. I want to bring forth a few facts that I think the American people and my colleagues should be familiar with. That is, No. 1, in America today we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on Earth and worse in America today than at any time since the 1920s. We have in America today--and people should check it out; they may not believe me when I say this. You have got one family, the Waltons of Wal-Mart fame, one family owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of the American people. One family owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent.

And our Republican friends say: That is not enough. We have to give those people, billionaires, even more tax breaks. Today the top 1 percent owns about 41 percent of the wealth of America. The bottom 60 percent--that is a significant majority of the American people added all together--own about 2.3 percent of the wealth of America: Top 1 percent, 41 percent; bottom 60 percent, 2.3 percent.

Common sense and decency would suggest that when a few people have incredible wealth, when a few people are seeing their incomes and their wealth grow rapidly while the middle class is shrinking and poverty is increasing, common sense and common decency suggests that you ask the people on top whose effective tax rate is the lowest in decades to start paying their fair share of taxes before you cut Social Security, before you cut Medicare, Medicaid, education and nutrition programs.

Right now, about one out of four major profitable corporations is paying zero in taxes. We have had instances which I have portrayed here on the floor of the Senate of some of the most profitable corporations in America in a given year paying nothing in Federal income taxes, and, in fact, getting a rebate from the IRS.

Well, before you tell the elderly and children that they have to experience cuts when they cannot afford it, maybe you say to corporate America: Sorry, we are going to end the loopholes you currently are enjoying. Every single year we are losing about $100 billion in tax revenue because corporations and wealthy individuals are stashing their money in tax havens in the Cayman islands, Bermuda, and elsewhere. They are ``patriotic'' Americans who love this country so much they are stashing their money abroad in order to avoid paying taxes in this country.

Maybe before you cut education, maybe before you cut back on infrastructure, we make sure that we do away with these tax havens and these tax shelters for millionaires and billionaires and large corporations.

Lastly, we have tripled military spending since 1997. Right now the United States is spending almost as much as the rest of the world combined. We spend over 4 percent of our GDP on the military. Our friends in Europe--many of the countries there provide health care to all of their people, educational opportunities stronger than we do to our people--are spending 2 percent. We are spending twice as much in GDP on defense. Maybe it is time to take a hard look at a lot of the waste and inefficiency that currently exists in the Defense Department.

On my Web site, sanders.senate.gov, we have a whole list of ways that we can bring in revenue, where we can make cuts which are fair, which protect the middle class and working families and the most vulnerable people in this country.

I am going to do everything I can to make sure we do not go forward in terms of deficit reduction by punishing people who are already hurting and then giving more tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. That is bad economic policy. That is immoral. It is not something we should be doing.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, the Senator from Oklahoma, Jim Inhofe, is a friend of mine. While we have strong philosophical and political differences, we have had a very positive personal relationship since I entered the Senate 5\1/2\ years ago. I like Senator Inhofe, and on occasion, despite our political differences, we have been able to work together as members of the Environment and Public Works Committee, on which we both sit. I especially applaud the Senator for his strong efforts on the recently passed Transportation bill in which he led the effort in getting his fellow Republicans to move forward on the vitally important issue of rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure--in this case, roads and bridges.

Unfortunately, Senator Inhofe has some very radical views regarding global warming. I believe he is dead wrong and dangerously wrong on this issue. Not only is he wrong, but because he is the leading Republican on the Environment Committee, his views hold great influence over other Republicans in the Senate, in the House, and across the country. Because many Republicans follow Senator Inhofe's lead, it means we are making very little progress in Congress in combating what most of the scientific community sees is a global environmental crisis.

I am on the floor today to ask Senator Inhofe to rethink his views on this enormously important issue and to ask my Republican colleagues to do the same. I am asking them to join the overwhelming majority of scientists who have studied and written about this issue in understanding that, one, global warming is real; two, global warming is significantly caused by human activity; three, global warming is already causing massive and costly destruction to the United States and around the world, and it will only get worse in years to come.

I am also asking Senator Inhofe and my Republican colleagues to understand that the United States, with all of our knowledge, all of our expertise, and all of our technology, can and must lead the rest of the world, which must follow our effort in cutting back on carbon emissions and reverse global warming, and to understand that when we do this--when we transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and enter into energy efficiency and sustainable energy--when we do that over a period of years, we can create millions of good-paying jobs.

What I want to do this afternoon is nothing more than to simply quote some of the statements and assertions Senator Inhofe has made and to express to you why he is dead wrong and dangerously wrong on this vitally important issue.

Mr. President, on July 11--just 2\1/2\ weeks ago--Senator Inhofe spoke on this floor reiterating his longstanding views on global warming. What he said during that speech is pretty much what he has been saying for years. I read that speech, and I want to use this opportunity to comment on it. Specifically, I want to discuss a number of observations in which Senator Inhofe is completely wrong.

First and foremost, Senator Inhofe tells us in his speech that global warming science is wrong. First and foremost, Senator Inhofe tells us in his speech that global warming science is wrong. Mr. Inhofe states, on page S4860 of the Congressional Record from July 11--and I will do my best to quote him as accurately as I possibly can--the following about global warming:

In 2003 . . . I started hearing from a lot of the real

scientists that it was a hoax.

And Senator Inhofe continued, again from July 11, 2012:

It is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American

people.

Let me repeat again what Senator Inhofe said just a few weeks ago on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

[Global warming] . . . is the greatest hoax ever

perpetrated on the American people.

In fact, the title of Senator Inhofe's new book--which he was kind enough to give me a copy of--is ``The Greatest Hoax.'' That is the title of his book.

Well, let's examine that assertion on the part of Senator Inhofe. The United States Global Change Research Program, which was supported and expanded by President George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, and which includes scientists at NASA, EPA, the Department of Defense, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy, the State Department, the Department of Health, the Departments of Transportation, Commerce, and Interior, have said:

Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced.

Senator Inhofe has said global warming is a hoax, but the Global Change Research Program, which brings together many departments of the U.S. Government, says:

Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced.

Our National Academy of Sciences joined with academies in Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. They all came together and said:

The need for urgent action to address climate change is now

indisputable.

It is now indisputable. Senator Inhofe says global warming is a hoax; academies of science all over the world state the need for urgent action to address climate change is now indisputable.

Eighteen scientific professional societies, including the American Geophysical Union, the American Chemical Society, and others say:

Climate change is occurring and rigorous scientific

research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by

human activities are the primary driver.

That is a quote from 18 scientific professional societies. Senator Inhofe says global warming is a hoax, but 18 scientific professional societies say climate change is occurring and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver.

Even noted climate skeptic Richard Muller, who, interestingly enough, Senator Inhofe has cited in his own speeches over the years, wrote in the Wall Street Journal last year that his latest research proved ``global warming is real.'' More to the point, in an op-ed published 2 days ago, Richard Muller, who in the past was cited by Senator Inhofe as a global warming skeptic, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times entitled ``The Conversion of a Climate Change Skeptic.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the op-ed I have just referred to.

Mr. President, this is how Richard A. Muller--again, the scientist who was often quoted by Senator Inhofe--began his op-ed 2 days ago in the New York Times. This is the quote from Richard A. Muller.

Call me a converted skeptic. Three years ago, I identified

problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw

doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year,

following an intensive research effort involving a dozen

scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that

the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I'm

now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the

cause.

And Dr. Muller continues:

My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of

careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface

Temperature project, which I founded with my daughter

Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of

the earth's land has risen by 2\1/2\ degrees Fahrenheit over

the past 250 years, including an increase of 1\1/2\ degrees

over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely

that essentially all of this increase results from the human

emission of greenhouse gases.

That was Dr. Richard Muller from an op-ed in the New York Times on July 28, 2012.

I am not going to tell you that every single serious scientist in the world agrees with Dr. Muller or agrees with me or agrees with the vast majority of scientists that global warming is real and primarily caused by human activity. But I will say that, according to the National Academy of Sciences, approximately 98 percent of active climate scientists who published peer-reviewed papers agree with the assertion that global warming is occurring and human activity is a significant driver of it--not 100 percent but 98 percent.

When we talk about scientists publishing with peer review, what we are saying is their papers and research were reviewed and examined by other expert scientists in their field. That is the great thing about science and peer review. The process invites criticism and invites other scientists to prove your idea is wrong. When we say 98 percent of active climate scientists agree about global warming, we are talking about scientists whose work has been examined critically and found to be well-documented and correct by their peers in the field.

This is an important point to be made. There may well be scientists out there who may have different views. But by and large they have not written peer-reviewed literature which has been examined by other experts in that field. So the bottom line here--and the important bottom line--is when Senator Jim Inhofe says global warming is a hoax, he is dead wrong according to the overwhelming majority of scientists who have studied this issue.

I hope very much--and I mean this sincerely, because this is an enormously important issue--that Senator Inhofe will rethink his position, and those Republicans who have followed Senator Inhofe's lead will also rethink their position.

In July of 2010, in an interview with ABC News, Senator Inhofe said:

We're in a cycle now that all the scientists agree is going

into a cooling period.

Let me repeat that, because I don't want anyone to think I made a mistake about what I said. July 2010, ABC News, quoting Senator Inhofe.

We're in a cycle now that all the scientists agree is going

into a cooling period.

On July 11, on the floor of the Senate, Senator Inhofe stated in his remarks--and this is found on page S4860 of the Congressional Record. I want everyone to make sure I am not misquoting Senator Inhofe. I would not do that. From page S4860 of July 11, the Congressional Record:

. . . we went into a warming period that went up to the

turn of the century. Now it is actually going down into a

cooling period again . . .

That was Senator Inhofe, July 11, 2012. In other words, as I understand it, Senator Inhofe is saying that since the year 2001 we are in a cooling period. Unfortunately, Senator Inhofe's assertion that we have entered a cooling period could not be more incorrect.

Let's look at what the scientific data shows us. The last decade was not one where our temperature got cooler. It was, in fact, the very opposite. According to NASA, the last decade was in fact the warmest on record, using temperature records that date to the late 1800s. NASA's data shows that 9 of the 10 warmest years on record occurred since 2000, when Senator Inhofe says we went into a ``cooling period.'' So NASA says the last decade was the warmest on record, but Senator Inhofe says we have gone into a cooling period.

But it is not just NASA making this finding. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration--NOAA--issued a report from 300 scientists in 48 countries that confirms the last decade was the warmest on record--the warmest on record at a time when Senator Inhofe tells us we are going into a cooling period.

The World Meteorological Organization also confirms that the last decade was the warmest on record, and they found the 13 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1997.

So the American people and my Republican friends are going to have to make a decision: Is Jim Inhofe right that we are entering into a cooling period or is NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration correct in saying that the last decade was, in fact, the warmest on record?

As my fellow Vermonter, Bill McKibben, recently pointed out, globally we have seen 327 consecutive months where the temperature exceeded the global average for the 20th century. Senator Inhofe tells us the world is getting cooler, but science shows us we have just experienced the warmest

decade on record. Somebody is right and somebody is wrong, and I do not believe Senator Inhofe is right.

Senator Inhofe stated on July 11, 2012, page S. 4862 of the Congressional Record:

One thing we did find out when we got a report from several

universities, including MIT, was that the cost of this, if we

were to pass any of the bills, would have been between $300

billion and $400 billion a year.

This is not the first time Senator Inhofe has asserted that the cost of cutting greenhouse gas emissions is $300 billion to $400 billion a year. In an interview with Fox News on February 11, 2000, Senator Inhofe was asked by the Fox anchor about the cost of global warming legislation, and he responded:

It would cost between $300 billion and $400 billion a year.

Senator Inhofe gets his estimates by looking at worst-case scenarios from an out-of-date report that looked at legislation from 2007. The truth is, however, more recent research proves we can take strong action to cut emissions while at the same time growing our economy and saving Americans substantial sums of money on their energy bills.

For example, a 2009 study from McKinsey consulting firm found that the United States can meet our 2020 targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions just through cost-effective energy efficiency efforts, with a net savings for American consumers of $700 billion. A 2010 report from the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy found that by doing things nationally, many States--including the State of Vermont, my own State--are doing on energy efficiency already, we could achieve substantial benefits. The study found by investing aggressively in energy efficiency in our buildings, in our schools, in our factories, and in our transportation systems we would create over 370,000 net new jobs by 2020, boost our rate of economic growth and GDP, and save households significant sums of money on their energy bills--all while vastly exceeding our 2020 target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent from 2005 levels.

In this scenario, we could cut emissions over 30 percent by 2020 as we create jobs and as millions of people save money on their energy bills. To my mind, creating jobs, cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and saving money on people's fuel bills is a win-win-win situation.

In addition to the clear benefits from taking action, I want to point out to Senator Inhofe the costs and risks if we do not take action, if we do nothing. The alternative is we step back, we don't do anything, and what happens?

Already, the extreme weather we have seen is impacting our Nation's infrastructure. An interesting article appeared just a few days ago, July 25, 2012, in the New York Times. It said the Nation's infrastructure is being taxed to worrisome degrees by heat, drought, and vicious storms. The article noted that on a single day in July, an airplane got stuck in asphalt that softened due to 100-degree temperatures, and a subway train derailed after heat caused a track to bend. It also cited highways that are heating up and expanding beyond their design limits, causing cracks and jarring bumps in the road. The article mentioned how powerplants are having difficulty using their regular cooling sources during operation because the water is now excessively warm.

A power company executive with 38 years of experience was quoted as saying:

We've got the storm of the century every year now, after

power was knocked out for 4.3 million people in 10 States

after the June derecho storm that raced from the Midwest to

the East Coast at near hurricane-force winds.

Interestingly, not generally noted as being terribly progressive, the insurance industry has noted their costs for property damage from increasingly extreme weather have already increased in the United States from $3 billion a year in the 1980s to $20 billion a year today. According to Mark Way, an official with Swiss Re, a large reinsurance company:

A warming climate will only add to this trend of increasing

losses, which is why action is needed now.

A landmark study prepared for the British Government by Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank, found that doing nothing to reverse global warming could eventually shrink the global economy by 20 percent. The Chairman of the National Intelligence Council under President George W. Bush testified to Congress that intelligence assessments indicated that global warming could worsen existing problems, such as poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership, and weak political institutions. Climate change could threaten domestic stability in some States, potentially contributing to conflict, particularly over access to increasingly scarce water resources.

Unlike Senator Inhofe, most Americans are seeing the evidence of global warming with their own eyes. I want to take some time to talk about what we are seeing.

The Associated Press reported on July 3, 2012:

But since at least 1988, climate scientists have warned

that climate change would bring, in general, increased heat

waves, more droughts, more sudden downpours, more widespread

wildfires and worsening storms. In the United States, those

extremes are happening here and now.

So far this year, more than 2.1 million acres have burned

in wildfires, more than 113 million people in the U.S. were

in areas under extreme heat advisories last Friday, two-

thirds of the country is experiencing drought, and earlier in

June, deluges flooded Minnesota and Florida.

We saw extreme weather last year as well. In 2011, we had a record- breaking 14 weather disasters in the United States that each caused over $1 billion in damage. One of those was Hurricane Irene, which caused devastating flooding and loss of life in the State of Vermont and other States in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. According to FEMA:

Considered together, the federally declared disasters of

2011 presented crises all but unprecedented in their

frequency and scope. The 99 major disasters, 29 declared

emergencies, and 114 requests for fire management assistance

touched 48 out of 50 states.

In other words, 48 States had a federally declared disaster last year.

Global average surface temperature has already increased 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900, according to NOAA. The last 12 months is the warmest 12-month period on record in the United States. Since January 1, 2012, cities and regions in the United States have set 40,000 records for warm temperatures, compared to just 6,000 for cold temperatures, according to NOAA. In the 20th century we set warm and cold temperature records at roughly a 1-to-1 ratio. In the 21st century, that has changed 2 to 1 in favor of heat records, and this year it has jumped to 7 to 1.

As the planet warms, we are seeing more extreme heat wave events. Heat waves killed tens of thousands in Europe in 2003 and Russia in 2010, and a heat wave in Texas and Oklahoma caused severe drought and wildfires in 2011. Global warming made these heat waves significantly more likely, according to the latest science.

Leading climatologist James Hansen and several of his colleagues published a report that said:

Extreme heat waves such as that in Texas and Oklahoma in

2011, and Moscow in 2010, were caused by global warming,

because their likelihood was negligible prior to the recent

rapid global warming.

Another study from German researchers published in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences found an 80-percent likelihood that the Russian heat wave in 2010 was attributable to global warming. And a study from NOAA found the heat wave and drought in Texas in 2011 was 20 times more likely to occur today than 50 years ago due to the warming of the planet.

As I mentioned, this country is currently experiencing a devastating drought. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has designated disaster areas due to drought in 1,369 counties in 31 States this year. The price of corn has increased 50 percent in the last 3 months, and soybean prices are up 25 percent since June. This is because 78 percent of the corn crop and 77 percent of soybean production is in drought- affected areas.

This is not the first time we have seen devastating droughts spike food prices in recent years. Severe drought in Russia in 2010 led that country to ban exports of grain, which contributed to a near doubling in wheat prices over a 2-month period in that year. The worst drought in China in 60 years occurred last year in 2011, affecting 12 million acres of wheat and contributing--along with floods in Australia

and the drought in Russia--to record food prices.

Some commentators cited the record food prices caused by these extreme weather events as contributing to unrest. When food prices go up, there is often instability in countries around the world--including the Middle East and Africa.

Sea levels have already risen 7 inches globally, according to EPA. We have seen during the last three summers record low levels of Arctic Sea ice, and we know from NASA satellites that Antarctica is losing 24 cubic miles of ice every year. In Glacier National Park in this country we had 150 glaciers when it was formed in 1910, but today only 25 remain. Some studies predict a sea level rise of 5 feet or more by the end of this century. But even if sea levels rose 3 feet, cities such as Miami, New Orleans, Charleston, SC, Oakland, CA, and others could find themselves partially underwater.

The average annual acreage consumed by wildfires in the United States more than doubled during the last decade compared with the previous four decades. Last year in Texas wildfires destroyed 2,700 homes. This year in Colorado--the most destructive wildfire in that State's history--destroyed 350 homes. Wildfires in Colorado this year caused tens of thousands to evacuate their homes. In New Mexico, we saw the largest wildfire in that State's history this year burn more than 170,000 acres that broke the previous record which was set just last year when a fire burned more than 150,000 acres.

Mr. President, last year floods along the Mississippi River caused $2 billion worth of damage. Floods in North Dakota displaced 11,000 people from their homes. Record floods in Australia in 2011 caused its State of Queensland to conduct the largest evacuation in its history. Floods in Pakistan in 2010 killed 2,000 people and left one-fifth of that nuclear-armed nation under water for weeks. That is the kind of potentially destabilizing extreme weather events the folks at the Department of Defense and the CIA worry about. Unfortunately, I could go on and on. The bad news is if we do nothing, the science is clear that temperatures will continue to increase, sea levels will continue to rise, and extreme weather will become more frequent and more devastating. The good news is--and it is very good news--that we now have the technology, the knowledge, and the know-how to cut emissions today through energy efficiency and through moving toward such sustainable and renewable technologies as solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass.

It is time for Congress to get serious about global warming and to work to transform our energy system to sustainable energy, and that starts by beginning to understand that global warming is real and that if we do not address it now, it will only get worse and bring more danger to this country and to our planet.

Yes.

Mr. President, I am glad to see my friend from Oklahoma here on the floor. I want to conclude by reading a review of Senator Inhofe's book, which is called ``The Greatest Hoax,'' by a gentleman named J.C. Moore. This review by J.C. Moore was published in the Tulsa World which is, I suspect, the largest newspaper in the State of Oklahoma. J.C. Moore is a native Oklahoman--the same State Senator Inhofe represents--and a Ph.D. who taught chemistry and physics and is a member of the American Geophysical Union.

This is what Mr. Moore wrote: ``Inhofe claims he is winning in his fight to debunk global warming.'' After discussing the scientific consensus among climate scientists and major scientific institutions all over the world, Moore writes:

Inhofe's greatest adversary is nature itself, as research

shows the climate is changing in response to human

activities. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is

increasing, the temperature of the Earth is rising, the

oceans are becoming more acidic, glaciers and polar ice caps

are melting, sea levels are rising, the probability of severe

weather events is increasing, and weather-related natural

disasters are becoming more frequent and more costly. It is

time we examine more closely who is actually winning by

ignoring science.

As I understand it, that is from a review of Senator Inhofe's book, ``The Greatest Hoax,'' by a gentleman named J.C. Moore in the Tulsa World.

There is much more to be said on this issue because here on the floor of the Senate we are saying virtually nothing. I might say that we look pretty dumb to the rest of the world by ignoring what many scientists believe is the major environmental crisis of our time which, if we don't get a handle on, will have profound impacts on the well-being of this country and countries throughout this world.

So I say to my friend Senator Inhofe--and he is my friend--I hope very much the Senator will rethink his position. I hope those Republicans who are following the Senator's lead will rethink their position because nothing less than the future of our planet is at stake.

Exhibit 1

[From the New York Times, July 28, 2012]

The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic

(By Richard A. Muller)

Call me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified

problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw

doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year,

following an intensive research effort involving a dozen

scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that

the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I'm

now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the

cause.

My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of

careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface

Temperature project, which I founded with my daughter

Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of

the earth's land has risen by two and a half degrees

Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of

one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years.

Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this

increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.

These findings are stronger than those of the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations

group that defines the scientific and diplomatic consensus on

global warming. In its 2007 report, the I.P.C.C. concluded

only that most of the warming of the prior 50 years could be

attributed to humans. It was possible, according to the

I.P.C.C. consensus statement, that the warming before 1956

could be because of changes in solar activity, and that even

a substantial part of the more recent warming could be

natural.

Our Berkeley Earth approach used sophisticated statistical

methods developed largely by our lead scientist, Robert

Rohde, which allowed us to determine earth land temperature

much further back in time. We carefully studied issues raised

by skeptics: biases from urban heating (we duplicated our

results using rural data alone), from data selection (prior

groups selected fewer than 20 percent of the available

temperature stations; we used virtually 100 percent), from

poor station quality (we separately analyzed good stations

and poor ones) and from human intervention and data

adjustment (our work is completely automated and hands-off).

In our papers we demonstrate that none of these potentially

troublesome effects unduly biased our conclusions.

The historic temperature pattern we observed has abrupt

dips that match the emissions of known explosive volcanic

eruptions; the particulates from such events reflect

sunlight, make for beautiful sunsets and cool the earth's

surface for a few years. There are small, rapid variations

attributable to El Nino and other ocean currents such as the

Gulf Stream; because of such oscillations, the ``flattening''

of the recent temperature rise that some people claim is not,

in our view, statistically significant. What has caused the

gradual but systematic rise of two and a half degrees? We

tried fitting the shape to simple math functions

(exponentials, polynomials), to solar activity and even to

rising functions like world population. By far the best match

was to the record of atmospheric carbon dioxide, measured

from atmospheric samples and air trapped in polar ice.

Just as important, our record is long enough that we could

search for the fingerprint of solar variability, based on the

historical record of sunspots. That fingerprint is absent.

Although the I.P.C.C. allowed for the possibility that

variations in sunlight could have ended the ``Little Ice

Age,'' a period of cooling from the 14th century to about

1850, our data argues strongly that the temperature rise of

the past 250 years cannot be attributed to solar changes.

This conclusion is, in retrospect, not too surprising; we've

learned from satellite measurements that solar activity

changes the brightness of the sun very little.

How definite is the attribution to humans? The carbon

dioxide curve gives a better match than anything else we've

tried. Its

magnitude is consistent with the calculated greenhouse

effect--fextra warming from trapped heat radiation. These

facts don't prove causality and they shouldn't end

skepticism, but they raise the bar: to be considered

seriously, an alternative explanation must match the data at

least as well as carbon dioxide does. Adding methane, a

second greenhouse gas, to our analysis doesn't change the

results. Moreover, our analysis does not depend on large,

complex global climate models, the huge computer programs

that are notorious for their hidden assumptions and

adjustable parameters. Our result is based simply on the

close agreement between the shape of the observed temperature

rise and the known greenhouse gas increase.

It's a scientist's duty to be properly skeptical. I still

find that much, if not most, of what is attributed to climate

change is speculative, exaggerated or just plain wrong. I've

analyzed some of the most alarmist claims, and my skepticism

about them hasn't changed.

Hurricane Katrina cannot be attributed to global warming.

The number of hurricanes hitting the United States has been

going down, not up; likewise for intense tornadoes. Polar

bears aren't dying from receding ice, and the Himalayan

glaciers aren't going to melt by 2035. And it's possible that

we are currently no warmer than we were a thousand years ago,

during the ``Medieval Warm Period'' or ``Medieval Optimum,''

an interval of warm conditions known from historical records

and indirect evidence like tree rings. And the recent warm

spell in the United States happens to be more than offset by

cooling elsewhere in the world, so its link to ``global''

warming is weaker than tenuous.

The careful analysis by our team is laid out in five

scientific papers now online at BerkeleyEarth.org. That site

also shows our chart of temperature from 1753 to the present,

with its clear fingerprint of volcanoes and carbon dioxide,

but containing no component that matches solar activity. Four

of our papers have undergone extensive scrutiny by the

scientific community, and the newest, a paper with the

analysis of the human component, is now posted, along with

the data and computer programs used. Such transparency is the

heart of the scientific method; if you find our conclusions

implausible, tell us of any errors of data or analysis.

What about the future? As carbon dioxide emissions

increase, the temperature should continue to rise. I expect

the rate of warming to proceed at a steady pace, about one

and a half degrees over land in the next 50 years, less if

the oceans are included. But if China continues its rapid

economic growth (it has averaged 10 percent per year over the

last 20 years) and its vast use of coal (it typically adds

one new gigawatt per month), then that same warming could

take place in less than 20 years.

Science is that narrow realm of knowledge that, in

principle, is universally accepted. I embarked on this

analysis to answer questions that, to my mind, had not been

answered. I hope that the Berkeley Earth analysis will help

settle the scientific debate regarding global warming and its

human causes. Then comes the difficult part: agreeing across

the political and diplomatic spectrum about what can and

should be done.

With that, I am happy to yield the floor for my friend, Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma.

Mr. President, I have talked for a long time on this issue, so I do not want to make a great speech and continue speaking at great length. I do want to say a few things.

First of all, I want to thank Senator Inhofe for his kind words. Let me respond in the same way. He and I philosophically and politically come from very different places. I have never doubted for one moment the honesty or the sincerity of the Senator from Oklahoma. He is saying what he believes. He has the courage to get up here and say it, and I appreciate that. So we are good friends, and I hope we will continue to be good friends.

I think, frankly, it does this Senate, and it does this country, good when people hear varied differences of opinion on an issue that I consider to be of enormous consequence. So what I would say to my friend is, I hope, in fact, this is the beginning of a resurgence of discussion about this issue, and I look forward to engaging in the discussion with my friend from Oklahoma.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the call of the quorum be rescinded.

Madam President, there has been a lot of talk about one of the major issues we as a nation are going to have to deal with, and certainly the Presidential candidates will be talking about it during the next few months, and that is that we have a $16 trillion national debt and we have a $1 trillion deficit. I think all Americans understand this is a very important issue, and it is something we as a nation are going to have to grapple with.

How we deal with the deficit and the national debt is certainly one of the most important and interesting issues we are going to have to address.

What I find interesting is that when we talk about the deficit and the national debt, there seems to be, among some of my colleagues, collective amnesia. It is as if this debt and deficit popped up yesterday and we have no understanding of how we got to where we are today.

I would like to take a moment to remind some of my friends that back in January of 2001--not so many years ago--when President Bill Clinton left office, this country was not running a deficit, it was running a very significant surplus of some $236 billion. That is a very significant surplus. As a matter of fact, in 2001 the Congressional Budget Office projected that we would have Federal budget surpluses totaling $5.6 trillion from 2002 to 2011. In other words, when Clinton left office there was a very significant surplus, and the projection was that surplus was going to go up and up. What happened? Well, that is a question we need a little bit of time to discuss.

I find it interesting that there is no context for deficit reduction. Let me suggest that, in fact, some of the people who come down to this floor and talk the loudest about the deficit and the national debt are precisely those same people who caused the national debt of $16 trillion and a deficit of over $1 trillion.

How did we get to where we are today from the time when Clinton left office and we had a significant surplus? No. 1, many of our deficit hawks who are coming down to the Senate floor telling us about all the programs we have to cut for the middle class, working families, our children, and the elderly, are real deficit hawks. My goodness. When it came to the war in Iraq, many of us voted against it since it didn't make a whole lot of sense. We also noted that our deficit hawk friends went to war--I believe for the first time in the history of America-- and forgot they would have to pay for that war. I think some of us might hold a little bit of doubt in some of the comments of our friends about their real sincerity and concern about deficit reduction when they went to a war in Iraq which will end up--after we take care of the last veteran wounded in that war 80 years from now or whenever--costing probably $3 trillion.

Well, if you spend $3 trillion to go to war, forget to pay for it, and then come to the Senate floor and tell us how concerned you are about the deficit and the national debt, some of us are saying: Well, maybe that is not the case. Where were their concerns about the deficit when they went to war when we had a deficit hawk President named George W. Bush? So that is one of the major reasons we are running a $1 trillion deficit right now.

The second reason is--and you don't have to have a Ph.D. in economics to understand it--that if in the middle of a war they decide to give huge tax breaks, including $1 trillion over a 10-year period to the top 2 percent, the billionaires and millionaires, so $1 trillion is not coming into the Federal Government, that adds to the deficit. I ask my Republican friends where was their concern about the deficit and the national debt when they gave $1 trillion in tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires?

The third point I wish to make is that we are in the middle of a horrendous recession. Unemployment is sky high and underemployment is sky high. People have lost homes and their life savings. People are hurting. This recession was caused by the efforts--and I must confess, not just a Republican effort but also a Democratic effort--and the bipartisan desire to deregulate Wall Street because people believed that if we deregulate Wall Street and allow insurance companies to merge with commercial banks and investor banks and we do away with Glass-Steagall, my goodness, those folks on Wall Street--honest people with great integrity--would just create wealth for all Americans. That is what Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, and all these guys were telling us. I was a member of the Financial Services Committee in the House and never believed that for one moment. It never made an iota of sense to me. Anyway, these guys fought for deregulation. We had deregulation, and as a result of the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street, we were plunged into the terrible recession we are in now.

One of the points that are very rarely made on the Senate floor is that today, at 15.2 percent as a percentage of GDP, revenue is the lowest in more than 60 years. So it is easy for people to come to the Senate floor and say we have to cut, cut, cut. They forget to tell us that as a result of the Wall Street-caused recession, at 15.2 percent, revenue is the lowest as a percentage of GDP in more than 60 years. That is an issue we have to deal with.

You know what, we don't increase our revenue when we give more tax breaks to billionaires. We don't increase our revenue when we say that at a time when we have tripled military spending since 1997, maybe we need even more for the military. That is not a way to reduce the deficit.

Now, what do my Republican friends and some Democrats say? Well, they come to the Senate floor and suddenly--after going to war without paying for it, after giving huge tax breaks to the rich, after deregulating Wall Street--realize we have a deficit problem, and they are very concerned about this deficit problem. They come to the Senate floor and say: The only way we can go forward is to cut Social Security. Social Security is funded independently. It hasn't added one nickel to the deficit, but we are going to cut Social Security anyway. We are going to cut Medicare, we are going to cut Medicaid, we are going to cut Pell grants, we are going to cut education,

and we are going to cut environmental protection. That is deficit reduction.

Are we going to ask millionaires and billionaires, who are doing phenomenally well, whose effective tax rate is the lowest in decades, to pay one nickel more in taxes? No, we can't do that, but we can cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, and every program that the children, seniors, and working families of this country depend upon.

Now, to add insult to injury in terms of this movement supported by big-money interests that have so much influence over what goes on here in Congress, it is important to look at the playing field of the American economy today to understand what is going on. Are the people on top really hurting and suffering? Are large corporations today really struggling under onerous corporate taxes? The answer is, obviously not.

We don't talk about it enough, and too few people even mention it, but I do, and I will continue. It is important today to understand that the United States has the most unequal distribution of wealth and income since the 1920s and the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on Earth. Why is that important? It is important to know that. Before we cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the ability of working-class kids to go to college, we have to know the condition of how people are doing today. The middle class today is shrinking and poverty is increasing. When we cut food stamps and Medicaid, we are going to hurt a whole lot of people, and in some cases very tragically.

Just last week a member of my staff went to southwest Virginia, and she spent the day at a program in which thousands of people in that area were lining up to get dental and health care because they didn't have any health insurance. There are 45,000 Americans who will die this year because they don't have health insurance and can't get to a doctor in time. There are people who say: Let's cut Medicaid. There are people all over this country who can't find a dentist. There are children who are suffering from dental decay. Let's cut Medicaid. Well, I don't think so.

If we look at the country, the middle class is shrinking, people are hurting, but people on top are doing phenomenally well. Very few people talk about it. I am going to talk about it. In the last study we have seen in terms of income distribution in this country--and that is what happened between 2009 between and 2010--93 percent of all new income created over that year went to the top 1 percent. I will say it again. Ninety-three percent of all new income in that year went to the top 1 percent. The bottom 99 percent had the privilege of sharing the remaining 7 percent. Yet, when we ask the people on top to maybe pay a little bit more in taxes, oh my goodness, there are lobbyists all over Capitol Hill saying: We can't afford to. We are down to our last $50 billion. We just can't afford another nickel in taxes. We need that money now. Thanks to Citizens United, we can pump that money into political campaigns.

One family who is worth $50 billion is going to put $400 million into the campaign. Another guy who is worth $20 billion can't pay more in taxes, but he does have hundreds of millions to pour into political campaigns.

In terms of distribution of wealth, which is a different category of costs than distribution of income, we have an incredible situation. I hope people understand what is going on in this country, where one family--one family, the Walton family, of Wal-Mart--now owns more wealth at $89 billion than the bottom 40 percent of the American people. One family owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent. Do we know what some folks want to do here? They want to repeal the entire estate tax and give that family a very substantial tax break, because owning $89 billion is obviously not enough. They are struggling. We have to give them a tax break while we cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. If that makes any sense to the American people, I would be very surprised, and it does not make sense to the American people.

According to a February 2011 Washington Post poll, while more than 70 percent of Americans oppose cutting Social Security and Medicare, 81 percent supported a surtax on millionaires to reduce the deficit. My guess is if we go to New Hampshire, Maine, or any other State in America and we say to people, we have a deficit problem and the choice is between cutting Social Security or asking millionaires and billionaires to pay more in taxes, there is, in my view, no State in America--no State in this country, no matter how red it may be--where people will say: Cut Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, but don't raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires. I don't believe that is true anyplace in America.

Today, the top 1 percent owns 40 percent of the wealth of our Nation while the bottom 60 percent owns less than 2 percent. The top 1 percent owns 40 percent; the bottom 60 percent owns less than 2 percent, and there are Members of this Senate coming to the floor and saying we are going to punish the bottom 60 percent and we are going to give more to the people on top.

There was a study that recently came out that talks about the ability of billionaires and corporations to use tax havens. What we know--and I am a member of the Budget Committee--is that millionaires and billionaires and corporations in this country are avoiding paying about $100 billion every single year by using tax havens in the Cayman Islands, in Bermuda, Panama, and other countries. Maybe, just maybe, before we cut Social Security and Medicare, we might want to pass legislation to make those people start paying their fair share in taxes and do away with those tax havens.

Let me conclude by saying we are in a pivotal moment in American history. If we as a Nation do not get our act together, in my view, we will move even more rapidly in the direction of an oligarchy, where we will have a few people on the top with incredible wealth controlling not only our economy but also, through Citizens United, the political life of this country. We are seeing that playing out right here on the floor of the Senate, with people who are turning their backs on working families and the middle class, and at a time when the wealthiest people are doing phenomenally well, fighting for more tax breaks for people who absolutely don't need them.

I hope the American people pay rapt attention to this debate, and I hope the American people get involved in this debate, because if they do not, mark my words, within 4 months, a handful of people, supported by corporate America and the big money interests, are going to bring down to this floor a deficit reduction proposal which will cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and give more tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country. It will have virtually all Republican support. It will have some Democratic support. If we don't aggressively oppose this approach, that is exactly what will happen.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to congratulate my longtime friend and colleague from Vermont, Senator Patrick Leahy, on the occasion of his 14,000th vote. That is a lot of votes. In the long history of our Republic, only six Senators have achieved that milestone before him.

Born in Montpelier, VT, our State's capital, educated at St. Michael's High School in Montpelier, St. Michael's College in Colchester, VT, and Georgetown University Law School, Senator Leahy was first elected to the Senate in 1974--the first and, to this date, only Democrat elected to the Senate from Vermont. I remember that campaign very well because I was in it, and Pat Leahy got a lot more votes than I did.

Before assuming the office of U.S. Senator, Pat Leahy gained a national reputation for law enforcement during his 8 years as State's attorney in Chittenden County--the State's largest county.

Over his 3\1/2\ decades here in the Senate, Patrick Leahy has many remarkable achievements. Let me just mention a few.

Cognizant of the suffering and tragedy that landmines cause for civilian populations, Patrick Leahy has led, in this body and, in fact, the entire U.S. Government, the campaign to end the production and use of antipersonnel landmines. Many lives and limbs have been saved as a result of Senator Leahy's efforts.

With similar commitment and passion, as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy has led the effort to insist on fairness at the Department of Justice, to support free speech and a free press, and to require and maintain openness and transparency in government. At a time of major infringements on privacy rights in this country from both the private sector and the government, Pat Leahy has been a strong champion of civil liberties and the Constitution of the United States.

Senator Leahy, reflecting Vermont's very strong consciousness regarding the need to preserve our environment, has for many years been a champion of environmental protection and has been named over and over one of the top environmental legislators by the Nation's foremost conservation organizations. He has been, as Vermonters well know, a special champion in preserving the high quality of water in Lake Champlain, our beautiful lake, perhaps the most valuable natural resource we have in our State.

Today, I congratulate, on behalf of the people of the State of Vermont, Senator Patrick Leahy on the occasion of his 14,000th vote and look forward to working with him as closely in the future as we have worked in the past.

Mr. President, I rise today to commend three Vermonters who will be representing the United States in the Olympic Games in London. One hundred years ago Albert Gutterson of Springfield, VT, won Olympic Gold in the broad jump. This year, Lea Davison, Trevor Moore and Andrew Wheating are the latest in a long line of Vermonters to compete in the world's most prestigious athletic competition.

Lea Davison won the first mountain bike race she ever entered when she was 17 years old. A native of Jericho, VT, Lea competed in cross country and was a Division I alpine ski racer at Middlebury College before becoming the youngest woman to join the professional mountain biking tour. Lea has become one of the dominant forces in professional women's mountain biking but still takes time to give back to the community, running a summer camp for girls from Vermont who are interested in cycling.

Trevor Moore began sailing with his father and brother at a very young age. When he moved to North Pomfret, VT, as a teenager his passion for competition led him to play for Woodstock Union High's tennis and soccer teams. At Hobart College, Trevor was an accomplished sailor and a three-time All American, in addition to being named the 2007 College Sailor of the Year. He will be competing with Erik Storck in the 49er category in London.

London will mark Andrew Wheating's second Olympic Games. He competed for the track team in the 800 meter race at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Andrew is originally from Norwich, VT. Recruited by the University of Oregon, he was the NCAA champion in the 800 meters in 2009 and 2010 and in the 1600 meters in 2010. Andrew is renowned for his ability to come from behind in races and will be competing in the 1600 meters in London.

Vermont is proud of Lea, Trevor, and Andrew, and I and the citizens of my State wish them the best of luck at the 2012 Olympic Games.

Mr. President, I rise this morning in strong support of the Middle Class Tax Cut Relief Act that would extend tax cuts for 98 percent of the American people while letting the Bush tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent expire at the end of this year.

I also want to express my strong opposition to the McConnell-Hatch bill that would provide tens of billions of dollars in tax breaks next year to millionaires and billionaires who today are doing phenomenally well.

Really, this is not a complicated issue. The United States now is seeing growing wealth and income inequality. The middle class is disappearing, poverty is increasing, the people at the top are doing very well at the same time that the effective tax rate of the millionaires and billionaires is the lowest it has been for many decades.

This country has a $16 trillion national debt. We have a $1 trillion deficit this year. I believe to give huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires makes no sense, and I believe it makes no sense to the American people.

Our Republican friends have made it very clear that when they say they don't want to raise taxes on anyone, that is just code for saying they don't want to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires. I should add that if Governor Mitt Romney becomes President, he has proposed even more tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country while at the same time cutting Social Security, ending Medicare as we know it, and slashing investments in education, transportation, child care, nutrition, and a variety of other programs that benefit working families and the middle class.

Social Security

This morning I want to say a few words about Social Security. Let me be very clear. When we talk about Social Security, it is imperative that we understand that Social Security has not contributed one nickel to our deficit or our national debt. So when people say we have a national debt problem and that we have Social Security and they fuse the two together, that is simply incorrect.

As all Americans know, Social Security is independently funded through payroll tax contributions from workers and employers. Up until last year, it has received no funding from the Federal Treasury.

Despite the rhetoric we hear from Republicans and those on Wall Street, Social Security is not in financial crisis. Social Security has a $2.7 trillion surplus. According to the Social Security Administration, Social Security will be able to pay out 100 percent of promised benefits to every eligible recipient for the next 21 years.

Although the American people now take Social Security for granted, we should never underestimate the incredibly positive impact Social Security has had on our country. Sometimes we do forget it, especially when those people come up and say: Let's cut Social Security. Let's cut Social Security. But let's talk about what Social Security has accomplished.

Since its inception over 75 years ago, through good economic times and bad, through terrible recessions, Social Security has paid out every nickel owed to every eligible beneficiary with minimal administrative cost. This is an extraordinary accomplishment. Nobody has ever received a letter from the Social Security Administration saying: Sorry. We are in the middle of a recession. We have had to cut your benefits in half. Every eligible beneficiary has received 100 percent of the benefits owed to him or her.

During this 75-year period, Social Security has succeeded in keeping millions of senior citizens, widows, orphans, and persons with disability out of poverty. Before Social Security existed, almost half of America's senior citizens lived in poverty. Today, that

number is still too high, but it is 10 percent not 50 percent.

More than 55 million Americans now receive Social Security benefits. I would contrast that record to the situation we recently saw on Wall Street when millions of Americans lost significant or all of their retirement savings because of the collapse of Wall Street and the financial crisis we went through. Despite this success, despite this incredibly strong record, my Republican friends, and too many Democratic friends, are calling for cuts in Social Security.

For example, we know where Mitt Romney stands on Social Security. Mr. Romney wants to begin the process of privatizing Social Security. I disagree with him because I think that would benefit primarily his friends on Wall Street, because if we privatize Social Security, where are people going to get their retirement benefits? From Wall Street. Those guys on Wall Street will end up making huge amounts of money by charging the average American a significant commission for their service.

Mr. Romney wants to gradually increase the retirement age to 68 or 69. I don't agree with that. At a time when 23 million Americans remain unemployed or underemployed and when the long-term unemployment for senior citizens is skyrocketing, tell me how many employers out there are going to say to a 68-year-old person or a 69-year-old person: We have a great job for you, especially if someone is in the construction trades or is a nurse or is somebody who stands on their feet 8 or 9 hours a day, such as a waiter or a waitress. I don't think those jobs are going to be there if we raise the Social Security retirement age. I don't know what those folks are going to be doing for income.

Finally, the Romney campaign has put on his Web site the following:

Mitt believes that [Social Security] benefits should

continue to grow but that the growth rate should be lower for

those with higher incomes.

What does that mean in English? While Mr. Romney has been somewhat vague about his intentions and has not spelled out the exact details of this proposal, some of my Republican friends in the Senate have provided what I believe is the roadmap Mr. Romney is talking about. Last year, Senators Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, and Mike Lee introduced a bill that would, among other things, reduce the future growth rate of Social Security benefits for the top 60 percent of earners--60 percent of earners--by establishing what they call a progressive price index.

Who are these so-called higher income individuals whom my Republican friends are talking about? Under this Republican bill, a worker making about $45,000 a year today, retiring in 2050, would receive 32 percent less in annual Social Security benefits than under the current formula. How much is a 32-percent cut for this middle-class wage earner? It is about $7,500 a year, and that, my friends, is a lot of money for a retiree.

It should come as no surprise that Republicans in Washington and Governor Romney want to slash Social Security. The truth is, Republicans have never liked Social Security, and they have been attacking Social Security since its inception. That is not news. The question that millions of Americans are asking themselves today, however, is where President Obama stands on Social Security. Unfortunately, he has been largely silent on this issue since he has been in the White House and during the current 2012 campaign. He made a very strong statement recently, incorrectly attacking the Republican proposal--the so-called Ryan proposal--to move Medicare toward a voucher program. But unless I am mistaken, I did not hear a word from him on the future of Social Security, and that is a shame.

That is a shame because candidate Barack Obama, when he was running for President in 2008, made it very clear to the American people he would be a strong defender of Social Security. Let me remind the American people exactly what Barack Obama said on the campaign trail in 2008.

On September 6, 2008, Barack Obama told the AARP the following:

John McCain's campaign has suggested that the best answer

for the growing pressures on Social Security might be to cut

cost of living adjustments or raise the retirement age. Let

me be clear: I will not do either.

That was then-candidate Senator Barack Obama. On April 16, 2008, Senator Barack Obama said:

The alternatives, like raising the retirement age, or

cutting benefits, or raising the payroll tax on everybody,

including people making less than $97,000 a year--

Which today would be $110,000 a year--

those are not good policy options.

On November 11, 2007, candidate Barack Obama said:

I believe that cutting [Social Security] benefits is not

the right answer; and that raising the retirement age is not

the best option.

In order to address the long-term financial challenges of Social Security, candidate Barack Obama came up with an idea that I believe hit the nail on the head. It was exactly the right approach, and I have applauded him for coming up with that idea. What he said is that he would apply the Social Security payroll tax on income above $250,000 a year to make sure a millionaire and a billionaire pay the same percentage of their income into Social Security as someone who today makes $110,000 a year.

The bottom line is we lift the cap on taxable income so billionaires and millionaires and those making above $250,000 a year start contributing into the Social Security trust fund. Recent reports have confirmed this would ensure Social Security would remain solvent for the next 75 years.

In 2008, candidate Barack Obama was exactly right. That is the solution to the long-term financial needs of Social Security, and that is why I introduced candidate Obama's concept into legislation. It was the right approach. I have introduced it into legislation and it now has 10 cosponsors.

Here is how the Economic Times reported on the subject back on June 14, 2008:

Barack Obama would apply the Social Security payroll tax to

all annual incomes above $250,000, which would affect the

wealthiest 3 percent of Americans. The Presidential candidate

told senior citizens in Ohio that it is unfair for middle-

class earners to pay the Social Security tax ``on every dime

they make,'' while millionaires and billionaires pay it on

only ``a very small percentage of their income.''

That is what Barack Obama said when he was running for President in 2008. I agreed with him. He was very clear. I suspect millions of Americans voted for Barack Obama because of the strong stand he made in defending Social Security. Unfortunately, since he has been in office, he has been much less clear about his position on Social Security. There were reports last year he was considering cutting Social Security as part of a grand bargain with the Speaker of the House John Boehner.

What I simply want to know, and I think what the American people want to know, is where does the President stand on Social Security? Is he going to keep faith with the American people? Does he continue to believe what he believed when he ran for President? Is he going to say to the millions and millions of seniors out there who are struggling every single day to keep their heads above water that we are not going to balance the budget on the backs of the elderly and the children and the sick and the poor; that we are not going to continue to give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires who are doing phenomenally well and cut Social Security as part of some grand bargain when, in fact, Social Security has not contributed a nickel to the deficit situation?

As the Presiding Officer well knows, in terms of Social Security, there is a lot of discussion in the Senate about moving toward a chained CPI--a chained CPI. Nobody outside this room understands what a chained CPI is, but I will tell you what it is. A chained CPI is significant cuts in Social Security COLAs, and it rests on the theory, if we can believe it, that COLAs for seniors on Social Security are too generous.

When I tell this to the seniors in Vermont, I say: Please, don't laugh, but they always laugh. They say: Bernie, in the last 2 out of 3 years, while our health care costs have been going up, while our prescription drug costs have been going up, we haven't gotten a COLA at all. How could they possibly believe the formulation for coming up with these COLAs is too generous?

But that is what the billionaires and the millionaires want, that is what our

Republican friends want, and that is what some Democrats want. They want to come up with a formulation which will cut Social Security benefits. It will mean, if someone is 65 today, that when they become 75, they will receive $500 a year less; and when they are 85 and are trying to get by on $15,000, $16,000 a year, they are going to cut $1,000 from their Social Security benefits.

I think--when this country has the most unequal distribution of income and wealth, when the top 1 percent owns 40 percent of the wealth of this country, when in the last study I saw 93 percent of all new income in 2010 went to the top 1 percent--we shouldn't balance the budget by cutting Social Security for people who are trying to survive on $14,000 or $15,000 a year. That is not the right formulation or the way we should go.

I wish to conclude my remarks by simply saying I am going to do everything I can to defend Social Security. I am going to do everything I can--given the fact our deficit is largely caused by unpaid wars and tax breaks for the rich and the recession, which was created by Wall Street greed--to fight any effort to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Today, I think the American people know where the Republicans stand on Social Security. They know where Governor Romney stands on Social Security. But now is the time for the President of the United States to tell us where he stands on Social Security. Is he going to keep faith with the promises he made in 2008? Is he going to stand with the senior citizens of this country and say: No, we are not going to balance the budget by cutting Social Security?

I look forward to hearing what the President has to say. This is an enormously important issue to the seniors and the veterans of Vermont, and I am going to continue dealing with it.

With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 24, 2012, at 10 a.m., to conduct a committee hearing entitled ``Housing Partnerships in Indian Country.''

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 July 24, 2012, at 2:30 p.m. in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

The Committee will hold a hearing entitled, ``The Cable Act at 20.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 31, 2012, at 10 a.m., in room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works and the Subcommittee on Superfund, Toxics, and Environmental Health be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 24, 2012, at 10 a.m. in Dirksen 406 to conduct a joint hearing entitled, ``Oversight of EPA Authorities and Actions to Control Exposures to Toxic Chemicals.''

THE PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

committee on foreign relations

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 24, 2012, at 10 a.m., to hold a briefing entitled, ``Intelligence Update on Syria.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 24, 2012, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on July 24, 2012, at 2:30 p.m., in room SH-216 of the Hart Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Taking Back Our Democracy: Responding to Citizens United and the Rise of Super PACs.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs' Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on July 24, 2012, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Private Student Loans: Providing Flexibility and Opportunity to Borrowers?''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on July 24, 2012, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Strengthening the Integrity of the Student Visa System by Preventing and Detecting Sham Educational Institutions.''

I thank the Senator from Illinois.

Madam President, I appreciate the remarks of the Senator from Illinois, and I wanted to amplify on them a little bit. But before I do, I wanted to mention something we don't talk about enough here on the floor of the Senate.

In New England, and I'm sure in Minnesota, we have a lot of sports fans. When we are interested in baseball, basketball, football, hockey, or whatever, the key question everyone always asks is: Who wins and who loses? Well, I think it is appropriate that in terms of the economy, as it currently stands, we should also ask that simple question: Who is winning and who is losing? Let me discuss that for one moment before I get into deficit reduction.

We don't talk about it almost at all on the floor of the Senate. The media doesn't talk about it terribly much either. But the reality is we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on Earth and more income and wealth inequality in this country than at any time since the late 1920s.

Today the wealthiest 400 people own more wealth than the bottom half of America, which is about 150 million people. We could squeeze 400 people into this room, and if they were the wealthiest people in America, they would own more wealth than the bottom half of America.

A report came across my desk yesterday which I want to share with the American people. This is quite incredible and kind of tells us where we are moving as a Nation, and that is that today the Walton family of Wal-Mart fame--the folks who own Wal-Mart--now owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of America. One family owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of America.

Today the top 1 percent owns 40 percent of the wealth of the country. I think a lot of people are very surprised by that number. The top 1 percent owns 40 percent of the wealth of America. But what people would be far more shocked at is if we asked them how much the bottom 60 percent of the

American people own. I have done this. In Vermont, I have asked people. They say: 10 percent, 20 percent. The answer is less than 2 percent. The top 1 percent owns 40 percent of the wealth of America. The bottom 60 percent owns less than 2 percent. The bottom 40 percent of America owns three-tenths of 1 percent, less than one family--the Walton family--owns.

Why is that important? It is important because it tells us from both a moral and economic perspective the direction we have to move in terms of deficit reduction. I find it a little bit amusing that some of my Republican friends come to the floor of the Senate and say: We are deficit hawks. We have got to cut, cut, cut. We are worried about our kids, we are worried about our grandchildren, and we are worried about borrowing money from China. They have a whole set of talking points. They are worried about the deficit.

I am worried about the deficit, every American should be worried about the deficit, but I have a question to ask some of my Republican friends who today are great deficit hawks and that is: Where were they a few years ago? I voted against the war in Iraq for a number of reasons, not the least of which is it wasn't paid for. The war in Afghanistan wasn't paid for. I find it kind of interesting that former President Bush, who was a great deficit hawk, and all of my Republican friends who are great deficit hawks went not just to one war, they went into two wars. And you know what. It just slipped their minds. They forgot to pay for it. We all have slips of memory. You go to the grocery store and forget to buy the container of milk your wife wanted you to buy. It just slipped their mind. They were so busy talking about the deficit, they went into two wars that cost trillions of dollars and forgot to pay for them. Today they have noticed and it has come to their attention that there is a deficit.

I voted against the war in Iraq. I am not so sure many of them did.

The second issue. If we go on a shopping spree or a gambling spree or whatever it may be and we spend a lot of money, give away a lot of money, we have less money. Our Republican friends fought for and created huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country. Hundreds and hundreds of billions of tax dollars in tax breaks went to the top 1 percent, went to the top 2 percent. So our deficit hawk friends who come down here every day to tell us how concerned they are went into two wars they forgot to pay for, and, for the first time in American history, they actually gave tax breaks to the very rich while they were at war.

Furthermore, one of the major problems our country is facing now in terms of the deficit, which Senator Durbin touched on, is that because of the recession, which was caused by the greed and recklessness and illegal behavior of Wall Street--and many of my Republican friends and some Democrats told us awhile back when I was in the House how important it was to deregulate Wall Street, to allow the large commercial banks that have merged with the investor banks to merge with the insurance companies, and just get the government off the backs of these honorable people on Wall Street who are looking out for the American people. It turned out, of course, that they are a bunch of crooks. We deregulated them, and they did what many of us thought they would do: they began exchanging incredibly complicated financial transactions, which took this country to the verge of an international financial collapse. And our friends on Wall Street needed their welfare payment from the middle class of America--$700-and-some billion of welfare payments for Wall Street--to bail them out. The Fed provided $16 trillion in low-interest loans on a revolving loan basis. So in the midst of all of that, what ended up happening is that revenue is now down to 15.8 percent of GDP, which is the lowest amount of revenue per GDP we have seen in a very long time.

So we go into two wars and don't pay for them; we give tax breaks to billionaires; we deregulate Wall Street, which causes a recession; revenue declines as a percentage of GDP; and we have a serious deficit crisis, which is where we are right now. We have a $16 trillion national debt. I think it is a $1.2 trillion-a-year deficit--a serious situation. How do we deal with it? Everybody here recognizes that it is a problem. We don't want the younger generation to have to pick up this national debt. How do we deal with it?

Well, my Republican friends have a great idea. Let's see. We went to two wars and didn't pay for them; tax breaks for the rich; deregulated Wall Street; a recession. Oh, I know how we can deal with the deficit. Let's cut Social Security. That is a good idea. After all, we only have 50-some-odd million people on Social Security. Why don't we come up with a chained CPI? Nobody outside of Capitol Hill knows what a chained CPI is. And to any senior citizen, somebody on Social Security, who is watching this, please don't laugh, but I do want to tell you what a chained CPI is. You will think I am not telling you the truth. Check it out. I am.

There are people here in the Senate and in the House who think your COLAs have been too large; that the formula that determines COLAs-- cost-of-living allowance increases for seniors--has been too generous.

Now, the seniors are saying: What is this guy talking about? How can it be too generous when for the last 2 years we didn't get any COLA? At a time when our prescription drug costs are going up and our health care costs are going up, what are they talking about?

Well, you are right, I say to those back home, they are a little bit off their rocker. The idea that they could think that after 2 years of zero COLAs, those are too large, and that we have to create a new formula to reduce COLAs--that is what people--certainly Republicans and some Democrats--are talking about right now.

So what about Social Security? How much of the deficit did Social Security cause so that my Republican friends--all of them--want to cut it and some Democrats may want to cut it? Well, the answer is zero, and everybody in America back home understands it, because Social Security is funded by the FICA tax, by the payroll tax. Social Security does not get general fund money, it comes independently. Social Security, according to the Social Security Administration, has a $2.7 trillion surplus--let me say it again: surplus--to pay every benefit for the next 22 years. Why do they want to cut Social Security? Go ask them. I don't know. It certainly doesn't make any sense to me. It should not be part of any deficit reduction effort. But it is not just Social Security that is under attack. They want to go after Medicare. They want to go after Medicaid. They want to go after nutrition programs for elderly people and for children. They want to go after Pell grants. You name the program that benefits working-class and middle-class families, and they want to go after it.

What about asking the wealthiest people to pay a nickel more in taxes? Oh, we can't do that, just can't do that--moral objection to having billionaires, who are doing phenomenally well and who are now paying the lowest effective tax rate they have paid in a very long time--we cannot allow them to pay a nickel more in taxes. It is far more important to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and education.

Well, I think that set of priorities is dead wrong, and I think the American people think those priorities are dead wrong. We have to work together to make sure that doesn't happen in some kind of grand plan or whatever it is. Yes, we can deal with the deficit. We should deal with the deficit but not on the backs of the elderly.

Millions of senior citizens of this country are living on $12,000, $13,000, $14,000 in Social Security--it is either all or most of their income--and people here are talking about cutting Social Security? We have 50 million people who have no health insurance. We have 45,000 people who died this year because they didn't get to a doctor on time, and people say: Let's take our kids off Medicaid. Let's take lower income people off Medicaid. What happens? Let's do away, says the Ryan budget, the Republican budget, with Medicare as we know it. Let's give people an $8,000 check instead of Medicare. Well, a person has cancer or heart disease, and we have an $8,000 check for them to go out and get private insurance. How many days do my colleagues think they are going to stay in a hospital with cancer on $8,000? Not a whole long time, but that is what their plan is.

So we are now in the midst of a great philosophical and economic debate. The rich are getting richer, and our Republican friends want to give them more tax breaks. The middle class is collapsing. Our Republican friends want to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

In terms of defense spending, I would just say this: Everybody here agrees we want and need a strong defense. Do we really have to spend more on defense in the United States of America than the rest of the world combined? We spend more on defense than the rest of the world combined. Do we really have to do that? We spend 4.8 percent of our GDP on defense.

Our European allies, by the way, provide health care to all of their people as a right. Our European allies provide, in many instances, college education free to their young people--not $40,000 or $50,000 a year. Our European allies--and I say this in all due respect to them; I respect that, and it is what we should be doing--provide excellent quality childcare to their working families. Our European allies spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense.

We spend 4.8 percent.

So we are in the midst of an interesting moment. I hope the American people become engaged in this debate because I think, by and large, the position the Republican Party is taking--tax breaks for billionaires, cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid--is way out of touch with where the American people are today.

I hope we have a serious debate on these issues. I hope the American people join us, and I hope the road we go down in terms of deficit reduction is one that is fair to working families and the middle class, and that means asking the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations in this country to start paying their fair share of taxes.

With that, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, before I begin, on behalf of Senator Merkley, I ask unanimous consent that privileges of the floor be granted to the following member of my staff for the balance of the day, Maya Arrieta Walden.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Whitehouse, Senator Schumer, and all those who have been working so hard on this enormously important issue which has everything to do with whether our country remains the kind of democracy most of us want it to be.

I come to the Senate floor today to express my profound disgust with the current state of our campaign finance system and to call for my fellow Senators, as a short-term effort, to pass the DISCLOSE Act. Passing the DISCLOSE Act would be an important step forward, but clearly we have much more to do on this issue.

Long term, of course, we need a constitutional amendment to overturn this disastrous Supreme Court decision--the Citizens United 5-to-4 decision of 2 years ago. Long term, in my view, we also need to move this country toward public funding of elections

so that once and for all big money will not dominate our political process.

Long term, there is no question in my mind that Citizens United will go down in history as one of the worst decisions ever rendered by a U.S. Supreme Court. Five members of the Court came to the bizarre conclusion that corporations should be treated as if they were people; that they have a first amendment right to spend as much money as they want to buy candidates, to buy elections. Somehow, in the midst of all of this unbelievable amount of spending millions and millions of dollars, the Supreme Court came to the conclusion this would not even give the appearance of corruption. I think that is, frankly, an absurd conclusion.

Mr. President, let me tell you--and my take on this may be a little different than some of my colleagues--what concerns me most about the Citizens United decision. If we look at Citizens United in tandem with other trends in our economy today, what we see is this Nation is rapidly moving from an economic and political society to an oligarchic form of society.

Economically, what we see are fewer and fewer people who control our economy. We see a nation which has the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on Earth, in which the top 1 percent of our Nation owns 40 percent of the wealth and the bottom 60 percent owns 2 percent of the wealth. That gap between the very wealthy and everybody else is growing wider and wider. That is wealth in terms of income distribution.

The situation is even worse. The last study we have seen suggests that 93 percent of all new income between 2009 and 2010 went to the top 1 percent. So, economically, we are moving toward a nation in which a few people have a significant amount of the wealth of America-- significant amount of the income of America in terms of concentration of ownership. We see a situation in which six financial institutions on Wall Street have assets equivalent to two-thirds of the GDP of the United States of America--over $9 trillion controlled by six financial institutions. And the recklessness, greed, and illegal behavior of those financial institutions are what drove us into the recession we are struggling with right now.

So now, as a nation, the trends are that fewer and fewer people own the wealth of America and fewer and fewer large corporations control the economy of America. But, apparently, that is not good enough for the 1 percent, for our millionaire and billionaire friends, because now they want to take that wealth and exercise it even more than has been the case in the past in the political realm. That takes us now to Citizens United.

In the real world, we all know what is going on with Citizens United. We know billionaires are saying: Look, yeah, it is great I own an oil company. It is great that I own a coal company. It is great that I own gambling casinos. But, gee, I could have even more fun by owning the United States Government.

So we have entities out there who are worth some $50 billion--and the Koch brothers come to mind. If you are worth $50 billion and you have all kinds of interactions with the Federal Government and you have strong political views, why wouldn't you spend $400 million--which is what the media says that family is going to spend, and maybe even more--if you can purchase the United States Government. That is not a bad investment.

That is what Citizens United is about. It is billionaires spending huge amounts of money without disclosure--without disclosure.

I would have gone further than this bill, but this bill is certainly an important step forward. What does it require? It says if someone is going to spend more than $10,000 in a campaign they have to make public who they are. I don't think that is a terribly onerous provision. The American people are not stupid. They understand if somebody is going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on political activities they want something. That is what it is about.

Why do people make campaign contributions? Many of us get a whole lot of campaign contributions from folks who give us $25, $30, $40. Most of my campaign contributions come from people who give us less than $200. But if somebody is going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a campaign, I think the American people have a right to know who that is and what they want; who is taking that money and what those contributors are going to get in return.

If you are a billionaire and you want lower taxes, have the courage to say: Hey, I am a billionaire. I am putting money into a party, and what I am going to get out of it is lower taxes for the rich. If I am somebody in a corporation that is polluting the air and the land and the water, and I want to get rid of those regulations, have the guts to come forward and say: Yeah, that is what I want. I want to eviscerate the EPA. I don't care that children in Vermont or Rhode Island get sick, that is what I want.

So what this is about is fairly elementary. What this is about is simply having those people, those institutions, those corporations and unions that are putting more than $10,000 into the political process reveal who they are.

What concerns me very much about this whole process--and I think concerns the American people--is while our middle class disappears and poverty increases, while the gap between the very wealthy and everybody is growing wider, it appears very clear right now these folks are not content, the top 1 percent is not content with simply owning the economy, with controlling the economy. They now want to control, to an even greater degree than is currently the case, the political process as well. That is what these campaign contributions of hundreds of millions of dollars are about.

When I think back on the history of this country and the enormous sacrifices men and women made defending the American ideal--the ideal that was the vision to the entire world. The entire world looked to the United States for what a strong democracy was about--one person, one vote. In my State of Vermont, we have meetings and people come out--one person, one vote--to discuss the municipal town budget, to discuss the school budget. And now we have evolved to a situation where one family can spend $400 million buying politicians, buying elections. That is a long way away from what democracy is supposed to mean in this country. The DISCLOSE Act is a very important first step forward, and I hope we can get strong support for that important piece of legislation.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.