Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, as I suspect you know, Vermont has been hit very hard by Hurricane Irene. The storm caused widespread flooding, resulting in a number of deaths, the loss of many homes and businesses, and hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to property and infrastructure.

I have visited many of the most hard-hit towns in the past week, including Ludlow, Wilmington, Brattleboro, Berlin, Moretown, and Waterbury. I was shocked and moved by the extent of the damage I saw. Many towns still have very limited access because the roads and bridges that link them to the world have been destroyed. This disaster will go down in history as one of the very worst natural disasters in the history of the State of Vermont.

Let me take this opportunity to personally thank the emergency rescue teams and all those aiding the victims of the floods for their outstanding work. Local crews, along with the Vermont National Guard, and Guard units from other States, such as New Hampshire, Maine, and Illinois, have airline-lifted food, water, blankets, and medicine to the worst hit towns. Police, fire, and local officials have also done an extraordinary job.

We still don't know the cost of this disaster--it probably will not be tabulated for a while--but let me share a few figures in terms of what we have experienced. Just days after the declaration of a major disaster by the President, more than 2,000 Vermonters had already registered with FEMA--2,000. To date, there have been more than 700 homes confirmed as severely damaged or destroyed.

I had the opportunity to go to some trailer parks in Berlin, in central Vermont, and I was down in the southern part of the State in Brattleboro and it is an incredibly sad sight to see. Mobile homes, where senior citizens were living, have been destroyed. They are now forced to relocate. It was a very tragic circumstance.

Further, the storm has knocked out 135 segments of the State highway system, as well as 35 State bridges, completely isolating 13 communities for several days. An unknown number of farms and businesses have been destroyed.

I was down in Wilmington, a beautiful town in the southern part of the State on Route 9. Virtually their entire downtown business community has been severely damaged, and that is clearly undermining the fabric not only of the economy of that town but of towns throughout the State.

Our Amtrak and freight rail services were completely suspended as tracks literally washed into rivers. So we had tracks underwater. The State's largest office complex is located in Waterbury, VT, a few miles from our capital, Montpelier, and I visited that facility. It had been completely flooded. There are 1,700 people who work there. For a small State, that is a lot of people--1,700 people--who work in our major office complex in Waterbury. That has now been shut down for an indefinite period of time. That impacts, obviously, the State's ability to provide services to the people of Vermont.

At least 65 public schools were impacted and could not open on time. School is just beginning, with 65 public schools not able to open on time. This is just a short list of some of the devastation that is going on in the State.

I also want to call to the attention of the Senate another extraordinary tragedy in our State, and that is the death of a gentleman named Michael Garafano. Mr. Garafano was an employee of the city of Rutland, and Rutland was very hard hit by this disaster. He and his son went up to a local dam to inspect the condition of the dam. They were hit by a flash flood and both of them lost their lives. So here we have an extraordinary public servant, trying to protect the well-being of the people of Rutland, and he gave his life in that effort. Mr. Garafano's effort will never be forgotten.

As we go forward--not just for Vermont but for New Jersey, for North Carolina, and we know upstate New York was also hard hit--I have every confidence the Senate and the House will do for Hurricane Irene as we have done for other natural disasters that have impacted different parts of our country, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to make sure, as Americans, we rebuild the communities in Vermont and in other sections of the country that were devastated by this terrible flood.

I thank the Chair, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I want to say a few words to my fellow Vermonters and anyone who might be interested as to why I will be voting against this deficit-reduction package when it comes to the floor. The reason is pretty simple. This deficit-reduction package is grotesquely unfair, and it is also bad economic policy. It should not be passed.

The wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally well. In a recent 25-year period, 80 percent of all new income created in America went to the top 1 percent who now earn more income than the bottom 50 percent. In terms of wealth, the United States has the most unequal distribution of wealth of any major country on Earth with the top 400 people owning more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans.

When we talk about this deficit-reduction package with the richest people becoming richer, huge corporations making billions of dollars in profits and in some cases paying nothing in taxes, how much are those people--the wealthy and the powerful--asked to contribute toward deficit reduction and shared sacrifice? How much are the rich and the powerful going to contribute into this deficit-reduction package? The answer is zero. Not one cent.

Meanwhile, as everybody in America knows, we are in the midst of a horrendous recession. Real unemployment is over 16 percent. People have lost their homes, their life's savings. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. Yet this deficit- reduction package comes down on those people--the working families, the low-income people, the sick, the elderly, the children. The rich pay nothing. Large corporations pay nothing. Yet working families and the most vulnerable people in this country are going to be shouldering the burden of deficit reduction on their shoulders. That is immoral, that is wrong, that is bad economic policy.

Mr. President, as you well know, this is a complicated package, and nobody can predict with any certainty exactly what programs will be cut and how much they will be cut because the process will kick in to the appropriations committees all over, the House and the Senate, and they will go to a supercommittee that will make very significant decisions. Nobody with certainty can tell exactly what programs will be cut.

What we can say is we are looking at up to $1.4 trillion in cuts, and virtually every program that working families depend upon, that our children depend upon, that the sick depend upon, is on the line.

In my State, for example, it gets cold. We have a beautiful State. We love our winters, but it gets cold. It gets 10 below zero, 20 below zero. Many people in my State, including senior citizens, desperately need a program called LIHEAP, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which provides help to many people, including a lot of seniors, to help keep them warm when it gets 20 below zero. I fear very much there will be major cuts in that program.

In our State we have done very well in expanding community health centers. We have over 110,000 people now accessing new community health centers, finally being able to get a doctor and dentist when they need it. I am going to do everything I can to prevent those cuts. I fear that those programs can be cut.

In Vermont, in Connecticut, all over this country, we have a major crisis in childcare. Families want to get into the Head Start Program. They want affordable childcare. Those programs will be cut.

In my State, we have a program that helps struggling dairy farmers, a program called the milk program. It helps them stay in business. I fear very much--and I am going to fight against this--I fear that program will be cut.

We have young people today from working-class families hoping upon hope that maybe they will be able to afford to go to college. Well, we can expect major cuts in Pell grants and other programs that make college affordable for our young people.

In this country, we have people who are going hungry. We did a study recently. There is more hunger among seniors. Some of those programs will be cut. Affordable housing programs will be cut.

So let's not kid ourselves. In the midst of a terrible recession, when so many people are hurting, so many people are struggling just to keep their heads above water economically, this deficit-reduction package is going to slap them at the side of the head and make life much more difficult for them.

Now, Mr. President, as you well know, this is a two-part program. The first part calls for approximately $900 billion in cuts, and the second part calls for about $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion in cuts. Here is where it gets a little bit complicated because a supercommittee, made up of six Democrats and six Republicans, will have the opportunity to look at everything.

As the majority leader said, everything is on the table. Now, what does that mean? If everything is on the table, Social Security is on the table. What we have heard from our Republican friends, what we have heard from some Democratic friends, what we have heard from the President of the United States is that maybe we should adopt a so- called chained CPI, which will result in very significant cuts in Social Security benefits. If you are 65 now and that program is implemented, when you are 75, you are going to lose $560 a year, and 20 years from now, when you are 85, you are going to lose $1,000 a year. Am I saying that definitely will happen? No, I am not.

Social Security will be on the table. Medicare will be on the table. Medicaid will be on the table. Everything will be on the table.

If that committee ends up not coming to a decision, if they end up being deadlocked, say, six to six, then we go to a sequestration program and more cuts will be made.

So I would say, when poll after poll after poll suggests strongly that the American people want shared sacrifice--a poll just came out last week from the Washington Post where 72 percent of the people polled said they believe folks making more than $250,000 a year should pay more in taxes in order to help us with deficit reduction. Poll after poll says it is absurd that large corporations get incredible loopholes that enable them to make billions of profits and not pay one nickel in taxes.

So this is a bad proposal. This is an unfair proposal. We can do better, and we must do better. I do not intend to vote for a deficit- reduction package where the sacrifices are being made by people in the middle class and working class who are already hurting. It is time for the big-money interests to start remembering they are also Americans and they should contribute to deficit reduction.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the alternating blocks continue until 9 p.m. in the following manner: the majority controlling the time until 8:20 p.m.; Republicans controlling the next 30 minutes; and the majority controlling the remaining time.

Madam President, the tea party Members in the House have achieved a remarkable feat. As the New York Times put today:

The scope of their victory in reshaping the debt ceiling

bill to reflect the fiscal hawkishness of the most

conservative House Members cannot be overstated.

In other words, despite Democratic control over the White House, despite Democratic control over the Senate, despite overwhelming opposition from the American people, a small minority of the Members of the Republican-controlled House have successfully pushed an extreme rightwing agenda onto the American political landscape. This rightwing ideology is a set of beliefs which represents the interests of the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations. It is an ideology which ultimately wants to destroy Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and make devastating cuts in education, Head Start, environmental protection, nutrition, infrastructure, and every other program which protects the interests of working families and the middle class.

It is an ideology which believes that despite the fact that the rich are getting richer, the middle class is shrinking, and poverty is increasing, all of the burden for deficit reduction should rest on working people, despite the fact that in the last 25 years the top 1 percent has achieved 80 percent of all new income. But this rightwing ideology says we have got to cut back on education, we have got to cut back on

health care, we have got to cut back on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and every other program a middle class and a working class, hurting desperately in the midst of this recession, depend upon.

In my view, this is an ideology which is grotesquely immoral and it is also bad economic policy. It has failed time after time, most recently during the Bush administration when, during his 8 years in office, we lost 500,000 private sector jobs, the worst job performance record in modern American history. It is an ideology which, in poll after poll, has been rejected by the American people.

For example, a few days ago a Washington Post poll came out, and 72 percent of the American people--and this is similar to every other poll I have seen--said that if we are going to be effective in dealing with deficit reduction, the most preferred way is to ask those people making more than $250,000 a year to pay more in taxes--72 percent of the American people.

The Republicans, on the other hand, have fought time and time again to say that the wealthy and the largest corporations, some of which make billions in profit, pay nothing in taxes. They are not to be asked for 1 cent of sacrifice in deficit reduction; just working families, just children, just the elderly, just the sick.

It seems to me in this very late date of this debate we face four options, none of which is particularly good.

The first option is what some of the rightwing extremists have wanted all along: Let us default. It is not a problem. So what if millions of Social Security recipients don't get their check. So what if veterans don't get the check they were promised. So what, if sick people who were dependent upon Medicare and Medicaid cannot get the medical help they need? No problem, let's default. Clearly, most of us understand that scenario would be a disaster for this country, for our economy, and, in fact, for the entire global economy.

The second option we are looking at is a bill that was passed Friday in the Republican House, the so-called Boehner bill. This bill would require massive cuts right now to a wide variety of programs and, most importantly, it would bring this congressional circus back into action immediately because within 6 months we would have to go over this debate once again. That is an absurd proposal. And included in that proposal, because they want huge amounts of cuts 6 months from now, no question, massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid--that is what the Boehner proposal is about.

The third option is the Reid bill. This bill, while by no means as destructive as the Boehner bill, is also bad news for working families. Because of the Republican commitment to the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations, it also would make heavy cuts on working families and not one penny of revenue coming from the rich and large corporations.

Let me discuss the one remaining option that seems to me to make at least some sense. It is not a great option but the best available. That has already been spoken about by my good friend Tom Harkin. It seems to me that the least onerous option available to us today is for the President of the United States to exercise his authority under the 14th amendment to the Constitution to pay the debts incurred by the United States. The Constitution is very clear in saying that the debts of the United States ``shall not be questioned.''

The President swears an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, and many constitutional scholars believe the 14th amendment gives the President the authority and responsibility to pay our debts regardless of the dysfunctionality of the U.S. Congress. I think that is just what he should do if he is left with no other way to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.

I believe former President Bill Clinton is absolutely right in saying that if he were still in the White House, that is what he would do. Clinton said, and I agree with him:

I think the Constitution is clear and I think this idea

that the Congress gets to vote twice on whether to pay for

expenditures it has appropriated is crazy.

Let me be clear about what exactly this means and why it is so important that the President use this amendment now, at this particular moment in history. Let's remember that the debt ceiling was raised 18 times under Ronald Reagan and 7 times under George W. Bush, when the national debt increased by some $5 trillion. If we concede to the rightwing Republicans and if we make all of these cuts right now because they refuse to raise the debt ceiling, this sets a horrendous precedent for the future of congressional action. What this would mean is that no matter what legislation and appropriations were passed by the future Congress, the new Congress could simply say: We refuse to pay those bills. This would cause massive uncertainty in the financial market, drive interest rates up, and cloud the entire legislative process of the U.S. Congress. That is wrong and must not happen.

I understand there are those who disagree with this option, and I respect that. But I think we have an obligation to our senior citizens and our veterans to say: Yes, you are going to get the Social Security checks and the other benefits you have been promised. We have an obligation to our children and to the sick that, yes, you are going to get the Medicare and Medicaid benefits you have been promised. Incredibly, we have an obligation to the men and women in our Armed Forces who are putting their lives on the line. We have an obligation to them to make sure they get paid.

If Republican recalcitrance prevents us from reaching an agreement, then the President of the United States must do what is best for our people and for the future of this country. He must use his constitutional authority under the 14th amendment to pay our debts.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we are clearly at a momentous moment in American history. We are getting tens of thousands of people visiting our Web site, sanders.senate.gov, every day. People want to know what is going on. As the longest serving Independent in history in Congress, let me give my view of where we are right now.

First, I do wish to say I get a little bit tired of hearing some of our pundits and some of the politicians around here blithely talking about trillions of dollars in cuts. I see some of these guys making huge salaries on TV saying: Why don't they just come to an agreement-- $2 trillion in cuts, $3 trillion in cuts. That may be OK if one is making a whole lot of money on television doing a television show, but, clearly, those people have not been talking to real Americans.

Let me go over what the media and many of us in Congress have not been talking about, and that is what the impacts of these trillions of dollars of cuts are about. These are not just words on a piece of paper. These are cuts which are going to have devastating impacts on people who are already suffering as a result of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Some people come up with this great idea and they say: The cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security is too high today, seniors and disabled vets are getting too much, and ``noted economists''--I have not heard from these noted economists--think it is too extravagant.

Mr. President, go back to Baltimore and I will go to Vermont and we will ask seniors whether they think the COLAs they are getting now are too extravagant, given the fact they haven't gotten a COLA in the last 2 years. Studies I have seen say not only are the COLAs today not too extravagant for Social Security and disabled vets, they are, in fact, too low because they underestimate the real expenses of seniors, which largely have to do with health care and prescription drugs. The costs are soaring. Any of these pundits or any of these economists who go out and talk to real people and say Social Security COLAs are too high are going to get laughed right out of the room because it isn't true.

If we come forward with this so-called chained CPI, this new formulation for COLAs, this is what it will mean in the real world: If someone is 65 today, when they become 75 in 10 years, that will result in a $560 decline in what they otherwise would have gotten in Social Security benefits, and when they are 85, 20 years from today, that will be a $1,000-a-year decline. I know in DC, with the lobbyists making millions a year, when we talk about $1,000, that is what these guys spend on a fancy dinner. It is laughable. They don't know what goes on in the real world.

There are millions of seniors today hanging on, trying to pay their prescription drug costs, trying to pay their out-of-pocket costs for health care, and $1,000 a year in 20 years is a lot of money for those people. In my view, it would be immoral and unacceptable to do what a number of plans out here are talking about; that is, to cut Social Security benefits very significantly. Clearly, that is where the Republicans are coming from, but it distresses me that I hear the President and Democrats in Congress also talking about that. This Senator will do everything he can to protect this enormously important program which, by the way, just in passing, has not contributed one nickel to the deficit because it is funded by the payroll tax and has a $2.6 trillion surplus. From a moral perspective, we cannot and must not cut Social Security.

There are other geniuses out there who are saying: Well, the way Medicare health care costs are going up, maybe it is time we did something like make major cuts in Medicare, including raising the eligibility age from 65 to 67. What is the problem? What is 2 years? Clearly, those folks have not talked to anybody who has been struggling when they are 60 or 63 and looking forward to Medicare at 65. What happens if a person is a modest-income person and they are 66 years of age and they are dealing with a health care crisis? Maybe they were hospitalized, but the government has said, pundits have said, my Republican friends have said, we are going to raise the Medicare age to 67. Tell me what happens. Let the American people tell me what happens to those millions of people? What are they supposed to do? They get diagnosed with cancer, they have a serious heart problem, they are 66, have no money in the bank, what happens to them? How many of those people will not survive?

Then other people say: Well, Medicaid is an easy program to cut. I mean, let's be politically honest about Medicaid. Medicaid is for lower income people. They don't have lobbyists, they don't make large campaign contributions. Many low-income people don't vote. They are easy to go after. Let's cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid. Let's be clear. According to a recent study at Harvard University, some 45,000 Americans die each year unnecessarily because they don't get to a doctor on time. That is 45,000 Americans, 15 times what we lost in the disaster of 9/11. Every single year those people are dying.

What happens if we make savage cuts in Medicaid? How many children do we throw off the Children's Health Insurance Program? What happens to the older people who are now in nursing homes on Medicaid? What happens to all those people? I guess we don't have to worry about them. Their lobbyists are not here. What happens to people on disability? We turn our back on those people, that is what we do.

One of the very interesting aspects of this whole debate and why the American people are so angry, so frustrated, and so disillusioned is that Congress is moving in a direction of exactly the opposite way that the American people want us to handle deficit reduction. Every single poll I have seen and in my experience in talking to people in the State of Vermont, people want shared sacrifice. People understand that the wealthiest people in this country are doing phenomenally well. Over a recent 25-year period, 80 percent of all new income went to the top 1 percent. The rich are getting richer, and you know what. Their effective tax rates today are one of the lowest in American history, about 18 percent. So the richest people in America who are doing phenomenally well are paying a lower tax rate than nurses, teachers, and police officers. The American people who see the middle class declining and the rich getting richer are saying: Hey, it is only fair that the wealthiest people help us contribute to deficit reduction. We can't place the whole burden on the backs of people who are getting poorer and poorer as a result of the recession.

The American people also understand we have large multinational corporations, such as General Electric, ExxonMobil, and many others that have been making billions of dollars in profits in recent years and don't pay a nickel in Federal taxes. Then, on top of that, we have the absurdity of a tax policy which allows the wealthy and large corporations to stash huge amounts of money in the Cayman Islands and in other tax havens so we are losing about $100 billion a year in revenue. The American people are looking around and saying: That is crazy. The wealthy and large corporations, which are doing phenomenally well, which are not paying their fair share of taxes, have to contribute to deficit reduction. It cannot simply be on the backs of the elderly, the children, the sick, the poor. That is what the American people are saying in poll after poll.

There was a poll that just came out the other day--just one more of many polls. Washington Post: Should the wealthiest people in this country be asked to pay more? That is the question. They asked: In order to reduce the national debt, would you support or oppose the following: raising taxes on Americans with incomes of over $250,000 a year. The response in that poll was 72 percent of the American people said yes, 27 percent said no. Overwhelmingly, every poll we see says the wealthy have to pay more in taxes, and then the same polls say: Protect Social Security, protect Medicare, protect Medicaid, protect education. Here is the irony: We are marching down a

path which will do exactly the opposite of what the American people want. Our Republican friends have been absolutely fanatically determined that no matter what happens, billionaires and large corporations will not pay a nickel more in taxes. That has been their religious belief, not a nickel more from the wealthiest people in this country. I have to say Democrats have not been particularly strong in opposition to that nor has the President been strong, with retreat after retreat.

In recent months, we have heard more and more discussion from Democrats about cuts in Social Security, cuts in Medicare, cuts in Medicaid. Now there is apparently a willingness to come forward with a proposal that would include only cuts and no revenue at all--no revenue at all.

I think the American people are angry. I think they are frustrated. I think they are disillusioned because what they want to see happen is deficit reduction done through shared sacrifice, although with the wealthy and large corporations playing their role appears not to be happening. And when they have said loudly and clearly that we must protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, they are also seeing that it is not happening.

So I just conclude by saying I think there is a path toward deficit reduction which is fair and responsible. It does ask the big-money interests to understand that they are Americans also and they have to play a role in deficit reduction. It does say that at a time when we have tripled military spending since 1997, we have to make significant cuts there as well.

I hope our Republican friends give up their fanatical opposition to asking billionaires and millionaires and large corporations to play a role in deficit reduction. I hope my Democratic friends will stand tall. And I hope that at the end of the day, we have the deficit- reduction program the American people will feel good about.

With that, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, if there was ever a time in the modern history of America for the American people to become engaged in what is going on here in Washington, now is that time. Decisions are being made as we speak which will impact not only our generation but the lives of our children and our grandchildren for decades to come. I fear very much that the decisions being contemplated are not good decisions, are not fair decisions.

Right now, there is a lot of discussion about two things: No. 1, the importance of the United States not defaulting for the first time in our history on our debts--I think there is increased

understanding that would be a disaster for the American economy, that would be a disaster for the world's economy, and we should not do that--but, secondly, there is increased discussion now on long-term deficit reduction, how we address the crisis we face today of a record- breaking deficit of $1.4 trillion and a $14 trillion-plus national debt--a debt, by the way, that was caused by two unpaid-for wars, huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country, a Medicare Part D prescription drug program written by the insurance companies, and the lack of revenues coming in because of a recession caused by the greed and recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street.

Be that as it may, regardless of how we got to where we are right now, there are efforts to develop long-term deficit reduction plans. One of them has to do with a so-called Gang of 6. While we do not know all of the details of that proposal--in fact, we never will because a lot of that proposal boots the issue to committees, such as the Finance Committee, that have to work out the details, and no one can know what those details will be at this time--I think it is fair to say that Senator Coburn, Senator Crapo, and Senator Chambliss deserve a word of congratulations. Clearly, they have won this debate in a very significant way. My guess is they will probably get 80 or 90 percent of what they wanted, and in this town that is quite an achievement. They have stood firm in their desire to represent the wealthy and the powerful and multinational corporations. They have threatened. They have been very smart in a number of ways. They have been determined. And at the end of the day, they will get 80 or 90 percent of what they want.

That is their victory, and I congratulate them on their victory. Unfortunately, their victory will be a disaster for working families in this country, for the elderly, for the sick, for the children, and for low-income people.

I did want to mention, based on the limited information we have--and as I get more information, I will be on the floor more often, but I think it is important to at least highlight some of what is in this so- called Gang of 6 that the corporate media, among others, is enthralled about.

Some may remember that for a number of years leading Democrats said: We will do everything we can to protect Social Security, that Social Security has been an extraordinary success in our country, that for 75 years, with such volatility in the economy, Social Security has paid out every nickel owed to every eligible American.

I have heard Democrats say Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit. And that is right because Social Security is funded by the payroll tax, not by the U.S. Treasury. Social Security has a $2.6 trillion surplus today and can pay out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 25 years. An enormously popular program, poll after poll from the American people says: Do not cut Social Security.

Two-and-a-half years ago, when Barack Obama--then Senator from Illinois--ran for President of the United States, he made it very clear, if you voted for him, no cuts in Social Security. Yet what Senators Coburn, Crapo, and Chambliss have managed to do in the Gang of 6 is reach an agreement where there will be major cuts in Social Security.

Do not let anybody kid you about this being some minor thing. It is not. What we are talking about is that under this so-called Gang of 6 proposal, Social Security cuts would go into effect by the year 2012-- virtually immediately. What that means is that 10 years from now, the typical 75-year-old person will see their Social Security benefits cut by $560 a year, and the average 85-year-old will see a cut of $1,000 a year.

For some people here in Washington--maybe the big lobbyists who make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year--$560 a year or $1,000 a year may not seem like a lot of money. But if you are a senior trying to get by on $14,000, $15,000, $18,000 a year, and you are 85 years old--the end of your life, you are totally vulnerable, you are sick--a $1,000-a- year cut in what you otherwise would have received is a major blow.

So I congratulate Senator Coburn, Senator Crapo, and Senator Chambliss for doing what President Obama said would not happen under his watch, what the Democrats have said would not happen under their watch: major cuts in Social Security.

But it is not just Social Security. We have 50 million Americans today who have no health insurance at all. Under the Gang of 6 proposal, there will be cuts in Medicare over a 10-year period of almost $300 billion. There will be massive cuts in Medicaid and other health care programs.

There will be caps on spending, which means there will be major cuts in education. If you are a working-class family, hoping you are going to be able to send your kid to college, and that you will be eligible for a Pell grant, think twice about that because that Pell grant may not be there.

If you are a senior who relies on a nutrition program, that nutrition program may not be there. If you think it is a good idea that we enforce clean air and clean water provisions so our kids can be healthy, those provisions may not be there because there will be major cuts in environmental protection.

I have heard some people say: Well, all that is not so good, but at least finally our Republican friends are saying we need revenue and we are going to raise $1 trillion in revenue.

Well, Mr. President, let me ask you this. If you read the outline of the Gang of 6 proposal, which is admittedly vague--I think they would acknowledge that; they do not have all of the details--there are very clear provisions making sure we are going to make massive cuts in programs for working families, for the elderly, for the children. Those cuts are written in black and white.

What about the revenue? Well, it is kind of vague--kind of vague. The projection is that maybe we will raise over a 10-year period $1 trillion in revenue. Where is that coming from? Is it necessarily going to come from the wealthiest people in this country? Is it going to come from large corporations that are enjoying huge tax breaks? That is not clear at all.

What happens if we do not reach that revenue of $1 trillion? What mechanism is in place to say it happens? That mechanism, in fact, does not exist. What we do know--and, in fairness, I think the authors of this proposal would acknowledge not all the details are out there, but certainly I want middle-class families to understand when we talk about increased revenues, do you know where that may come from? It may come from cutbacks in the home mortgage interest deduction program, which is so very important to millions and millions of families. It may mean if you have a health care program today, that health care program may be taxed. That is a way to raise revenue. It may be that there will be increased taxes on your retirement programs, your IRAs, your 401(k)s. But we do not have the details for that. All we have is some kind of vague promise that we are going to raise $1 trillion over the next 10 years. There is no enforcement mechanism and no clarity as to where that revenue will come from.

So I think it is terribly important that the American people become engaged in this debate, which will have a huge impact not only on them, but on their parents and on their children. I believe very strongly what the American people must fight for is not a big deal or a small deal but a fair deal.

At a time when the wealthiest people in this country are doing phenomenally well--their effective tax rate is the lowest on record--at a time when the top 400 individuals in this country own more wealth than 150 million Americans, at a time when corporate profits are soaring, and in many instances these same corporations pay nothing in taxes, at a time when we have tripled military spending since 1997, there are fair ways to move toward deficit reduction which do not slash programs that working families and children and the elderly desperately depend upon.

I believe the issue we are dealing with is of enormous consequence. It is clear our Republican friends have succeeded, and I congratulate them on getting 80, 90 percent of what they wanted.

I want people to think back 3 years ago--just 3 years ago--to think that there would be a serious proposal on the floor of the Senate with all of these

devastating cuts. I think very few people would have thought that possible. So I congratulate my Republican colleagues for their apparent victory. But this Senator is going to fight back. I was not elected to the Senate to make devastating cuts in Social Security, in Medicare, in Medicaid, in children's programs, while I lower tax rates for the wealthiest people in this country. That is not what I was elected to do, and I do not intend to do that.

So I hope the American people get engaged in this issue, stand, and demand that the Congress pass a fair and responsible deficit reduction program, not what we are talking about today.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, the issue that is under discussion in Washington on deficit reduction is of enormous consequence. It will impact not only our generation but the decisions reached will impact our children and our grandchildren and the future of our country. It is terribly important the American people become engaged in this debate. I fear if they do not, if we leave the discussions totally to folks inside the beltway, the results will be a disaster for tens of millions of working families, for the elderly, for the sick, for the children, for the environment, and for the future of our Nation.

So my plea today is for the American people to get heavily involved, to get on the phone and call their Senators and their Members of Congress to demand not that the budget deal that is reached is a big deal or a small deal or a medium-sized deal but that the budget agreement that is reached is a fair deal--one that reflects the values of our country, one that understands what is going on in the economy today, and one that addresses the issue of how we got into this horrendous deficit situation in the first place.

When we talk about a fair deal, one has to understand what the American economy is today, and that is that we have a middle class that is collapsing; we have poverty increasing; and we have a growing gap between the very wealthiest people in our country and everybody else. To my mind, at a time when the rich are doing phenomenally well, when corporate profits are extremely high, when the effective tax rate for the wealthy is the lowest in modern history, and when we have many corporations making billions of dollars in profits and paying nothing in taxes, it would be immoral and bad economic policy to move toward a deficit-reduction approach which balances the budget on the backs of working families, the elderly, the sick, and the poor, and that does not ask the wealthiest people or the largest corporations to contribute one nickel to deficit reduction. That would be absolutely wrong.

Mr. President, one of the areas that concerns me very much is that in the midst of all of this deficit-reduction talk, seemingly out of nowhere comes the idea we must make major cuts in Social Security benefits. That is absolutely wrong for a number of reasons.

No. 1, Social Security has not contributed one nickel toward our deficit. The Social Security trust fund has a $2.6 trillion surplus. Social Security can pay out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 25 years. So it is wrong, wrong, wrong to make significant cuts in Social Security a part of deficit reduction. It is wrong because Social Security hasn't contributed to the deficit; it is wrong because President Obama specifically campaigned against any cuts toward Social Security; and it is wrong because cutting Social Security would hurt in a very significant way millions of the most vulnerable people in our country.

There is a discussion going on about moving toward a so-called Chained CPI, which would be used to determine Social Security's annual COLA--a new formulation on the COLA. Let me be very clear. When I was in the House, I introduced bipartisan legislation to strengthen the Social Security COLA because I believed then, and I believe now, the current COLA is inadequate and unfair to seniors because it does not take into account the high cost of health care and prescription drugs.

In my view, the current COLA formulation understates what seniors and disabled vets should be getting. What some are proposing in terms of moving toward a Chained CPI would be to move us in exactly the wrong direction. It would not adequately reflect the purchasing needs of seniors but, in fact, would underestimate those needs.

The Social Security Administration's Chief Actuary estimates the effects of

the so-called Chained CPI would be that beneficiaries who retire at age 65 and receive average benefits would get $560 less a year at age 75 than they would under current law. Around here $560 may not seem like a lot of money. But if you are 75 years of age and are bringing in $14,000 or $16,000 a year, and you are trying to pay for prescription drugs or health care, $560 is, in fact, a lot of money. Worse, if we moved toward that Chained CPI, Social Security benefits, by the time a senior reached 85, he or she would receive $1,000 less a year, which would be a 6.5-percent cut in their benefits.

So we are in an unusual moment in that the people who helped cause this recession--the greedy people on Wall Street whose recklessness, whose greed, whose illegal behavior drove us into this recession--are not being asked to contribute one nickel toward deficit reduction. They were bailed out by the American people, and in many respects they are now doing better than they did before the Wall Street crash.

Many here are saying, my Republicans friends especially: No, Wall Street CEOs making tens of millions a year, who helped cause this recession, do not have to contribute one penny toward deficit reduction. But if you are an 85-year-old senior citizen who is struggling to take care of basic necessities, well, my goodness, we are going to have to do deficit reduction on your back.

That is not what America is supposed to be about, and that is not what the American people want. Poll after poll suggests the American people believe we should move toward deficit reduction based on the concept of shared sacrifice; that we are all in this together.

Even if you are a millionaire and you make a whole lot of campaign contributions, and, yes, if you are a billionaire and you have lobbyists running all over Capitol Hill, you know what. You are going to have to help us with deficit reduction. And, yes, given the fact that we have major corporation after major corporation--oil companies and Wall Street--making billions of dollars in profits and in some cases paying nothing in taxes, guess what. We are going to do away with those loopholes so they start contributing toward deficit reduction. Given the fact we have tripled military funding since 1997, yes, we are going to have to make some cuts in military spending.

Let me conclude by simply saying: Yes, we have to reduce our deficit and deal with our national debt. But the issue is not a big deal or a small deal, the issue must be a fair deal--one which protects Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the needs of working families, and a deficit-reduction approach which asks the wealthiest people and the largest corporations to also participate in deficit reduction.

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

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

Mr. President, we are at a pivotal moment in American history, and I think many Americans are confused and perplexed and angry and frustrated as to where we are today and how we got to where we are and what the consequences of decisions made in the past and that are being made right now will mean to their families. Let me just take a minute and try to give my view as to how we got to where we are and what our options are.

As you have just stated, Mr. President, and Senator Harkin before you, anyone who talks blithely about defaults and saying it is not a big deal for this country clearly does not understand what he or she is talking about.

This is the greatest Nation in the history of the world. This is a nation whose faith and credit has been the gold standard of countries throughout the world. This is a nation, since George Washington, which has paid out every nickel it has borrowed, which is, in fact, why it is the great Nation it is and why we have the strongest economy in the world today, troubled though it may be.

The idea for some people to simply say: Oh, not a big deal; we are not going to pay our debt, nothing to worry about, those are people who are wishing our economy harm for political reasons, and those are people whose attitudes will have terrible consequences for virtually every working family in this country in terms of higher interest rates, in terms of significant job loss, in terms of making a very unstable global economy even more unstable.

This country, which has paid its debts from day one, must pay its debts. I can't say it any more clearly than that.

Our Republican friends, especially our rightwing friends who now control the House of Representatives, have given us an option and here is their option. What they have said is: We want to do deficit reduction, and this is how we are going to do it. We are going to end Medicare as we know it and force elderly people, many of whom don't have the money, to pay substantially more for their health care. So under their plan, when a person is 70 and they get sick and they don't have a whole lot of income, they don't know what happens to them. They forgot to tell us. But what they did tell us is Medicare is not going to be there for them. They told us that tomorrow, if their plan was passed, they are going to have to pay a heck of a lot more for the prescription drugs than they are paying today. Oh, you don't have the money? Hey, that is not our problem.

They told us we are going to make savage cuts in Medicaid, throw millions of kids off health insurance, when 50 million Americans have no health insurance today. They want millions more without any health insurance.

If your mom or dad is in a nursing home and that nursing home bill is paid significantly by Medicaid and Medicaid isn't paying anymore, they forgot to tell us what happens to your mom or dad in that nursing home. What happens? What happens today if one is unemployed and not able to get an unemployment extension? What happens to the middle-class family, desperately trying to send their kids to college and we make savage cuts in Pell grants and they can't go to college? What does it mean for the Nation if we are not bringing forth young people who have the education they need? They forgot to tell us that. If you are one of the growing numbers of senior citizens in this country who are going hungry, they want to cut nutrition programs.

On and on it goes. Every program that has any significance to working families, the sick, the elderly, children, the poor, they are going to cut, and they are going to cut in a savage way. They are going to do that in the midst of a recession, where real unemployment is already at 15 percent and the middle class is disappearing and poverty is increasing. That is their idea.

When we say to them: Well, hey, the very rich are doing phenomenally well; the top 1 percent now earns more income than the bottom 50 percent; the top 400 wealthiest families in this country have more wealth than the 150 million Americans--don't you think maybe it is appropriate that when the rich are getting richer and their tax rates have gone down, their effective tax rates are the lowest in modern history, when major corporations are making billions of profits and in some cases not paying a nickel in taxes, don't you think maybe it is fair that they contribute to deficit reduction rather than just the elderly and the sick and working families, they say: No. We have a line in the sand, and if it means this country will default on its debt for the first time in history, that is OK. But we are absolutely going to defend the richest people in this country, millionaires and billionaires, and make sure they don't pay a nickel more in taxes. We are going to make sure there is no tax reform so we can continue to lose $100 billion every single year because wealthy people and corporations stash their money in tax havens in the Cayman Islands or Bermuda, and that is just fine. We will protect those tax breaks while we savage programs for working families.

Those are the choices our rightwinged Republican friends are giving us: defaults with horrendous economic consequences for working families in this country and, in fact, for the entire global economy or massive cuts to programs working families desperately need.

Neither of those options is acceptable to me, and neither are those options acceptable to the vast majority of the people in this country. Every single poll I have seen says that the American people want shared sacrifice. They don't want or believe that deficit reduction can simply come down on the backs of the weak and the vulnerable, the elderly, the children, and the poor; that the wealthy and large corporations also have to participate.

I must, also, in all honesty, tell you I have been disappointed by the President's role in these discussions and some of his ideas. He has brought forth an idea which I categorically reject, that we should make significant cuts in Social Security; that when someone reaches the age of 85, they would lose $1,000 as opposed to what they would otherwise have gotten. This Senator is not going to balance our budget on the backs of an 85-year-old person who is earning $14,000 a year--not with my vote.

This Senator does not agree with the President that we raise the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 67 because I don't know what happens to millions of people who work their whole lives, finally reach 65 anticipating Medicare, but it is not going to be there for them. So I very strongly disagree with the President on those initiatives.

Let me tell you that elections have consequences, and I think many people now are beginning to catch on to that. It is no secret our rightwinged Republican colleagues did very well in November 2010. They captured the House of Representatives, and now, 1 year-plus later, for the first time in the history of this country, we are on the verge of a default.

I would close by saying to people all over this country, if you believe we have to start investing in America and creating the millions of jobs this country desperately needs, elections have consequences.

If you believe we have to address the deficit crisis in a way that is responsible, in a way that asks the wealthy and large corporations also to play a role, in a way, as Senator Harkin mentioned a moment ago, that calls for cuts in defense spending and bringing our troops home as soon as possible from Afghanistan and Iraq, you have to be involved in the political process, in my view.

A group of people in the House whose views represent a small minority of the American people are holding this Congress hostage, and it is time for the American people to stand and say enough is enough. The function of the Congress is to represent all our people and not just the wealthiest and most powerful.

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

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

Mr. President, let us be very clear that in terms of the deficit-reduction package that is being debated, we are talking about an issue of huge consequence not only for people today but for our kids and our grandchildren. This is likely, from a domestic perspective, the most important issue any Member of the Senate or the House will ever vote on in his or her political career. This is a huge deal which in many ways will shape the future of America.

I know the media refers to the discussion as whether we are going to have a big deal of $4 trillion or whether we are going to have a smaller deal of $2 trillion, but the real issue is whether we are going to have a fair deal--a deficit-reduction package that represents the interests of working people and the vast majority of our people or whether we are going to have a deficit-reduction package that ends up reflecting the needs of the wealthiest people in this country, who are doing phenomenally well, and the largest corporations, which in many instances are making recordbreaking profits. That is really what the debate is about.

The Republican position on deficit reduction has been extremely clear and is consistent with their rightwing ideology. Despite the fact that our current deficit crisis has been caused by two wars--unpaid for-- huge tax breaks that have gone to the wealthiest people in this country, and a recession caused by the deregulation of Wall Street and the lack of revenue coming in as a result of that recession, our Republican friends are adamant that while the richest people in this country are becoming much richer, while today we have the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major country, where the top 400 individuals own more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans-- that gap between the very rich and everybody else is growing wider--our Republican friends say the deficit must be balanced on the backs of working families, the elderly, the sick, and the children. No, the very rich, the top 1 percent, who now earn more income than the bottom 50 percent, should not be asked to contribute one penny more.

The Republicans are very clear, despite the fact that corporate profits are soaring, that corporation after corporation is enjoying huge tax loopholes that enable them to make billions of dollars a year in profits and not pay one penny in taxes. Republicans say: Sorry, off the table. Large, profitable corporations, with CEOs making millions a year, don't have to contribute to deficit reduction. Only the children have to contribute, the elderly have to contribute, and only working families, the unemployed, and the sick have to contribute to deficit reduction. We have to balance the budget on the backs of those people. But if you are very rich and getting richer, if you are a profitable corporation, that is off the table. You don't have to contribute a nickel.

Poll after poll shows that the Republican position and their ideology is way out of touch with what the American people need or want. This is not Bernie Sanders talking; this is the American people talking. In poll after poll, when the American people are asked, ``What is your preferred option in terms of deficit reduction?'' they say it is to ask the wealthy to pay more in taxes. So when our Republican friends say the American people don't want to raise taxes on the wealthy, that is just not true.

To my mind, what the Republicans are proposing is immoral in terms of coming down heavy on the most vulnerable people in our society, people who are already hurting as a result of the recession. When real unemployment is 15 percent, what do you want

to take out of those people? They do not have any job. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world--21 percent of our kids living in poverty. They want to cut them even more? We have hunger among senior citizens in this country going up. They want to take away their nutrition programs? Not only is that immoral, to my mind, it is bad economics because you don't get the economy moving until working people have some money to go out and buy the goods and services that companies are selling.

To my mind, where the Republicans are coming from on this issue is way out in right field and way out of touch with where the American people believe we should go. But having said that, I have to say I am very confused as to where President Obama is coming from on this issue. And maybe I speak here as an Independent--not a Republican, not a Democrat, but the longest serving Independent in American congressional history--but I think I speak for the vast majority of the American people on this issue. Where is President Obama on this issue? We know where the Republicans are coming from. But suddenly, out of nowhere, President Obama tells us that Social Security cuts have got to be placed on the table.

Where does this come from? The President understands that Social Security hasn't contributed one nickel to our deficit. In fact, Social Security has a $2.6 trillion surplus today and can pay out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 25 years. Social Security is funded by the payroll tax, not by the U.S. Treasury. The President understands that. Yet the President has now put on the table significant cuts in Social Security as well as Medicare, as well as Medicaid, despite his knowledge and his previous statements that cuts in these programs would be devastating to ordinary Americans.

The President of the United States, Barack Obama, in recent statements has talked about the growth of political cynicism in this country and has argued the American people are sick and tired of politicians who refuse to tackle big issues. There is truth to what he is saying. But there is also a bigger truth, and that is the American people are sick and tired and dismayed about candidates who run for office saying one thing, and then, after they are elected, doing something very different.

In that regard, let me mention that when candidate Barack Obama ran for office he told the American people over and over he was going to fight to protect the needs of ordinary Americans, and the elderly and the sick and the children. Among many other promises he made during his tough campaign against Senator McCain, he said he was not going to cut Social Security benefits. That is what he said over and over.

Let me quote then-Senator Barack Obama and what he told the AARP on September 6, 2008:

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 Barack Obama in September 2008. So, Mr. President, when you ask why the American people are frustrated with politicians, why they are increasingly cynical, it has a lot to do with candidates who say one thing and do another. If you told the American people you are not going to cut Social Security, then don't cut Social Security. Keep your word.

In case people think: Well, these proposed cuts are not significant; they are trifling, let me quote from a document from Social Security Works, a coalition of many organizations that is doing a great job defending Social Security. And when President Obama and others are talking about cutting Social Security, one of the approaches they are looking at is changing how we do COLAs--how we do CPIs. So this is from that document by Social Security Works:

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the adoption of

the so-called ``Chained-CPI,''--

Which is what I believe the President is talking about.

which would be used to determine Social Security's annual

COLA under this proposal, would cut benefits by $112 billion

over 10 years. The Social Security Administration's Chief

Actuary estimates the effects of this change would be that

beneficiaries who retire at age 65 and receive average

benefits would get $560 less a year at age 75.

Let me repeat that. They would receive $560 less a year at age 75. That may not seem like a lot of money to some folks around here, but when you are trying to get by at the age of 75--when you have all kinds of medical bills and you have all kinds of prescription drug costs and you are trying to eat, and maybe you are getting $14,000 a year in Social Security--$560 a year is a lot of money.

But then it gets worse. Because what the Social Security Administration estimates is that at 85--and more and more people, thank God, are living to 85, people who are very fragile at age 85--people would see cuts of about $1,000 a year. So the longer you live, the more your cuts.

Is that what we are about in America now? We don't ask billionaires to pay any more in taxes, but we tell somebody who is 85 years of age, living on $14,000 a year, they would get $1,000 less than otherwise because we have adopted this so-called chained CPI that I gather the President is pushing.

I think the issue is very clear, and that is that the Senate, this Congress, have got to stand with the overwhelming majority of the American people who understand that the solution to this deficit crisis requires shared sacrifice. Yes, we have to take a look at waste and fraud and bureaucracy at every agency of government. No one disputes that. Yes, we have to take a hard look at military spending, which has tripled since 1997. And yes, maybe we have to bring the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan sooner than many here wish, or that the President wishes, and save substantial sums as we do that. But most certainly, if we are going to go forward with shared sacrifice, yes, we do have to ask billionaires, who--despite all their power and all their campaign contributions and all of their lobbying--are doing phenomenally well, to contribute to deficit reduction. And yes, maybe those companies that stash their money in tax havens in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands in order to avoid taxes to this country--$100 billion a year--will have to start paying their fair share.

On my Web site, which is sanders.senate.gov, I put a letter which said: Mr. President, stand tall, take on these rightwing idealogs who want to make devastating cuts to working families. In a couple of weeks, we have had 135,000 signatures on that letter. I think that letter reflects what the American people want. They want shared sacrifice. They do not want to see the elderly, the kids, or working families being battered more and more, especially in the midst of this recession.

I would say to President Obama: Do not assume--do not assume--because you work and reach an agreement that everybody here is going to support that agreement. The American people demand fairness, they demand shared sacrifice, and some of us intend to bring that about.

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

Mr. President, let me begin by referring to the front page of today's Washington Post. The headline is ``Obama: Social Security on table. Cuts offered in debt talks.''

Mr. President, I hope very much that headline is wrong because, in fact, Social Security, which is perhaps the most successful Federal program in the history of our country, has not contributed one penny to our deficit or our national debt. The idea of lumping Social Security and cuts in Social Security into a discussion about our deficit and our national debt is absolutely wrong and unfair to the tens of millions of seniors and people with disabilities who benefit from that program.

As you know and as the American people know, Social Security is independently funded through the payroll tax. Every worker and every employer contributes into that fund. Social Security, today, has a $2.6 trillion surplus that is projected, in fact, to grow to over $4 trillion by 2023.

We, of course, need a vigorous debate about how we deal with the deficit crisis and our national debt, but Social Security, independently funded, with a $2.6 trillion surplus, having not contributed one nickel to the national debt, should not be part of that debate.

I understand there are many people in the Senate--many of my Republican

colleagues--who do not like Social Security, who do not believe in Social Security because, essentially, they do not believe the government should be involved in retirement insurance for seniors or people with disabilities. I respect their point of view. I very strongly disagree with it.

The real problem they have is that Social Security is enormously popular. Poll after poll shows that the American people do not want to see Social Security cut, they do not want to see the retirement age raised, and they most certainly do not want to see Social Security privatized because, in fact, Social Security has succeeded. It has accomplished the goals of those people who founded that program in the 1930s. In the 1930s, about half of America's senior citizens lived in poverty. Today, that number, while it is too high, is down to 10 percent. More important, given the incredible instability in the economy we have seen for decades--especially in the last few years-- where millions of people have lost some or all of the retirement savings they had invested in Wall Street, over the last 75 years, not one American has lost one dime he or she was entitled to in terms of Social Security benefits. That is a pretty good record--every American, getting every penny that was owed to him or her for 75 years. It is a program that has worked. It is a program that is working today. It is a program that can pay out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 25 years. It is a program that should not be cut.

But more to the point, in terms of President Obama, one of the problems we have as a nation is that it is no great secret that many of our people are losing faith in government, for a whole lot of reasons. But certainly one of the reasons is that politicians say one thing and they do something else. They campaign on a certain promise, they give a speech, everybody applauds, and 2 years later: Well, I guess I have to change my mind; I can't quite do this.

Let's be clear: When President Obama ran for the Presidency in 2008, he was a strong advocate of Social Security. He made it very clear to the American people he was not going to cut benefits. Let me quote from a speech the President gave--he was then-Senator Barack Obama--on September 6, 2008. 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.

``I will not do either.'' Today's Washington Post: Obama: Social Security on table. Cuts offered in debt talks.

Mr. President, on April 16, 2008, candidate 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----

And that is now up to $106,000 a year----

those are not good policy options.

On November 11, 2007, candidate 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.

The American people expect the President of the United States to keep his word.

Now, again, I am not privileged to the discussions that may be going on right this moment in the White House about some grand national debt negotiations. All I can tell you--and it may be accurate, it may not; the media has been wrong once or twice in history--is that according to today's Washington Post, the President is considering lowering cost-of- living adjustments for Social Security recipients, even though, by the way, Social Security recipients have not received a COLA in the last 2 years.

So let's be clear: Today, despite significant inflation on health care costs and prescription drugs, the fact that seniors have not received a COLA in 2 years, the fact veterans have not received a COLA in 2 years, apparently, the President, in negotiating with Republicans, is considering lowering COLAs in the future.

It is important to understand what that means. According to the Strengthen Social Security Campaign, which is a coalition of senior groups who are working hard to protect Social Security, changing the way Social Security cost-of-living adjustments are calculated--as the President may be considering--and again, I do not want to make a definitive statement. All I am doing is telling you what is on the Washington Post's front page today. Is it true? I can't say. But if it is true, this would cost senior citizens hundreds of dollars a year in lower benefits.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the adoption of the so-called ``Chained CPI''--and this is a different formulation. I happen to believe, and I have introduced legislation to this effect, the current COLAs for seniors are not accurate and are too low because they do not, in a realistic way, measure what seniors are purchasing, which, to a significant degree has to do with health care and prescription drugs. When you are old, you are not primarily buying laptop computers or big television sets. You are often spending a lot of your money on health care, prescription drugs, and those costs are going up. So I think today's COLA is too low and it does not reflect the real purchasing needs of seniors.

According to the CBO, if in fact the government adopted the so-called ``Chained-CPI''--which is a different formulation that is even lower than the current inadequate formulation--annual COLAs under this proposal would cut benefits by $112 billion over 10 years.

Here is the important point for individuals. The Social Security Administration Chief Actuary estimates the effects of this change would be that beneficiaries who retire at the age of 65 and receive average benefits would get $560 less a year at age 75 than they would under current law and get $1,000 less a year at age 85.

People are living longer. Many of our people, God bless them, reach 75, even reach 85. To say to somebody when they reach 85, and they don't have a whole lot of money, that as a result of these cuts they will get $1,000 a year less is totally, to my mind, unacceptable and not something that should be supported by the President or by any Member of the Senate.

The American people, despite what many of my Republican friends are saying, are pretty clear on some basic issues regarding how we address the serious problem of our national debt and our deficit. What the American people say in poll after poll after poll--and they say it to me on the streets in Burlington, VT, or any other place in Vermont that I go--is that we must have shared sacrifice; that at a time when poverty is increasing in this country, when we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, when millions of workers are working longer hours for lower wages, when unemployment is sky high, when seniors have not received a COLA in 2 years, when young people are finding it hard to get any jobs at all, it is immoral and bad economics to do deficit reduction on the backs of those people--of working families, of children, of the elderly, of the sick, of the poor.

Overwhelmingly, the American people say that is wrong, especially at a time when the wealthiest people have never had it so good and when corporate profits are soaring.

Mr. President, you may have seen an article on the front page of the New York Times a few days ago. Last year CEOs of major corporations have seen a 23-percent increase in their compensation packages--23 percent. We are in the midst of a horrendous recession, where real wages for American workers are going down, but CEOs are doing great, Wall Street is doing great, corporate profits are soaring, and we have dozens of corporations that make huge profits and don't pay a nickel in taxes.

We have a military budget that is three times higher than it was in 1997. So the vast majority of the people say--and they say it in polls all over the place--we need to go forward with shared sacrifice. Not as the Republicans suggest--cutting programs for the most vulnerable people in this country, throwing millions of kids off Medicaid, ending Medicare as we know it now, and making it impossible for working class families to send their kids to college. That is not what the American people are saying.

A recent survey by Public Policy Polling in swing States asked the questions. When voters in Ohio--this is just

the other day this came out--were asked this spring if they would support or oppose cutting spending of Social Security to reduce the national debt, only 16 percent favored that approach compared to 80 percent who were opposed, with similar, identical results, or very close results in States such as Missouri, Montana, and Minnesota. That was just out in the papers yesterday. Meanwhile, strong majorities, including Republicans, favor increased revenue from the wealthiest Americans and most profitable corporations being a part of any deficit reduction package.

So let me conclude by saying that I hope very much President Obama does not reach any agreement with the Republicans which includes cuts in Social Security. Social Security has not contributed one nickel to our national debt. It is a successful program and widely supported by the American people who are benefiting from it every single day. More to the point, President Obama, when he campaigned for office, made it clear when he told the American people if he was elected President he would not be cutting Social Security, and the American people expect him to keep his word.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask that I be allowed to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, this is a pivotal moment in the history of our country. In the coming days and weeks, decisions will be made about our national budget that will impact the lives of virtually every American in this country for decades to come. The time is now for the American people to become significantly involved in that debate and not leave it to a small number of people here in Washington.

At a time when the wealthiest people and the largest corporations in our country are doing phenomenally well and in many cases have never had it so good, while the middle class is disappearing and poverty is increasing, it is absolutely imperative that any deficit-reduction package that passes this Congress not include the horrendous cuts, the cruel cuts in programs that working people desperately need that are utilized every day by the elderly, by the sick, by our children, and by the lowest income people in our country, that the Republicans in Congress, dominated by their extreme rightwing, are demanding.

America is not about giving tax breaks to billionaires and attacking the most vulnerable people in our country. We must not allow that to happen.

In my view, the President of the United States needs to stand with the vast majority of the American people and say no to the Republican leadership and make it clear that enough is enough. No, we will not balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable people in this country--on our children, on our seniors and the sick. No, we will not do that. Working families in this country have already sacrificed enough in terms of lost jobs, lost wages, lost homes, lost pensions. The working families of this country are hurting right now. Enough is enough.

Now is the time to say to the millionaires and the billionaires in this country and to the largest corporations that in many ways have never had it so good that they must participate in deficit reduction, that there must be shared sacrifice, that deficit reduction cannot be based on cutting back on the needs of working families and the middle class but that the rich and large corporations have also got to participate in this process.

Furthermore, it is absolutely necessary, if we are talking about a sensible deficit-reduction package, that we take a hard look at unnecessary and wasteful spending at the Pentagon.

Let's make it very clear that we will not be blackmailed again by the Republican leadership in Washington that is threatening to destroy the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government so that, for the very first time in our Nation's history, we might not pay the bills we owe. That is their threat. We will destroy the record of always paying our bills, never failing to do that, unless they get everything they want.

Instead of yielding to the incessant, extreme Republican demands, as the President in many respects did in last December's tax cut agreement and this year's spending negotiations, the President has to get out of the beltway. He has to connect with the needs of working families and ordinary Americans and rally the overwhelming majority of our people who believe that deficit reduction must be based on shared sacrifice, that the wealthy and the powerful and the large corporations cannot continue to get everything they want while we wage a cruel and unprecedented attack on the most vulnerable people in this country. It is time for President Obama to stand with the millions who have already lost their jobs, their homes, their life savings, instead of the millionaires, who in many cases have never had it so good.

Unless the American people in huge numbers tell the President not to yield 1 inch to Republican demands to destroy Medicare and Medicaid while continuing to provide tax breaks to the wealthy and the powerful, unless the American people rise up and say enough is enough, I am afraid that what will happen is the President will yield once again and the wealthy and the powerful will laugh all the way to the bank, while working people will be devastated.

Today, I am asking the American people that if you believe deficit reduction should be about shared sacrifice; if you believe the wealthiest people in our country and the largest corporations should be asked to pay their fair share as part of deficit reduction; if you believe that, at a time when military spending has almost tripled since 1997, we must begin to take a hard look at our defense budget; and if you believe the middle-class and working families have already sacrificed enough, I urge you to make sure the President hears your voice, and he needs to hear it now. I urge the American people to go to my Web site, sanders.senate.gov, and sign a letter to the President letting him know that enough is enough. I also urge the American people to contact the White House directly through their Web sites and leave a message for the President there.

As you know, this country faces enormous challenges. In fact, we have not suffered through such a difficult moment since the Great Depression of the 1930s. We do not talk about it very much, but the reality is that the middle class in this country is disappearing while at the same time poverty is increasing.

When we talk about the state of our economy, it is important to talk about it within the context of deficit reduction because when you understand what is going on in the economy, you know you cannot get blood out of a stone. You cannot keep attacking people who have been devastated in the last few years in terms of unemployment, in terms of losses of pension, in terms of losses of health care.

When we talk about the economy, we have to understand that the situation is in many cases even worse than official statistics indicate. For example, we read in the papers that the official unemployment rate is now 9.1 percent. But the truth is--and no economist disagrees with this--that official statistic ignores the number of people who have given up looking for work and people who are working part time when they want to work full time. If you add all of that together, you are looking at a real unemployment rate in this country of about 16 percent. Are those really the people whom we should go to for deficit reduction? Are they not suffering enough right now? Young people graduating college who can't find a job, let's hit them hard. Older people who have lost their jobs and can't find a new one or are working for half the wages they previously worked at, let's go after those people. Fifty million people have no health insurance. Let's attack them. Working mothers and fathers cannot find affordable childcare. Let's go after them.

We must understand that when we look at the economy, the middle class is hurting and hurting badly. Over the last 10 years, on top of the high unemployment rates, the median family income in this country has declined by over $2,500. Do you know why working families are angry? That is why they are angry. They are working longer hours for lower wages. Are those really the people you want to ask to balance the budget? I don't think so. I think any sense of fairness, any sense of morality that one might have suggests you do not beat up on people who are already suffering. You don't try to get blood out of a stone.

As a result of the greed and the recklessness and the illegal behavior on Wall Street which caused this terrible recession, millions more Americans have lost their homes, they have lost their pensions, and they have lost their retirement savings. We hear it every day in calls that come to our offices. Unless we reverse our current economic costs, our children will have, for

the very first time in modern American history, a lower standard of living than their parents. It is the American dream in reverse. Kids are going to do worse than their parents unless we reverse current economic trends.

We can throw out a lot of numbers around here, a few hundred billion and a trillion. But the truth is that behind those numbers in my State of Vermont and all over this country, there are real people who are hurting terribly, and as Members of the Senate our job is to pay attention to those people and not just the well-paid lobbyists, representing the most powerful special interests in the world, who surround this Capitol every single day.

Last year I asked my constituents in Vermont to share some personal stories with me. I asked them basically: How are you doing in this recession? The stories I got back from Vermont, I am sure, are absolutely similar to the stories you would get in Delaware or anyone would get in Michigan or any other State in this country. I asked them: How are things going? Let me tell you as a result of the e-mail we sent out, we had more than 400 Vermonters responding to that e-mail, and what they had to say was poignant. Sometimes these stories were so powerful, it was almost hard to read more than a few at a time. The message I received from Vermont--I suspect similar messages are coming from every State in this country--is that people are finding it hard to get jobs. They are now working for lower wages than they used to earn. We are seeing older workers who have depleted their life's savings, and they are worried about how they are going to retire. What happens to them when they are unable to work anymore? Who is going to take care of them?

We hear from young adults in their twenties and thirties who are deeply in debt from college loans, and they don't know how they are going to pay off those loans. We hear from people of all ages, all walks of life, from every corner of Vermont, who have sent us their stories. Let me read a few of them, to make the point to put some flesh and blood behind the statistics we often throw out.

We have a letter from a 51-year-old woman from central Vermont. This is what she wrote:

Dear Senator Sanders, Don't really know what to say, I

could cry. My significant other was out of work for a year,

now he works in another state. I've been out of work since

April. Our mortgage company wants the house because we can't

make the payments. I can't find a job to save my soul that

will pay enough to make a difference. How bad does it have to

get! My mother went through the Great Depression and here we

go again. I figure that I'm going to lose everything soon!

I'm a well educated person who can't see through the fog.

A gentleman in his mid-fifties from Orange County, VT, writes:

After being unemployed three times since 1999 due to global

trade agreements, I now find myself managing a hazardous

waste transfer facility that pays about 25 percent than what

I was making in 1999.

You hear that all of the time. Yes, many people, of course, are working, but many older workers today are dealing with the humiliation and the economic tragedy of now earning substantially less than they earned 10 or 20 years ago.

He continues:

My wife's children have moved back in, unemployed. And we

are saving very little for retirement. If things don't

improve soon we will likely have to work until we die. We

consider ourselves lucky that we are employed. Our children's

friends tend to show up around meal time. They are skinny. We

feed them. This is no recession, it's a modern day

depression.

Are those the people we want to go after when we talk about deficit reduction? Are they not suffering enough already?

A woman in her late forties from Westminster, VT, writes:

I am a single mom in Vermont, nearly 50. I patch together a

full time job making $12 an hour and various painting jobs

and still can't afford to get myself out of debt, or make

necessary repairs on my home. No other jobs in sight, I apply

all the time to no avail. Food and gas bills go up and up,

but not my income. I have no retirement at all, can't afford

to move, feeling stuck, tired, and hopeless.

``Stuck, tired and hopeless.'' I suspect that sentiment reflects how many millions of Americans are feeling today.

I have another letter from a 26-year-old man from Barre, VT. He writes:

In 2002, I received a scholarship to Saint Bonaventure

University, the first in my family to attend college. Upon

graduation in 2006, I was admitted to the Dickinson School of

Law at Penn State University, and graduated in 2009 with

$150,000 of student loan debt.

Mr. President, $150,000. That is high. But there are people all over this country who have extremely high student loans, and they don't know how they are going to pay them off.

Then he continues:

In Western New York I can find nothing better than a $10 an

hour position stuffing envelopes. I live in a small studio

apartment in Barre without cable or Internet. I have told my

family I don't want them to visit because I am ashamed of my

surroundings. My family always told me that an education was

the ticket to success, but all my education seems to have

done in this landscape is make it impossible to pull myself

out of debt and begin a successful career.

On and on it goes. Over the last couple of weeks we have been focusing in my office on the crisis in dental care, the fact that in Vermont and all over this country millions of people cannot find a dentist.

I want to give you an idea. I am raising these issues today, and I am quoting from folks in Vermont. Again, these stories are not just from Vermont. In fact, Vermont is doing better in this recession than most States in this country are doing. So take what we are talking about here in Vermont and multiply it by several times for other States.

A gentleman writes to me within the last couple of weeks. He says: ``I can't afford health insurance, so dental work is definitely out.'' And he talks about how studies have linked bad dental care to heart problems and cancer, but he cannot get to a dentist.

The reason I raise this issue is to try to give us a better understanding of who some of the people are who will be impacted by the Draconian cuts the Republicans are talking about. Let us be clear. They are talking about throwing millions and millions of people off Medicaid.

Let me tell you what that means. Earlier this year, as you know, Arizona passed budget cuts that took patients off its transplant list. Remember reading about that? I think most of the country read about that. Essentially because of the financial reasons, what they said in Arizona is: Yes, you need a transplant; yes, you are not all that old, but I am sorry, we cannot afford it for you, and you are going to have to die. And people have died. In that State and in other States throughout this country hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people are being thrown off Medicaid.

So what does that mean? What does it mean if you are a low-income worker and you are getting your health insurance through Medicaid and you lose Medicaid? What happens when you develop a pain in your chest and you think you may be having a heart problem but you cannot get to a doctor? What happens? Have our Republican friends thought that through when they proposed $700 billion in cuts in Medicaid? What happens to the children by the millions who are thrown off Medicaid? We have 50 million people today who have no health insurance. If the Republican plan goes through, we are talking about tens of millions more. What happens to those people? As Americans are we content to see kids get sick because they cannot get to a doctor or people die because they don't get to a doctor on time? I don't think so.

I have learned and have been told throughout my whole life that education is the key to success. We hear that on the floor of this Senate every single day. Education, education. Kids have got to do well in high school so they will be able to go to college. The reality right now is hundreds of thousands of bright young people cannot afford to go to college because they don't have the money, and we are losing their intellectual capabilities to make us a stronger nation. If the Republicans get their way, and make savage cuts in Pell grants, no one has any doubt that hundreds of thousands more young people will never be able to walk into a college or a university. That is not only a tragedy for the individuals, for the young people themselves, it is a tragedy for this Nation. Every day we are involved in fierce competition in the global economy, and we are not doing well in educational levels. We are

seeing other countries graduate more of their students from college, and that gap is growing wider. If you cut back on Pell grants and other forms of college aid, it is clear that a bad situation will be made much worse.

Let's get even more basic, more basic than health care, more basic than education, and that comes to nutrition, whether people in larger and larger numbers in this country are going to go hungry. According to a 2009 study, there are over 5 million seniors who face the threat of hunger, almost 3 million who are at risk of going hungry and almost 1 million seniors who do go hungry because they cannot afford to buy food. In that context our Republican friends want to balance the budget on the backs of the hungry, cut back on food stamps, cut back on other nutrition programs. So what happens if you are 80 and food prices are going up and you don't have enough to eat? Well, apparently there are some people here in the Senate who don't worry about that, but I personally do not believe that is what America is about. I think the American people, by huge numbers, do not want to see hunger increase for our seniors or our children.

This is a lot of pain the Republicans are tossing out while at the same time they are vigorously protecting their wealthy and powerful friends. In my view, the President of the United States has to stand tall. He has to take the case to the American people and he has to hold the Republicans responsible if, in fact, the debt ceiling is not raised, and all of the repercussions that will occur if that happens.

I have given you just an inkling of what is going on in the real world, and I know all over this country, ordinary Americans, working- class people, have a lot more to say about what is going on in their lives. As we speak, people are fighting desperately to keep their homes from falling into foreclosure. They are struggling with 29 percent, 30 percent interest rates on their credit cards, which they are never able to pay off. Marriages have been postponed because the young people don't have the money to settle down, lives have been derailed, retirement savings have been raided to pay for college tuition or to keep businesses afloat or to simply put gas in the car at $3.80 a gallon in order to get to work. That is what is going on in the real world. That is what it means when we talk about the middle-class collapsing and poverty is increasing.

While all of that happens, it is important to note there is another economic reality taking place in this country. Poverty is increasing. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on Earth. We are seeing an increase in senior citizens who are going hungry, more and more families unable to send their kids to college. But there is another reality out there, and that is that the gap between the wealthiest people in this country and everybody else is growing wider and wider and has not been this wide since before the Great Depression of 1929 began. Let us be very clear, and there is nothing to be proud about, but the United States today has, by far, the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on Earth.

Today, the top 1 percent earns over 20 percent of all income in this country, which is more than the bottom 50 percent. One percent owns more income than the bottom 50 percent. Over the recent 25-year period, 80 percent of all new income created in this country went to the top 1 percent. Even more dramatic, even more incredible, even more unfair in terms of distribution of wealth, which is accumulated income, as hard as it may be to comprehend, in America today the top 400 individuals own more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans. Again, 400 Americans own more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans.

Given those realities, it doesn't take a Ph.D. in economics to suggest that when we move forward with deficit reduction, that deficit reduction must include shared sacrifice. The wealthy and large corporations also have to help this country deal with record-breaking deficit.

The reality is simple but unfortunate. That reality is that the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the middle class continues to disappear. That is what is going on in this country, and there is no hiding it. We have to acknowledge it. We have to go on from there.

Everyone knows that in our country today we are facing a major deficit crisis, and we have a national debt of over $14 trillion. What has not been widely discussed and what must be discussed is how we got into that deficit situation in the first place. If we are going to deal with the deficit, we have to know how we got into it. What is very clear is that this huge record-breaking deficit and a $14 trillion national debt did not just happen overnight, and it didn't happen by accident. It happened, in fact, as a result of a number of policy decisions made over the last decade and votes that were cast right here on the floor of the Senate and in the House of Representatives.

When we talk about the deficit and the national debt, let's never forget that in January of 2001--a little over 10 years ago--when President Bill Clinton left office, this country had an annual Federal budget surplus of $236 billion with projected budget surpluses as far as the eye could see. That was when Clinton left office some 10 years ago. Now we have a $1.5 trillion deficit and a growing national debt.

It is totally appropriate as we talk about deficit reduction that we ask some simple questions: How did we get to where we are today in terms of the deficit? What happened in that ensuing 10 years? How did we go from huge projected surpluses into horrendous debt? The answer really is not complicated, and there is not a lot of disagreement. We know exactly what has happened. The Congressional Budget Office has documented it. There was an interesting article on the front page of the Washington Post on April 30 talking about it as well, and here is what happened. I don't think there is a lot of disagreement about this.

When our Nation spends $1 trillion on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and forgets to pay for those wars, we run up a deficit. When we provide over $700 billion in tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country and choose not to offset those tax breaks, we run up a deficit. When we pass a Medicare Part D prescription drug program written by the drug companies and the insurance companies that does not allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices and ends up costing us far more than it should--$400 billion over a 10-year period--and we don't pay for that, we run up a deficit. When we double military spending since 1997, not including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we don't pay for that, we run up the deficit.

Now, I always find it amusing when some of my Republican colleagues come to the floor and lecture some of us about how serious the deficit is and how serious the national debt is. Yet, ironically, many of us voted against those proposals which, in fact, caused the deficit crisis we are in right now. I paid a lot of attention during the debate over the war in Iraq. I don't recall many of our friends on the Republican side or the Democrats who voted for that war saying: Gee, we can't go to war because it is going to cost this country a huge sum of money. I don't remember hearing that.

When we bailed out Wall Street to the tune of $700 billion, I don't recall many of my friends saying: Oh, my goodness, we can't afford to do that. When we gave $700 billion in tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country, where was the concern then about deficit reduction? Further, and maybe even most significant, the deficit we are in right now was caused by the recession we are in, which was, of course, caused by the greed and illegal behavior on Wall Street, which caused the economic condition of the moment: massive unemployment and loss of a very substantial amount of revenue that otherwise would have come into our tax coffers.

The end result of all of these unpaid-for policies and actions year after year of the deficits I just described is a staggering amount of debt. When President Bush left office, President Obama inherited an annual deficit of $1.3 trillion with deficits as far as the eye could see, and the national debt more than doubled--more than doubled--under President Bush because of all of these policy decisions made by Republicans and some Democrats. The reality is, if we did not go to war in Iraq, if we did not pass huge tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, if we did not pass

a prescription drug program with no cost control written by the drug and insurance companies, and if we did not deregulate Wall Street which allowed them to do the things they did, which ended up in Wall Street's collapse and the ensuing recession, we would not find ourselves in the mess we are in today. It really is that simple.

In other words, the only reason we have to increase our Nation's debt ceiling today is that we are forced to pay the bills the Republican leadership in Congress--and some Democrats--and President Bush racked up.

Given the decline in the middle class, given the increase in poverty, and given the fact that the wealthy and large corporations have never had it so good, Americans might find it strange that the Republicans in Washington would use this moment to make savage cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, education, nutrition assistance, and other life-and-death programs, while at the same time pushing for even more tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations. Unfortunately, while the average American may think this is pretty weird, inside the beltway that is exactly what happens, and this is very much part of the Republican ideology.

Republicans in Washington have never believed in Medicaid or in Medicare or in Federal assistance in education or providing any direct government assistance to those in need. They have always believed tax breaks for the wealthy and the powerful would somehow miraculously trickle down to every American despite all history and all evidence to the contrary. So in that sense it is not strange at all that they would use the deficit crisis we are now in as an opportunity for an ideological attack against some of the most vulnerable people in our country.

That is exactly what the Ryan Republican budget, passed in the House of Representatives earlier this year and supported by the vast majority of Republicans in the Senate just last month, is all about. It is a long budget, so let me give just a few examples of what the Ryan Republican budget would do.

The Republican budget passed by the House this year would end Medicare as we know it within 10 years. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that under the Ryan proposal, in 2022, a private health care plan for a 65-year-old equivalent to Medicare coverage would cost about $20,500. Yet the Republican budget would provide a voucher for only $8,000 of those premiums. Seniors would be on their own to pay the remaining $12,500, a full 61 percent of the total. Now, how many of the 20 million near elderly Americans who are now ages 50 to 54 will be able to afford that?

So let's review what we have. Let's say when a person becomes 65 in 10 years and they are earning or living on $15,000 in Social Security, they are going to be asked to pay $12,500 more for health care than is currently the case. How do they do that? What kind of health care plan are they going to buy when they are old and sick and are given an $8,000 voucher? How many days in the hospital will they be able to have? You can run up an $8,000 bill in 1 day, in 2 days. So this ending of Medicare as we know it, forcing seniors to somehow come up with all kinds of money that in many cases they don't have, will be a disaster for tens of millions of people.

The Republican budget would also force 4 million seniors in this country to pay $3,500 more on average for their prescription drugs by reopening the Medicare Part D doughnut hole. That goes into effect as soon as that bill would be passed, if it were to be passed.

Under the Republican budget, nearly 2 million children would lose their health insurance over the next 5 years by cuts to the Children's Health Insurance Program according, again, to the Congressional Budget Office. At a time when 50 million Americans have no health insurance, the Republican budget would cut Medicaid by over $770 billion, causing millions and millions of Americans to lose their health insurance, and it would cut nursing home assistance in half.

Right now, Medicaid pays the lion's share of nursing home care. If we make savage cuts in Medicaid, what happens to the elderly who are in nursing homes and what happens to their children in terms of trying to provide the help their parents desperately need?

The Republican budget would completely repeal the affordable health care act, preventing an estimated 34 million uninsured Americans from getting the health insurance they need.

At a time when the cost of college education is becoming out of reach for so many Americans, the Republican budget would slash college Pell grants by about 60 percent next year alone, reducing the maximum award from $5,500 to $2,100.

At a time when over 40 million Americans do not have enough money to feed themselves or their families, the Republican budget would kick some 10 million Americans off of food stamps. What kind of sense of morality is that, that when people today are struggling hard in order to feed themselves, we throw another 10 million people off food stamps?

It is no secret to anyone that our Nation's infrastructure is crumbling. The Republican budget passed in the House and supported by all but a handful of Republicans here in the Senate would slash funding for our roads, bridges, rail lines, transit systems, and airports by nearly 40 percent next year alone. One of two things would happen: Either, as a result of this, our infrastructure continues to deteriorate or else hard-pressed cities and towns are going to have to raise property taxes and other regressive taxes in order to come up with a differential. Yet, despite the fact--we talked about cuts in health care, Medicare, Medicaid, education, nutrition, environmental protection--yet, despite all of those cuts, when it comes to military spending, which has tripled since 1997, the House Republican budget does nothing to reduce unnecessary defense spending. In fact, defense spending would go up by $26 billion next year alone under the Republican plan.

Interestingly enough, at a time when the rich are becoming richer, when the effective tax rates for the wealthiest people--at 18 percent-- are about the lowest on record, at a time when the top 2 percent have received hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks, at a time when corporate profits are at an alltime high and major corporations making billions of dollars in profits are not paying a nickel in taxes, my Republican colleagues, in their approach toward deficit reduction, do not ask the wealthiest people in this country or the largest corporations to tribute one penny--one penny--toward deficit reduction.

Poverty is increasing. Republicans cut programs for the most vulnerable people in this country. The middle class is disappearing, in need of great help. Republicans cut the safety line from them. The rich, who are getting richer, and large corporations, making huge profits and in many cases not paying anything in taxes at all, their requirement is to receive even more in terms of tax breaks.

Now, that may make sense to some people. It does not make sense to me. In fact, what the Republicans want to do is provide over $1 trillion in tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires by permanently extending all of the Bush income tax cuts, reducing the estate tax for multimillionaires and billionaires, and lowering the top individual and corporate income tax rates from 35 percent to 25 percent. The rich get richer. They get tax breaks. The poor get poorer. They lose their ability to send their kids to college or to have nutrition programs or health care.

The Republican idea of moving toward a balanced budget is to go after the middle class working families and low-income people, and to make sure millionaires and billionaires and the largest corporations in this country, which are in many cases doing phenomenally well right now, do not have to share in the sacrifices being made by everybody else. They will be protected.

The Republican approach to deficit reduction in Washington is the Robin Hood philosophy in reverse: We take from the poorest people and we give to the richest people. And it is not as if that approach is good for our economy. Mark Zandi, the former economic adviser to John McCain when he was running for President, has estimated that the Republican budget plan will cost 1.7 million jobs by the year 2014, with 900,000 jobs lost next year alone.

The House Republican budget is breathtaking in its degree of cruelty. But do not take my word for it. In a

letter to congressional leaders, after the House GOP plan was introduced, nearly 200 economists and health care experts wrote:

Turning Medicare into a voucher program would undermine

essential protections for millions of vulnerable people. It

would extinguish the most promising approaches to curb costs

and to improve the American medical care system.

Ezra Klein, a columnist at the Washington Post, wrote last April:

The budget Ryan released is not courageous or serious or

significant. It's a joke, and a bad one. For one thing,

Ryan's savings all come from cuts, and at least two-thirds of

them come from programs serving the poor. The wealthy,

meanwhile, would see their taxes lowered, and the Defense

Department would escape unscathed. It is not courageous to

attack the weak while supporting your party's most inane and

damaging fiscal orthodoxies. But the problem isn't just that

Ryan's budget is morally questionable. It also wouldn't work.

The deficit we are struggling with right now has been caused by unpaid-for wars, tax breaks for the rich, a Medicare Part D prescription drug program written by the insurance companies, the bailout of Wall Street, a declining economy, and less revenue coming into our Treasury. The Republican ``solution'' is to balance the budget on the backs of the sick, the elderly, the children, and the poor, to cut back on environmental protection, to cut back on transportation, while providing even more tax breaks to those who do not need it. That is unacceptable, and that is what the American people have to stop.

It is not just wealthy individuals who are making out like bandits. As hard as it may be to believe, some of the largest, most profitable corporations in this country are not only avoiding paying any Federal income taxes whatsoever, but they are actually receiving tax rebates from the IRS. The Republican response to this reality is to provide even more tax breaks to these corporate freeloaders. That may make sense to someone. It does not make sense to me.

What I want to do, Mr. President--and I ask unanimous consent to do so--is to have printed in the Record a list of a number of corporations that are making huge profits and are paying virtually nothing in taxes and in some cases getting a rebate.

Let me briefly read from this list of corporate freeloaders.

No. 1, ExxonMobil, the largest oil company in the world. In 2009, ExxonMobil made $19 billion in profits, and not only did ExxonMobil avoid paying any Federal income taxes that year, they actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings. Well, do you think maybe we might want to ask ExxonMobil to pay a little in taxes so we do not have to throw children off their health insurance? Maybe.

Bank of America. Last year, Bank of America, the largest bank in America, received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS even though it made $4.4 billion in profits and just a couple of years ago received a bailout from the Federal Reserve in the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion. Well, what do you know about that? We are bailing out the largest banks in this country, whose greed caused the recession, and then they get a rebate from the IRS rather than paying any taxes. Yet our Republican friends think the solution to deficit reduction is not to ask Bank of America to pay its fair share but to end Medicare as we know it and force low-income seniors to pay substantially more for their health care.

No. 3, General Electric. Over the past 5 years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS. I do not know. What do you think? Do you think we should ask GE maybe to help us out just a little bit with deficit reduction?

Chevron, a major oil company, received a $19 million refund from the IRS after it made $10 billion in profits.

Last year, Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS.

And on and on it goes.

Valero Energy.

Goldman Sachs. In 2008, Goldman Sachs paid only 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion. Gee, most Americans would be pretty happy to pay 1.1 percent of their income in taxes. But then again, they are not Goldman Sachs.

Citigroup, ConocoPhillips, Carnival Cruise Lines.

On and on and on. You have large, extremely profitable corporations that either pay nothing in taxes or get a rebate from the IRS. Maybe-- just maybe--when we talk about deficit reduction, we might want to ask those people to help us out rather than go after the elderly, the sick, the children, and the poor.

Large corporations today are sitting on a recordbreaking $2 trillion in cash. The problem is not that corporations are taxed too much; the problem is that consumers do not have enough money to buy their products, and the Republican agenda would make that far worse. Corporate tax revenue last year was down by 27 percent compared to 2000 even though corporate profits are up 60 percent over the last decade. These guys make more and more money; their contribution to the Treasury goes down.

When we talk about how we can--in a fair way, in a responsible way-- deal with our deficit and our national debt, man, here is one very clear example, as shown in this picture. Here you have, in the Cayman Islands, a building. I think it is a four-story building, and it looks like a normal-size four-story building. Yet it has 18,857 companies that call this building their home. Now, one of two things is going on: Either these guys are very, very crowded--18,000 corporations in this one four-story building; maybe they are very crowded, and we should call in the zoning people in the Cayman Islands to check that out--or maybe something else is going on. Of course, what is going on is this is a total, absolute fraud. This is a building that does not house anybody. It is a phony address that 18,000-plus corporations use for the explicit purpose of not paying taxes to the United States of America.

There are studies out there which suggest that large corporations and wealthy individuals are avoiding $100 billion in taxes every year by setting up these offshore tax shelters in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and the Bahamas. Maybe, maybe, maybe, before we tell young people they cannot go to college or single moms they cannot get childcare for their kids or low-income seniors we are going to cut back on their nutrition, maybe, just maybe, we might want to end this blatant outrage, which costs us $100 billion every single year.

In 2005, one out of four large corporations paid no income taxes at all even

though they collected $1.1 trillion in revenue. What about looking there for revenue? Our Republican friends say: Oh, no, no, no. We can't do that. We have to force elderly people to pay more in Medicare, throw kids off Medicaid.

Now, what is a very interesting point--and, frankly, we are all politicians. You do not get elected to the Senate if you do not understand something about politics. What I do not understand--and certainly what President Obama needs to understand--is that the overwhelming majority of the American people do not agree with the Republican approach, which says: Give tax breaks to billionaires and go after the elderly, the sick, the children, and the poor. That is not just Bernie Sanders talking. I am not much into polls, to be honest with you, but I think it is important to just try to get a little bit of a reflection of where the American people are coming from.

According to a recent Boston Globe poll--a couple weeks ago, the Boston Globe did a poll in the State of New Hampshire and was mostly interested in the Presidential campaign, how Presidential candidates are doing in New Hampshire, but they asked some other questions. In New Hampshire--I know because they are a neighbor of mine--they are the big antitax State. They are the conservative State in New England. Here is what the folks in New Hampshire said in that recent poll.

Seventy-three percent support raising taxes on people making over $250,000 a year, 78 percent oppose cutting Medicare, 71 percent oppose cutting Medicaid, and 76 percent oppose cutting Social Security.

The Republican approach is the opposite. They want to cut Medicare, they want to cut Medicaid, they want to cut Social Security, and they certainly do not want to ask the wealthiest people in this country to pay a nickel more in taxes.

That is one poll. Let's look at another poll. In fact, poll after poll has more or less mirrored what New Hampshire voters are saying.

A recent NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll found the following: 81 percent of the American people believe it is totally acceptable or mostly acceptable--that is how they frame these polls--to impose a surtax on millionaires to reduce the deficit. Let me repeat that. Eighty-one percent of the American people--in the Wall Street Journal- NBC poll--think it is totally acceptable or mostly acceptable to impose a surtax on millionaires to reduce the deficit.

Eighty-one percent of the American people think it is a good idea. Yet we cannot get one Republican to ask the wealthy to pay a nickel more in taxes. Talk about being out of touch with what the American people want.

Seventy four-percent--in that same poll--of the American people believe it is totally acceptable or mostly acceptable to eliminate tax credits for the oil and gas industry, and on and on it goes.

Seventy-six percent believe it is totally unacceptable or mostly unacceptable to cut Medicare to significantly reduce the deficit.

Here is an interesting poll that maybe some of my Republican friends want to pay attention to; that is, that while the leaders of the tea party here in Washington are fighting to dismantle Medicare and Medicaid, it turns out that in another poll done by McClatchy, 70 percent of those people who identify themselves with the tea party oppose cutting Medicare and Medicaid to reduce the deficit. That is the tea party.

Here is the last poll I wish to highlight. There are many more out there. It was done by the Washington Post and ABC News. Here is what that poll says. It says 72 percent of Americans support rising taxes on incomes over $250,000 to reduce the national debt, including 91 percent of Democrats, 68 percent of Independents, and 54 percent of Republicans.

So here you have in Congress, surrounded by lobbyists and powerful special interests, a Congress heavily dominated by large campaign contributors, of Members of the Senate moving in exactly the opposite direction of where the American people want to go. The American people want shared sacrifice. The American people believe that when the wealthiest people in this country are doing phenomenally well and the gap between the rich and everybody else is growing wider, yes, the wealthiest people have to contribute to deficit reduction.

The American people believe we have corporations making recordbreaking profits and not paying a nickel in taxes. Yes, they have to start paying taxes. The American people overwhelmingly believe it is bad for this country to go after Medicare and Medicaid and programs that working families desperately depend upon.

Instead of listening to millionaires and billionaires, it is time for our leaders in Washington to start listening to the overwhelming majority of the American people who do want the wealthiest people in this country and the most profitable corporations to contribute to deficit reduction. It is time for shared sacrifice.

The middle class, the elderly, the sick, the children, and the poor have already sacrificed enough. It is time for those people on top, the people who are doing extremely well, to also understand they are Americans, they are part of our country, and they have to contribute to deficit reduction. The fact is, moving toward deficit reduction in a way that is fair is not as complicated as some would have us believe. In fact, if you are not beholden to Wall Street, large corporations and wealthy campaign contributors and you are not frightened about the number of 30-second ads that may be thrown at you if you take these guys on, it is quite easy.

I know there are many people out there of good faith who have different ideas about how we can move forward toward a balanced budget, toward deficit reduction. I am not saying I have all the answers. But let me just give you a few examples, a few examples as to how we can reduce the deficit by more than $4 trillion over the next decade, and that includes, of course, asking the wealthy and large corporations to begin paying their fair share of taxes and does not do undue harm for ordinary Americans.

We can do it. We can do it. If you are concerned about deficit reduction, I am concerned about deficit reduction. But we can do it, calling for shared sacrifice and in a way that does not attack programs that millions and millions of children, elderly, and working families are terribly dependent upon.

Let me just give you a few ideas. I know other people have other good ideas. First, we simply repeal the Bush tax breaks for the top 2 percent. We can raise at least $700 billion over the next decade. That is it. The rich are getting richer. Bush gave them huge tax breaks. You repeal that, $700 billion.

I know some of my Republican friends say: Oh, my goodness. If you do not give tax breaks to the very wealthy, it will have a negative impact on jobs. This is the trickle-down economic theory. You give tax breaks to the rich, large corporations, and we create all kinds of great jobs. That idea has been tested. That idea was tested. That was the idea of former President George W. Bush. But during his 8 years as President, when that idea was in effect, the private sector lost--lost--over 600,000 jobs, and we had one of the worst economic decades, in terms of job creation, ever seen in this country. We tried that theory. We did give tax breaks to the rich and large corporations, and we lost 600,000 jobs during that 10-year period.

Meanwhile, when Bill Clinton raised taxes on the top 2 percent, you know what. The world did not quite cave in. In fact, during Clinton's Presidency, we created over 22 million jobs, and he left office with a huge budget surplus. But that is just one argument. You heard polls say we should impose a surtax on millionaires. The vast majority of the American people believe that. If you did a 5.4-percent surtax on millionaires and billionaires, that would raise $383 billion over 10 years.

You want another idea? At a time when our manufacturing sector is collapsing, when 50,000 factories have shut down in the last 10 years, when millions of workers have lost good-paying jobs, the U.S. Government continues to reward companies that move U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas through loopholes in the Tax Code known as deferral and foreign source income.

That, clearly, from a financial point of view, in terms of revenue to our government, as well as policies which result in the loss of millions of good manufacturing jobs, is not something we should sustain. If we ended that absurdity, that policy alone, the Joint

Tax Committee has estimated we could raise more than $582 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. So what about that--$582 billion of revenue and we stop the outsourcing of jobs so maybe we can rebuild our manufacturing sector. Sounds to me like a pretty sensible idea.

My Republican friends think it is a better idea to throw poor children off Medicaid or force elderly people to pay far more than they can afford for Medicare. But ending this absurd policy, which encourages companies to throw American workers out on the street, makes a lot more sense to me than what the Republicans are talking about.

Fourth, if we ended tax breaks and subsidies for big oil and gas companies, we can reduce the deficit by more than $40 billion over the next 10 years.

Fifth, if we prohibited abusive and illegal offshore tax shelters-- what I just talked about a moment ago--we could bring in $1 trillion over 10 years. That says to the corporations and the wealthy: Sorry, you are no longer going to be able to stash your wealth in the Cayman Islands and avoid paying taxes.

Sixth, if we established a Wall Street speculation fee of less than 1 percent on the sale and purchase of credit default swaps, derivatives, stock options and futures, we could reduce the deficit by more than $100 billion over the next decade and also--also--tell Wall Street we are not going to tolerate their outrageous behavior which led us into this recession in the first place. We are going to try to get a handle on their speculation.

Seventh, if we tax capital gains and dividends the same way we tax work, ordinary work, we can raise more than $730 billion over the next decade. Why should somebody who clips dividend coupons pay a substantially lower tax rate than somebody who is out working on our streets or is a nurse or is a teacher? Warren Buffett has often said he pays a lower effective tax rate than his secretary. Today, the effective tax rate of the wealthiest 400 Americans is just 18 percent, the lowest on record.

On and on. We have a number of ideas out there, not the least of which is taking a hard look at the military. There are debates as to how much we can cut, but certainly we should all be in agreement that it no longer makes sense to sustain weapons systems that were built in order to fight the Cold War against the Soviet Union. They are not our enemy right now.

I can tell you that I, my office, requested a GAO report that found that the Pentagon had $36.9 billion in spare parts it does not need and which are collecting dust in government warehouses. We can do better than that. Frankly, in my view--I think I speak for the majority of the people in my State of Vermont, I suspect, in this country--it is time to begin bringing the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan at an accelerated rate. We have been in Afghanistan now for 10 years. It is time for the Afghan people and their military to take responsibility, in terms of defeating the Taliban. We should be supportive of those efforts. But we should bring our troops home a lot sooner than the President has suggested. When we do that, among other things, we are also going to save a substantial sum of money.

Further, I will not deny for one second that there is waste and fraud and bureaucracy in almost every government program out there. I think we have to take a hard look at them all. I believe that in addition to the Pentagon, we can save hundreds of billions of dollars a year by eliminating unnecessary bureaucracy.

The ideas I have enumerated, and some I have not but which will become part of the Record, if we did all or some of these things, we could easily reduce the deficit by well over $4 trillion over the next decade, if not, in fact, much more. It would be done in a way that is fair, and it would not unnecessarily and needlessly ruin the lives of some of the most desperate and fragile and hurting people in our country today, millions of people who are just struggling to make ends meet. Those people would be spared.

The extreme rightwing agenda of more tax breaks for the wealthy, paid by the dismantling of Medicare, Medicaid, education, nutrition, and the environment, may be popular in the country clubs and cocktail parties of the wealthy and the powerful, but it is way out of touch with what the overwhelming majority of Americans want.

As you know, late last week Congressman Cantor, the Republican majority leader in the House, and Senator Jon Kyl, the Republican whip, walked out of the budget negotiations being led by Vice President Biden. The reason they walked out was pretty clear. They were not willing to close one single loophole in the Tax Code that allows the wealthy and large corporations to avoid paying taxes by stashing their money in the Cayman Islands and all the other loopholes that currently exist.

My sincere hope is that President Obama will use this Republican walkout, their unwillingness to talk about the wealthy and large corporations contributing anything toward deficit reduction--that he will use this as an opportunity to rally the American people and make it clear he will never support Republican demands to move toward a balanced budget solely on the backs of working families, the elderly, the children, the sick, and the poor. But I don't think the President will do it unless the American people send him a message that enough is enough.

The American people do not support the Republican agenda. The American people support the concept of shared sacrifice as we move toward deficit reduction. But the President has to hear from the American people. He has to hear that they will not accept decimating Medicare, Medicaid, Pell grants, education, and the environment in order to give more tax breaks to the wealthy. The President has to stand up for the millions of Americans who have seen their homes, their jobs, and their savings vanish, instead of the millionaires who have never had it so good.

It is my belief if the American people make that demand of the President and tell the President not to yield on this issue, we can win this budget struggle. If people would like to sign it--and I hope they would--we have a letter to the President, which I will read in a moment, on my Web site, sanders.senate.gov--and, also, as I mentioned earlier, they can contact the White House directly by going straight through the White House Web site and sending a message.

If hundreds of thousands of people do that, the President, I hope, will have the strength and determination to say to the Republicans: Sorry, we are not going to balance the budget on the weak and the vulnerable.

This is the letter that is on my Web site, which I hope the people will sign. This is what it says, which encapsulates much of what I have been saying for the last hour:

Dear Mr. President,

This is a pivotal moment in the history of our country.

Decisions are being made about the national budget that will

impact the lives of virtually every American for decades to

come. As we address the issue of deficit reduction, we must

not ignore the painful economic reality of today--which is

that the wealthiest people in our country and the largest

corporations are doing phenomenally well, while the middle

class is collapsing and poverty is increasing. In fact, the

United States today has, by far, the most unequal

distribution of wealth and income of any major country on

earth.

Everyone understands that over the long term we have got to

reduce the deficit--a deficit that was caused mainly by Wall

Street greed, tax breaks for the rich, two wars, and a

prescription drug program written by the drug and insurance

companies. It is absolutely imperative, however, that as we

go forward with deficit reduction, we completely reject the

Republican approach that demands savage cuts in desperately

needed programs for working families, the elderly, the sick,

our children, and the poor, while not asking the wealthiest

among us to contribute one penny.

Mr. President, please listen to the overwhelming majority

of the American people who believe that deficit reduction

must be about shared sacrifice. The wealthiest Americans and

the most profitable corporations in this country must pay

their fair share. At least 50 percent of any deficit

reduction package must come from revenue raised by ending tax

breaks for the wealthy and eliminating tax loopholes that

benefit large, profitable corporations and Wall Street

financial institutions. A sensible deficit reduction package

must also include significant cuts to unnecessary and

wasteful Pentagon spending.

Please do not yield to outrageous Republican demands that

would greatly increase suffering for the weakest and most

vulnerable members of our society. Now is the time to stand

with tens of millions of Americans who are struggling to

survive economically, not with the millionaires and

billionaires who have never had it so good.

Respectfully yours.

That letter is at sanders.senate.gov. I think we have many thousands of signatures on that letter already. I hope we can get more. If people prefer to go to the White House Web site, they can do that. That would be important. The main point is that the President has to know that we will not accept a deficit reduction package that just comes out heavily on working families.

The reason I raise these issues today is that I am, frankly, very worried because we have gone through this negotiating process two times in the last 6 months. That is why we need the American people to weigh in on this issue.

In fact, we have seen this movie before. The Republicans, led by their extreme right wing, have been successful in getting their way because of their refusal to compromise and willingness to hold the credit and economic security of the American people hostage.

As many people will remember, in December the Republican leadership was prepared to hold the middle-class tax cuts and unemployment benefits hostage in order to extend the Bush tax breaks to the top 2 percent. As we all know, the Republicans won. As a result, over $200 billion was added to the deficit over the next 2 years. Not only did the Bush tax breaks for the wealthy get extended, they also got a reduction in the estate tax which benefits the top three-tenths of 1 percent.

Specifically, the December tax cut agreement extended the Bush income tax rates, and it cost us very substantially.

It is not just the Bush tax cuts that were extended. In March of this year our Republican friends said that unless we made very significant cuts, the Republicans were prepared to shut down the government, disrupt the economy, and deny paychecks to some 800,000 Federal workers--if they could not get their way. They said: We are going to shut down the government unless you make these Draconian cuts.

One of the cuts I was disturbed about--among many--was $600 million to build new community health centers, which would keep people alive and end up saving money. There are other Draconian cuts, as well. They also cut Pell grants, making it harder for students to go to college. The point is, they acted as bullies and said: If we don't get our way, we are prepared to shut down the government.

Now we are back here again, and this is part 3 of the act. Part 1 was whether the middle class would get its tax breaks and whether unemployment benefits would be extended. The Republicans won. Part 2 is whether the government would be shut down. The Republicans mostly won and got almost everything they wanted.

Here we are, act 3, the biggest act of all; and the question is whether the Republicans will, in fact, not raise the debt ceiling. If they do that, it is quite possible that not only our country but the entire world might be plunged into a major financial crisis.

This is what they are threatening: If we don't get everything we want, we are prepared not to pay our government's debt for the first time in the history of our country. We are prepared to see interest rates go up in a very fragile global economy. And we are prepared to see more and more instability.

In many ways, the Republicans in Washington are acting like schoolyard bullies. As we know, bullying is a very serious problem in our schools. Every educator worth his or her salt would tell us that when dealing with a bully, we must not give in to their tactics or tolerate their temper tantrums or allow them to hurt innocent people. We have to deal with them sternly and consistently. We cannot allow them to win by dictating the rules of the game and trampling over everybody else if they don't get their way.

We have a serious debt problem that must be solved, but it must be solved in a way that is fair and in a way that calls for shared sacrifice.

Let me conclude by suggesting that the American people are concerned about the deficit. They are also concerned about the economy, and they are also concerned that so many of our people--of all ages, in all parts of this country--are hanging on economically by their fingernails.

The American people understand that it is just not fair at all to come down on people who are already hurting and leave unscathed the wealthiest people in this country and large profitable corporations.

What I say today to the President of the United States is this: Mr. President, stand tall. Do not yield to Republican blackmail. Stand with the vast majority of the American people who believe that deficit reduction requires shared sacrifice--that everybody makes a sacrifice, not just working families, the elderly, the sick, and the poor.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, I think many Americans understand we are at a pivotal moment in American history, and decisions that will be made in the Senate, decisions that will be made in the House, decisions that will be made in the White House regarding the budget and how we deal with the debt ceiling will impact virtually every American--our children, working families, seniors--virtually every American for decades to come. The stakes are huge. The debate is not just about a budget but the question of which direction America goes forward in.

Today, the Republican leaders--Eric Cantor in the House, Jon Kyl in the Senate--withdrew from the bipartisan budget talks that have been led by Vice President Biden. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, and Senator Kyl said:

The White House and Democrats are insisting on job-killing

tax hikes and new spending.

President Obama needs to decide between his goal of higher

taxes or a bipartisan plan to address our deficit. He can't

have both. But we need to hear from him.

We need to hear from the President.

I agree with Senator Kyl and Senator McConnell that we need--the American people need, the Senate needs--to hear from President Obama on this enormously important issue. But I believe we need to hear from the President in a very different way than what Senator Kyl and Senator McConnell and Congressman Cantor want to hear.

Here is where we are in America today, and this is what the debate is about: Virtually every American understands that, to a very significant degree, the middle class in this country is disappearing. Median family income has gone down by $2,500 in the last 10 years. Many millions of workers today are earning lower wages than they used to earn. They are moving in the wrong direction.

In a recent 25-year period, ending in 2005, 80 percent of all new income did not go to the middle class. It went to the people on top. So the overall dynamic of America now: The middle class is collapsing, poverty is increasing, young people are finding it very difficult to get decent-paying jobs. While all that is going on, the people on top have never had it so good. Almost all new income is going to the top 1 percent.

There was an interesting piece in the Washington Post this Sunday talking about the growing gap between the very rich and everybody else. Wall Street, whose thievery and illegal behavior and recklessness caused this recession, is now making more money for their executives than they did before the recession they helped cause.

The top 1 percent is earning more income than the bottom 50 percent. The top 1 percent alone is earning 22 percent of all income in America. The top 400 individuals in this country own more wealth than the bottom 150 million.

I know the Presiding Officer has made the point about the gross inequities and unfairness in our tax system, that while the middle class is sinking, the people on top have been able to enjoy effective tax rates that are the lowest in recorded history, that janitors, cops, nurses--working people today--are paying an effective tax rate that is higher than millionaires and billionaires.

That is the reality economically this country faces today, and then that is the reality we have to deal with as we move toward a budget.

Every single poll I have seen says what is obvious: that if we are going to address the deficit crisis, it must be done in a way that is fair, that everybody participates in.

Our Republican friends have a very unusual idea about how to solve the deficit crisis. Yes, they say the rich are getting richer. Yes, they say corporations are doing phenomenally well. Some are making billions of dollars in profits, not paying a nickel in taxes. Yes, they understand the gap between the very rich and everybody else is growing wider, and their quaint and interesting idea, in the midst of that context, is that while the rich get richer, they should not be asked to contribute one nickel--not one penny--for deficit reduction.

Quite the contrary, under the Republican budget passed in the House, the so-called Ryan budget, while the rich get richer and corporations enjoy recordbreaking profits, their budget proposes $1 trillion more in tax breaks for the rich and large corporations.

Meanwhile, while the middle class disappears and poverty increases, their idea for deficit reduction is to make savage cuts in programs the middle class and working families depend upon to survive--to survive.

Under the Republican budget, they would end Medicare as we know it in a 10-year period. They propose to give a senior citizen an $8,000 check, a voucher, and have that senior go out and get an insurance plan with a private insurance company.

Tell me what kind of plan a 70-year-old person dealing with cancer or another illness is going to get with an $8,000 voucher? Are they living in the real world? Do they know what hospital care costs today? You eat up $8,000 in the first day. Yet that is what a senior is supposed to live on for health care for 1 year.

But it is not only ending Medicare as we know it in order to give tax breaks to billionaires; it is savage cuts in Medicaid. Half the people on Medicaid are children. We are the only country today in the industrialized world that does not guarantee health care to all

its people. Fifty million people are uninsured. If you cut Medicaid by $700 billion over a 10-year period, tens of millions more, including a lot of kids, will have no health insurance. They get sick. Working- class parents, where are they going to get the care? How do they get the care? I guess we have to do that in order to give a tax break to a large corporation that already is not paying anything in taxes.

Let me mention, for a moment, what is a fair way--a fair way--to move toward deficit reduction in a way the American people overwhelmingly support. You go out and you ask the American people: Do you think it makes sense, in terms of addressing the serious problem with deficit reduction, to give $1 trillion in tax breaks to the richest people and make savage cuts in programs that working people need in health care, education, nutrition, environmental protection? The overwhelming majority of the American people say that is nuts; it does not make any sense; we must not go in that direction.

So when my Republican friends in the leadership say: There is a lot of responsibility now on the President, the President has to decide which direction he wants this country to go, they are right. My hope is the President of the United States listens to the American people and demands that deficit reduction consist of shared sacrifice, that we move toward deficit reduction not just on the backs of the elderly and the children and the sick and the poor but that everybody--I know even people who make large campaign contributions--I know that is heresy to say on the floor of the Senate--but maybe even large corporations that buy and sell politicians, maybe they should be asked to contribute toward deficit reduction. Maybe billionaires, who have more money than they are going to spend in 100 lifetimes, might be asked to pay somewhat more in taxes before we throw children off our health insurance or deny nutrition to low-income seniors.

There are many ways to go forward in addressing the deficit crisis that is fair, that does not decimate programs working families depend on, especially in the middle of a severe recession.

Let me mention very few. We should not extend the tax breaks President Bush gave the wealthiest people in this country. That is it. We have a $1.5 trillion deficit, a $14 trillion-plus national debt. Sorry, we cannot afford it. These guys have already received huge tax breaks. No more. We cannot afford it.

We have to take a hard look at our defense budget. We have to begin bringing the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan a lot faster than the President has indicated. The defense budget has tripled since 1997. It has tripled. It is time to make cuts in the defense budget. We can do that while maintaining our strong defense capabilities.

There are studies which indicate that large corporations and wealthy individuals are stashing huge amounts of money in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, and collectively they are avoiding paying $100 billion in taxes to the U.S. Treasury. I think that is absurd. We have to end those loopholes. They have to pay their fair share of taxes.

I can go on and on in terms of loopholes that exist for corporate America which have to be closed, the absurdity of the richest people in this country having an effective, a real tax rate lower than middle- class people.

But here is the issue if the Republicans walk away from those negotiations. The President of the United States has to accept that challenge. He has to go out to the American people. He has to rally the American people around a deficit reduction program which calls for shared sacrifice. That is what the call of the moment is. I hope the President does that.

Amendment No. 512

Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Akaka, I call up amendment No. 512.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.