Floor Statements

Madam President, my understanding is, our Republican colleagues have been on the floor and have expressed their concerns about financial reform and their desire to work in a bipartisan way. I welcome that. I am going to lay out some ideas I hope could have Republican support. I am not sure they will, but I would love to see it because the vast majority of the people in our country are profoundly disgusted with the behavior on Wall Street, the greed, the recklessness, the illegal behavior which has led us to the terrible recession we find ourselves in today. I wish to tick off a couple issues I hope my Republican colleagues would be interested in working with me on.

Every week I receive--and I suspect others do as well--telephone calls and letters and e-mails from people in my State who are outraged by the kind of interest rates they are forced to pay, interest rates which are nothing less than usury, usury which has been condemned by every major religion in this world, which has been condemned throughout history by some of our great philosophers and writers who have basically said it is wrong and immoral to force desperate people who are in need of loans to pay outrageous interest rates.

Yet today more than one-quarter of all credit cardholders in this country are paying interest rates above 20 percent and, in some cases, as high as 79 percent. That is not providing credit. That is loan sharking. That is doing precisely what criminals do when they lend people money and then break their kneecaps if they don't pay it back on time--except the loan sharks who are doing this now wear three-piece suits. They don't break kneecaps, but they destroy lives by forcing people to pay outrageously high interest rates when people are using their credit cards to buy groceries, to fill the gas tank to get to work, to pay for basic needs their families have.

Millions of credit cardholders have received letters from Citibank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan Chase notifying them that their interest rates are going up, in some cases to 30 percent. A point that has to be made is that these four large banks, the four largest banks in a America, issue two-thirds of the credit cards. These four banks are ripping off the American people from one end of the country to the other. It is time that outrageous behavior ended.

I hope my Republican colleagues who have come to the floor expressing concern about Wall Street, I hope what they are saying is more than just rhetoric, that they truly want to do something. If they want to do something, I hope they will join me when I offer an amendment as part of financial reform to cap credit card interest rates at 15 percent. That is the same statutory cap that has been in existence for 30 years at credit unions all over the country. Credit unions are doing just fine, but by law, they cannot ask for more than 15 percent, except under certain circumstances, when it can go up to 18 percent. If that is good enough for credit unions, it should be good enough for Citibank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and other large financial institutions.

If my Republican friends are sincere, I hope they will join me in supporting efforts to bring transparency to the Federal Reserve. An amendment I intend to offer will do that. What we need to do, among many things, is to understand which financial institutions during the bailout received over $2 trillion in secret taxpayer-backed loans virtually interest free. Who are they? Last year, as a member of the Budget Committee, I asked Fed Chairman Bernanke that simple question. He said, no, he is not going to tell me which financial institutions, he is not going to tell the American people which financial institutions received trillions of taxpayer dollars. I have a problem with that. I believe the American people do. We are going to offer an amendment as part of financial reform in order to understand what, in fact, is happening, to demand transparency there.

In April of last year, the Senate voted 59 to 39 on an amendment I offered with Senators Webb, Bunning, and Feingold to the budget resolution calling on the Fed to release this information. Yet as of this day, the Fed has refused to do so. In August of last year, Federal U.S. district judge Loretta Preska, nominated by President George W. Bush, ordered the Federal Reserve to release this information. The Fed appealed that decision and last March the U.S. appeals court in Manhattan upheld that decision. Yet the Fed has still not disclosed this information. Over 300 Members of Congress have cosponsored legislation calling for an independent audit of the Fed. In other words, we now have 59 Senators, over 300 Members of Congress, a U.S. district court judge, and a U.S. appeals court that have said to the Chairman of the Fed, Mr. Bernanke, in no uncertain terms, that the American people have a right to know the names of the largest banks that have received over $2 trillion in taxpayer-backed loans from the Federal Reserve.

If my Republican friends are sincere, if they truly want to take on the greed and the recklessness of Wall Street, if they want to give the American people transparency as to what is happening on Wall Street, I certainly hope they will support that amendment.

I also hope we can receive support to address the issue of too big to fail. In that regard, I have offered legislation which is pretty simple. It says the Treasury Department would provide a list to Congress of all the too-big-to-fail banks in this country within 90 days of passage of that legislation and break them up within 1 year so they can no longer threaten to bring down the economy if, once again, they get into trouble. Quite amazingly--and I think most people don't understand

this--under the leadership of the Bush administration and Fed Chairman Bernanke, the largest financial institutions since the bailout have not gotten smaller; in fact, they have become larger.

In 2008, the Bank of America, the largest commercial bank in the country, which received a $45 billion taxpayer bailout, purchased Countrywide, the largest mortgage lender in the country, and Merrill Lynch, the largest brokerage firm. In other words, what we are seeing in at least three out of the four largest banks is, since the bailout, they have become even larger, becoming an even greater threat to the financial stability of the country if, once again, they are ever in a position to fail.

The issue of large banks is not only that they are a threat to the stability of our economy, if they are about to fail. The other aspect of the problem is the concentration of ownership that currently exists. When we have four large financial institutions that issue two-thirds of the credit cards in the country and half the mortgages, we have a very dangerous and noncompetitive type of situation. Given the fact that we have seen these financial institutions issue esoteric and not understandable financial instruments whose only goal is to secure more money and profits and compensation packages for the CEOs of these institutions, we need to start breaking them up and have financial institutions that understand that their role is to provide credit to the productive economy, the businesses that actually produce real products, provide real services, and create real jobs. In other words, we need to break them up to create a new Wall Street which becomes part of the United States, part of our economy, not an isolated island whose only goal in life is to issue worthless financial instruments in order to make outrageous short-term profits. That is a huge issue that we have to deal with.

If my Republican colleagues are, in fact, sincere, if they want to do more than follow pollster Frank Luntz's playbook and throw out certain words they think will work for them politically, I look forward to their support for real financial reform.

The Bottom line is, we cannot continue to do what we have done for a number of years. We have to summon the courage, and it will take courage because Wall Street is enormously powerful. In order to get the deregulation that led us to the financial disaster we experienced a year and a half ago, over a 10-year period, Wall Street spent the unbelievable sum of money of $5 billion on campaign contributions and lobbying. Frankly, I don't even know how one can spend that kind of money. But nonetheless, it certainly worked. Against my vote, when I was in the House, they got the deregulation they wanted. Lo and behold, once they were deregulated, not to my surprise, they went out and did all kinds of strange things, reckless things, illegal things, which brought us to where we were a year and a half ago.

What we need is real financial reform. We need a cap on interest rates so Wall Street cannot continue to rip off ordinary Americans. We need transparency at the Fed. We need to know which financial institutions are receiving trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. We need to begin the process of breaking up these huge financial institutions, not only from a too-big-to-fail concern but also from a concentration of ownership issue because we are going to need a lot more competition in the financial industry than we have now.

We will find out soon enough whether our Republican friends are doing more than reading from a pollster's playbook or whether they are serious about taking on Wall Street. I have my doubts, but I hope I am wrong. I hope we will gain their support in bringing real reform to our financial institutions.

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

Madam President, I think most Americans understand that in the Senate, and in government in general, honest people will have honest differences of opinion. They debate issues, represent constituencies, and vote. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. I think there is a growing anger and frustration when a lot of what takes place on the floor has nothing to do with an honest debate on the issues but simply obstructionism, obstructionism, obstructionism.

The American people have a hard time understanding when you have well-qualified nominees for the judicial positions, when some of these nominees have gotten out of committee with unanimous or almost support, it takes months and months to get these nominees approved so they can do their job.

As the Senator from Minnesota said a moment ago, the issue is that justice delayed is justice denied. We have some dangerous people out there who should be tried and found guilty and sent to jail. We have ordinary citizens who have claims before courts and they want their day in court. Right now, they cannot get that day because the courts are backed up because we don't have enough judges. So I hope very much that we can get moving and do what has to be done, and that is to appoint these judges. I hope we can get an up-or-down vote on them.

I yield the floor.

I thank my friend for yielding.

Madam President, the Senator from Oklahoma and the Senators who spoke before him are obviously right. This country has a record-breaking deficit, a huge national debt, and it is an issue that has to be dealt with. The debate is, how do we deal with it? Let me very briefly mention some of the factors--not all, but some of the factors, some of the policies that got us into the national debt situation we are in right now. Six years ago or so, President Bush decided to take us to war in Iraq. That war was misguided. It was a mistake. But in terms of the issue of tonight, that war was not paid for and will end up costing this country some $2 or $3 trillion. Many of my friends on the other side who now decry the national debt voted for that war without worrying about how it was going to be paid for.

During the Bush era, despite the growing gap between the very wealthiest people and everybody else, our Republican friends, who then controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House, decided that the very richest people, millionaires and billionaires, needed huge tax breaks, hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks. That is what they wanted. I didn't want it. I didn't vote for it.

During the Bush era, we passed a Medicare Part D prescription drug bill, a huge bill written by the insurance companies. We could have had a much better bill, if we negotiated prices with the pharmaceutical industry. We chose not to do that. A prescription drug Part D bill, unpaid for. That is what they voted for.

After the bailout, after the collapse of Wall Street, President Bush and others came together and said: We ought to bail them out. Unpaid for. I brought an amendment on the floor to pay for that. It fell. Unpaid for.

Ironically, within the next couple of weeks or months--I am not sure which--many of our friends are going to come back to the floor and say: We need to loosen up the estate tax. We need to give massive tax breaks to the wealthiest three-tenths of 1 percent of the population, the very richest people in the country. Estimates are it is going to cost $350 billion over 10 years, giving it to the richest people.

My point is, if we are going to deal seriously with our national debt and our deficit--enormous problems--let's be honest and let us get our priorities right.

In terms of today's debate, let us not on the one hand say we are going to give massive tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires by loosening up on the estate tax, but today we cannot regard as an emergency situation extending unemployment compensation to people who are in desperate economic trouble.

Since December of 2007, over 8 million Americans have lost their jobs. Sixteen-and-a-half percent of the American workforce is today either unemployed or underemployed. Here is the important point. Over 6 million Americans have been out of work for more than 6 months, the highest on record. What we are experiencing now is not only unacceptably high unemployment but a level of long-term unemployment this country has never seen before. In other words, people are losing their jobs, but they are not getting them back, not in 2 weeks, not in 4 weeks. Month after month people are wondering how they are going to get a job, how they will feed their family, how they will take care of basic needs. That is what we are talking about today.

When we talk about deficit reduction and dealing with the national debt, in my view we don't do that by denying unemployment benefits to families in desperate need. I think we take into consideration the reality that the top 1 percent of this country now earns more income than the bottom 50 percent. And those very same people, the top 1 percent, over the last number of years have been given huge amounts in tax breaks. We take into consideration the fact that as a nation, we are spending a very significant and growing amount of money on the military. There is study after study which indicates there are significant amounts of money that can be saved, if we take a hard look at military spending, including a number of weapons systems that are not designed to fight international terrorism but to continue the effort in the Cold War which no longer exists.

It seems to me we have two issues we have to address. No. 1, how do we create the jobs this country desperately needs? How do we protect the most vulnerable people? And simultaneously, how do we address the deficit crisis and our national debt?

I suggest now is the time to rethink the priorities that have existed for a number of years. Now is the time to ask the wealthiest people to start paying their fair share of taxes. Now is the time to take a hard look at all of our Federal agencies for waste and fraud and abuse but also including the military.

The issue is not whether we deal with the national debt and our deficit. The question is, how we do it, and how we do it in a way that protects the middle class and some of the most vulnerable people in society.

I yield the floor.

I thank the Senator from Montana for yielding.

Mr. President, my Republican colleagues have reached the conclusion that this is not a perfect bill. Well, they are right. While my problems with this bill are very different than theirs, I do hope that in the weeks and months to come, after we pass this reconciliation package, we will improve it. But I would ask my Republican colleagues to tell me something: When they controlled the White House and they controlled the Senate and they controlled the House, when President Bush was our President--during that period--7 million more Americans lost their health insurance and health care costs soared. Where were they then in talking about health care? Did they have one substantive idea during that period about how we were going to lower the cost of health care for Americans and provide health insurance for all of our people?

I do hope that after we pass reconciliation we are going to improve this bill. In that regard I want to thank Majority Leader Reid who has promised us--Senator Merkley, myself and others--that we will have the chance to vote on a public option provision. I think millions of Americans understand that public option is a choice that people should have--the right to go outside of the private insurance companies for their health insurance. That public option will provide competitive pressure on the insurance industry to control soaring health care costs. So I very much appreciate Senator Reid telling us that we are going to have a vote on that issue within a couple of months.

This bill is a strong step forward. It is no small thing that we are providing health insurance to 32 million more Americans. It is no small thing that we are moving to eliminate preexisting conditions as a grounds for rejecting someone for health care. It is no small thing that we are going to begin to fill that doughnut hole so that seniors will be able to get the prescription drugs they need in an affordable way. Those are, among other achievements, quite significant.

But having said that, after the passage of this legislation, we still have to deal with the reality that we will continue to spend far more per capita on health care than any other major country.

A few days ago, we had the Ambassador from Denmark visiting Vermont. In that country, they provide quality care for all of their people, and they do it spending about 50 percent of what we do because they have eliminated private insurance companies and all of the administrative and profiteering costs associated with private insurance companies. I hope we will one day at least allow States the option to move forward with a single-payer, Medicare-for-all program, which I think ultimately is the way we are going to go as a nation if we are going to solve the need for comprehensive universal and cost-effective health care for all of our people.

I do want to say a word on one aspect, one provision of this bill which I think is enormously important, and I am very excited it is included in this bill. Again, I thank Senator Reid for his help in making sure it remained in and is amply funded. That is that in this legislation we are going to take a giant step forward in providing primary health care to the people of this country through a major expansion of Community Health Centers and the National Health Service Corps. This legislation provides enough funding so that we are going to create, over the next 5 years, 8,000 new health center sites, more than doubling the number that now exists. We are going to increase access for primary health care, dental care, mental health counseling, and low-cost prescription drugs by doubling the number of Americans with access to community health centers from 20 million to 40 million in every State, and in every region of this country. That is a huge step forward in providing basic health care to millions of Americans who today cannot access that care.

While we do that, we are also going to significantly expand the number of doctors, the number of nurse practitioners and dentists that we desperately need in order to provide primary health care to our people.

This legislation--over a 5-year period--triples the amount of money going into the National Health Service Corps, a program which provides debt forgiveness and scholarships for those doctors and dentists who will be serving in underserved areas throughout this country.

Through the National Health Service Corps, we are going to support an additional 17,000 new primary health care doctors, dentists, nurse practitioners, and mental health professionals. What this means is that if somebody has no health insurance, if somebody has Medicaid, if somebody has Medicare, if somebody has private health insurance, that individual is going to be able to walk into a community health center and get the high quality care they need. The incredible thing, and this is quite remarkable, is that by doing this we are going to actually save taxpayers money because we are going to keep people out of the emergency room, which is the most expensive form of primary health care; we are going to prevent people from becoming sicker than they should and ending up in the

hospital at great expense. Based on a study by the Geiger-Gibson Program at George Washington University, it is conservatively estimated that, by investing $12.5 billion in health centers and the National Health Service Corps, we will save Medicaid alone over $17 billion over the next 5 years.

This legislation is going to be very significant in providing the primary health care that we need as a nation, and I am very appreciative it is part of the bill.

Mr. President, as I conclude, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the findings of the study by the Geiger-Gibson/RCHN Community Health Foundation Research Collaborative, George Washington University, dated October 14, 2009.

Mr. President, as a result of the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior by a small number of executives on Wall Street, the American people today are suffering through the most serious economic conditions we have seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Since the recession started in December of 2007, 8.4 million Americans have lost their jobs and, while the official unemployment rate is 9.7 percent, according to the latest Gallup Poll, nearly 20 percent of the American workforce is either unemployed or underemployed. In other words, we have people who are working, but they are working 20 hours when they need to be working 40 hours.

Further, long-term unemployment is soaring. Today, over 6 million Americans have been unemployed for over 6 months, the highest on record. This is not a situation where people are losing their jobs and a few weeks later they go out and get another job. People are losing their jobs and they cannot find another job, which is why it is so important that we extend unemployment benefits and so reprehensible that there are those in this Chamber who have resisted that effort.

Today, there are fewer jobs in the United States than there were in the year 2000, even though the workforce has grown by 12 million since that time.

Today, we have the fewest manufacturing jobs than at any time since April 1941, 8 months before the start of World War II.

Today, home foreclosures are the highest on record, turning the American dream of home ownership into an American nightmare for millions of our people.

Further--and we do not discuss this enough--in the United States today, we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on Earth. That means that while the middle class is in rapid decline, while poverty is increasing, the gap between the people on top and everybody else is wider than in any other major country on Earth and growing wider.

The reality is, today the top 1 percent now earns more income than the bottom 50 percent and the top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. Meanwhile, while the folks on Wall Street give themselves tens and tens of millions of dollars in bonuses for having destroyed our economy, the United States has, by far, the highest rate of childhood poverty among major countries. Almost one-quarter of our children today are dependent on food stamps. Approximately 19 percent of our kids are living in poverty, and one out of four kids in the United States, in order not to be hungry, is dependent on food stamps.

While the Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke, recently talked about how ``the recession is likely over,'' I urge him to meet with America's blue- collar workers or those few people left who do manufacturing in this country. As the Boston Globe reported several months ago:

The recession has been more like a depression for blue-

collar workers, who are losing jobs much more quickly than

the nation as a whole. . . . [T]he nation's blue-collar

industries have slashed one in six jobs since 2007, compared

with about one in 20 for all industries, leaving scores of

the unemployed competing for the rare job opening in

construction or manufacturing, with many unlikely to work in

those fields again. . . .

Up to 70 percent of unemployed blue-collar workers have

lost jobs permanently, meaning their old jobs won't be there

when the economy recovers . . .

That is a staggering fact.

So when talking about the recession hurting people, it is hurting some of the people who already are in the most serious trouble; people who do not have a whole lot of money to begin with. That is what is going on in the real world today. But, sadly and significantly, what is going on today simply is an acceleration of what was going on the previous 8 years. It is not like, oh, times were good, the middle class was doing well, and, oops, the reckless behavior of Wall Street plunges us into a major recession.

What is not talked about enough is that this continues and accelerates a trend that has been going on for a number of years. During the 8 years of the Bush administration, here is what happened: Over 8 million Americans slipped out of the middle class and into poverty. Over 7 million Americans lost their health insurance.

Our Republican friends are vehemently objecting to us going forward in terms of health care. When they had the power, when they had the Presidency, when they had control over the House and the Senate, during that period millions of Americans lost their health insurance. Do you recall them coming forward and saying: We have to do something about this crisis; more and more people are losing their insurance; more and more people are unable to afford their insurance? I did not hear a word. But they are very vocal now. They are very loud: Stop it. We cannot do anything. No. No. No. They had their chance, and it is sad to say that right now, all they can do is play the obstructionist role and be the party of no.

I make this point not to just relive history but to understand where the anger comes from today. It is not just in the last year and a half millions more people lost their jobs, lost their health insurance. During the 8 years of President Bush, median household income declined by over $2,100--$2,100. So people came out of that period, from 2000 to 2008, staggering. They were earning less than they did before that decade began, and than they walked into the greed and recklessness of Wall Street, which created a massive recession.

The Washington Post reported last January: The past decade was the worst for the U.S. economy in modern times. That was before the Wall Street crash.

Let me say it again. The Washington Post last January: The past decade was the worst for the U.S. economy in modern times. It was, according to a wide range of data, a lost decade for American workers-- a lost decade for American workers.

There has been zero net job creation since December 1999. Imagine that. Since December 1999, the country has grown zero jobs. Middle- income households made less in 2008, when adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1999. The number is sure to have declined further during a difficult 2009.

So there you have it. You want to know why people are angry, why people are frustrated, why people are pointing their finger at Washington and us and saying: Hey, we are in trouble: massive unemployment; real wages have gone down; people are working incredibly hard, if they are lucky enough to have a job; and, at the end of the day, they are worse off than they were 10 years ago.

According to a September 2009 article in USA Today--this is quite incredible--and these are statistics that we do not talk about enough: from 2000 to 2008, middle-class men experienced an 11.2-percent drop in their incomes. Can you imagine that. From 2000 to 2008,

middle-class men experienced an 11.2-percent drop in their incomes, which amounts to a reduction of $7,700 after adjusting for inflation.

So imagine that you work hard for 8 years. At the end of those 8 years, you have lost $7,700. Even worse, the USA Today article goes on to report that many age group Americans are poorer today than they were in the 1970s. We talk about the American dream and that parents work hard so that their kids will do better than they did.

Well, we are moving in the wrong direction. Today the average American worker, or at least millions of American workers, in terms of inflation-accounted-for dollars are worse off than they were in the 1970s.

Without going through all of the reasons the middle class is collapsing and poverty is increasing, without going into great length about the growing gap between the very rich and everyone else, I think it is important to say a few words about our good friends on Wall Street, people who have made it clear to everybody in this country that the only thing they care about is making as much money as they possibly can in any way they possibly can.

Recently, in the last several years, 40 percent of all profits in this country went to the relatively few people in the financial industry--40 percent of the profits. We have seen hedge fund managers and owners earning billions of dollars. We have seen CEOs of major Wall Street banks being worth hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, all the while the middle class collapsed.

We have the highest rate of childhood poverty. Millions of people are losing their health insurance.

We talk about people living in a gated community, people living in very expensive homes protected by armed guards and surrounded by gates, driving around in their chauffeured limousines, getting into their private jets, having no clue about what is going on in the real world. That is what Wall Street is about. They are engaged in producing esoteric financial instruments which very few people understand which are producing nothing real in the real world. They are not creating real jobs. They are not creating real products, real services. They are a gambling casino whose function in life is to make more money for the people who own that casino.

Now, after we deal with health care, and I hope we can finish that as soon as possible, the issue of financial reform is going to come into this Chamber. I hope very much that we can respond to the frustration and the anger of the American people about what Wall Street has done and promise them, through legislation, that those people will never again get away with the crimes they have committed against the working families of this country.

Let me suggest a few of the areas I think a serious and real financial reform bill should address. Every week I hear from constituents in Vermont, and I suspect you hear from constituents in Illinois who say: How in God's name can these large financial institutions we bailed out with our tax dollars now charge us 25 or 30 percent interest rates on their credit cards?

I hear this all of the time. And let's be clear. When a large bank-- and about two-thirds of the credit cards in this country are issued by the four largest financial institutions in America--when a large financial institution is charging a working American 25 or 30 percent interest on their credit cards, we have to be very clear and call that what it is. That is loan sharking; that is usury; that is immoral.

The Bible, in all of the major religions--Christianity, Judaism, Islam, all of them--talk about the fact that usury is immoral; that you cannot lend money at excessive rates to struggling people who need that money to survive. That is what is happening today.

The loan sharks today are not gangsters out on the street who break kneecaps. These are guys in three-piece suits who, in some cases, make hundreds of millions of dollars a year by stealing money from working people through excessively high interest rates.

The middle class is collapsing, poverty is increasing, and often, in order to deal with the day-to-day needs of a family, whether it is food, whether it is gas to get to work, whether it is money to heat their homes, people are using credit cards. To be charged 25 or 30 percent is simply immoral, in my view, and it is something that has to be eliminated.

As you know, a number of States all over the country have passed usury laws. But as a result of the Marquette Supreme Court decision a number of years ago, these credit card companies go to certain States-- South Dakota--where there are no usury laws and charge anything they want, all over the country. They have nullified State usury laws.

Well, you know what. We need a national usury law. We have to say straight out it is immoral; it is wrong to be charging working people 20, 25, 30, 35 or more percent interest rates on their credit cards. As part of any serious finance reform legislation, the American people have to know we are going to end usury.

My view is--and I have introduced legislation to this effect--that we should do for the private banks what we do with credit unions right now: 15 percent max, except under certain circumstances, which now take them up to 18 percent. No more 25 percent. No more 30, 40, 50 percent. No more payday lending. We are going to end that.

I think that has to be incorporated into any serious financial reform legislation. Any part of a serious financial reform bill has to deal with the need to increase transparency at the Federal Reserve.

I will never forget, about a year ago, the Chairman of the Fed, Ben Bernanke, came before the Budget Committee on which I serve. I asked him if he could tell us which banks received trillions of dollars in zero interest or almost-zero interest loans, trillions of dollars, placing the taxpayers of this country at risk.

Mr. Bernanke said: No, I am not going to tell you that. Well, we have introduced legislation to demand that he tell us. The American people have a right to know which financial institutions have received trillions of dollars in loans. One of the great scams of our time--you want to talk about welfare. There is abuse. These are ``welfare queens.'' We have heard that expression before. Those guys are getting zero-interest loans from the Fed, or maybe they were paying one-half of 1 percent, and then they go out and lend that money to the Federal Government, they buy government securities at 3\1/2\ or 4 percent, having taken money from the government at zero percent or half a percent. How is that? You get a nice spread there. You have a 3-percent spread on that. The money that you are lending is guaranteed by the faith and credit of the United States, never once failed. That is a pretty good deal. We give you money at zero interest, and you go out and get guaranteed money at 3 percent. Not a bad deal. That is welfare for billionaires, and that is unacceptable.

We have a right to know which financial institutions are engaged in that. Most importantly, we have to end that right now. So we need transparency at the Fed. They cannot continue to operate in that kind of secrecy.

We also have to end the too-big-to-fail phenomena. Here is a fact that I think many Americans do not know; that is, while we bailed out Wall Street because institutions were too big to fail--if they went down, they would take the whole economy with them--well, guess what. A year later, three out of the four financial institutions are bigger today than before we bailed them out.

Now, what am I missing? It does not make a whole lot of sense to me. Not only that, not only are they a greater danger to the economy today than they were before, but there is something else which is going on which we also do not talk about too much. Maybe as the only Independent in the Senate--I am not a Democrat or Republican. Maybe it is my job to be raising these issues, but somebody has to raise them; that is, the top four financial institutions in this country have enormous amounts of economic power over this country.

As I mentioned earlier, they issue two-thirds of all of the credit cards in this country. Does that sound like a very competitive situation to you? The four largest financial institutions issue two- thirds of the credit cards in America. I do not think that is a healthy thing for our economy.

So not only do we have to end this, these huge financial institutions, because they are too big to fail, but we

also have to allow for increased competition within the banking industry, in doing away with this huge concentration of ownership. Not only do the top four--which is JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup--issue two-thirds of the credit cards, they also issue half of the mortgages. I don't think that is a healthy state for this country. We have to start breaking up these guys.

The last point I would make is maybe the most important. In Vermont and all over the country, small and medium-size businesses are in desperate need of capital, of affordable loans so they can better produce the products and services they need and, in fact, create the jobs our economy desperately needs. I am sure the case is similar in Illinois, but in Vermont, I have small businesses coming into my office saying they can't get the credit they need to expand and create jobs.

You have Wall Street operating as a gambling casino, selling and playing with esoteric financial instruments. It is time they started investing in a productive economy and creating jobs.

The American people are hurting. They are suffering through a terrible moment economically. People are wondering whether, for the first time in the modern history of America, our kids will have a lower standard of living than their parents. This is the reverse of what the American dream is about. People are wondering how they will be able to afford to send their kids to college, how they will pay for childcare, how they will pay for the mortgage on their home, when they are either losing their jobs or real wages are going down.

They are looking to Washington. They are becoming increasingly frustrated by the Republican party of no which seems to gain satisfaction every time they can stop legislation which attempts to address real problems, whether it is health care, jobs, extending unemployment benefits. It is no, no, no from the Republicans.

The American people are beginning to catch on that there have been a record number of filibusters in this session, a recordbreaking number of obstructionist tactics. What the American people are saying is: Hey, Congress, Mr. President, we are hurting. We need action or else the middle class is not going to survive.

As difficult as it is, as much as we understand that when we deregulated Wall Street, they spent $5 billion in 10 years in lobbying and campaign contributions, making sure the Congress did what Wall Street wanted--in 2009, Wall Street spent $300 million on lobbying. I don't know how you spend $300 million on lobbying. There are 100 Members in the Senate and 435 in the House. These guys will spend and spend and spend to make sure Congress does nothing to prevent them from going on their merry way of doing whatever they want without any serious kind of regulation.

In these difficult moments, I hope the Senate and the House will summon the courage to do the job we were elected to do and what we are paid to do, and that is to represent working families and the middle class and not only big money and Wall Street.

Amendment No. 3548

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

Mr. President, I wish to say a few words about the nature of the economy today, the cause of the very deep recession we are currently in, and what I think we have to do about it.

Right now, our country is experiencing the worst economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s. While officially unemployment is 9.7 percent, the reality is that we have some 19 percent of our people who are either unemployed or underemployed, people who would like to work 40 hours a week but they are only working 20 or 30 hours a week.

The crisis we are addressing today is magnified by the reality that the recession for the middle class and working families of this country did not just begin in the fall of 2008 with the financial crisis. In fact, the middle class has been collapsing for a very long time.

During the Bush administration, over 8 million Americans slipped out of the middle class and into poverty. Today, some 40 million Americans are living in poverty. During the Bush years, median household income declined by over $2,100. Middle-class Americans earned more income in 1999 than they did in 2008, and middle-class men earned more money in 1973 than they did in 2008, with inflation being accounted for.

When we look at people in this country who are angry, there is the reason. After working long and hard hours, tens of millions of Americans find themselves in worse economic shape today than they were in 10 years ago or even 20 years ago. Meanwhile, while the middle class shrinks and poverty increases, while more and more people lose their health insurance--so today we have 46 million with no health insurance at all--while 4 million American workers have lost their pension over the last 9 years, we continue to see in this country the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on Earth. That growing inequality is a moral obscenity, but it is a very serious economic problem as well. Because we become a nation in which very few have a whole lot, while a whole lot of people have very little.

The immediate recession was caused, as I think everybody knows, by the greed, the recklessness, and the illegal behavior of a small number of giant financial institutions on Wall Street. These people were not content to be making 40 percent of the profits being made in America. Their CEOs were not content to earn bonuses of tens of millions of dollars a year. The hedge funds were not content to have their owners and managers become billionaires. No, that was not good enough. So what these financial tycoons had to do was to develop and produce worthless, complicated financial instruments which plunged our country and much of the world into a deep recession.

To the frustration of the American people, a year and a half has passed since the financial collapse and what has happened? What actions has the Congress taken to rein in Wall Street, to tell Wall Street that their greed is not acceptable in this country, that they cannot continue to go forward with actions that destroy our economy and the lives of millions of people?

Within a short period of time, the Senate will be considering legislation dealing with financial reform. I wish to congratulate Senator Dodd and others on the Banking Committee for the hard work they have done in producing a bill which, in a number of ways, moves us forward. But what I wish to say this evening is that moving us forward is not good enough. The American people want an end now to the recklessness and irresponsibility of Wall Street. They want an accounting and they want real change. They want, in my view, a new Wall Street which invests in the productive economy of small- and medium- sized businesses that actually produce real products and real services and which actually create real jobs, rather than the activities of Wall Street, which is a giant gambling casino, playing with financial instruments that nobody understands and which, at the end of the day, produces nothing real.

As the debate over financial reform moves on, I intend to play an active role in fighting for a number of concepts. Let me enumerate a few of them.

No. 1, right now, people in the State of Vermont, in the State of Colorado, in the State of Rhode Island, and all over this country are paying usurious interest rates on their credit cards, and I use the word ``usury'' advisedly. We now take it for granted, and we accept the fact that our friends and neighbors and family members are paying 20, 25, 30, 35 percent interest rates on their credit cards. That is wrong. That is unjust. In fact, according to every major religion on Earth-- Christianity, Judaism, Islam--it is immoral. It is immoral to lend money to people who desperately need that money and then suck the blood out of them because, when they are desperate, they are going to have to pay 30 or 35 percent interest rates. That is immoral. That is wrong.

Over the years, a number of States, including Vermont, have said: We are going to prohibit usury. You can't do it. You can't charge more than 10 percent, 12 percent, 15 percent, whatever it is. But all those laws were made null and void by a Supreme Court decision which resulted in credit card companies being able to go to States which had no usury law and, therefore, they could sell their product all over this country with no limit.

Let us be clear. Those large financial institutions that are charging Americans 25, 30, 35 percent interest rates on their credit cards are no better than loan sharks. In the old days, what loan sharks used to do was break kneecaps if people couldn't repay their loans. Well, these guys don't break kneecaps, but they are destroying lives just the same. People are desperate. They are borrowing money. We have all been to the grocery store and have seen people buying bread and milk with their credit cards, gas to get to work with their credit cards, because that is the only source of revenue they now have available to them, paying 25 to 30 percent. We have to eliminate that once and for all.

I will be bringing forth an amendment which does nothing more than what credit unions now exist under. Credit unions in this country, by law, cannot charge more than 15 percent interest rates, except under exceptional circumstances, and now they can go up to 18 percent, but most of them don't; the vast majority of them don't. I don't think that is asking too much.

Secondly, I am going to bring forth language which will increase transparency at the Federal Reserve. This is an issue, interestingly enough, that brings some of the most conservative Members and some of the most progressive Members together. I remember a year or so ago the chairman of the Fed, Ben Bernanke, came before the Budget Committee on which I serve, and I asked him a very simple question. I said: Mr. Bernanke, my understanding is that you have lent out trillions of dollars of zero interest loans to financial institutions. Trillions of dollars. Can you please tell me and the American people which financial institutions received that money and what the terms were. I don't think that was an unreasonable question--trillions of dollars.

He said: No, Senator, I am not going to do it.

We have since introduced legislation to make them do it, and so forth and so on.

It is beyond my comprehension that we do not know which financial institutions have received trillions of dollars of zero or close to zero interest loans. We don't know about the conflicts of interest that may have existed.

In that regard, let me talk about a scam which is quite unbelievable that

goes on today. What goes on today is, companies such as Goldman Sachs borrow money from the Fed--and I have no reason to doubt that Goldman Sachs also was on the receiving end of these zero interest loans--and they borrow this money for a tenth of a percent, maybe a quarter of a percent, and then they take that money and they invest it in U.S. Treasury securities at 3.5 to 4 percent. That is a pretty good deal. Talk about welfare. Borrow money at zero or half a percent, lend it to the U.S. Government, which has the entire faith and credit of American history behind it, and you make 3 percent, 4 percent. What a deal. That is a pretty good deal. I think we have to end those types of practices and we have to move forward with real transparency at the Fed.

The other thing we have to do, which is enormously important, is have these large financial institutions start lending money to small- and medium-sized businesses that are prepared to create meaningful jobs in this country.

Earlier today, I think the Presiding Officer and I heard from former President Clinton, who made a very important point. He believes--and I agree with him--we can make profound changes in our economy; that over a period of years we can create millions of jobs as we transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and to sustainable energy. There are small businesses in the energy business in this country that are ready to go, to create the jobs, if they can get reasonable loans, and they can't get that money today. We can transform our energy system. We can give a real spirit to our economy. We can create good-paying jobs, but we have to demand that Wall Street start investing in the real economy.

Another issue I intend to play an active role in is this issue of too big to fail. I have said it once. I have said it many times. If a financial institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. We now have four major financial institutions which, if any one of them collapsed today, would bring down the entire economy, and what we have to do is start breaking them up now--now. We have to take action at this point.

I think the American people are angry and they are angry for some good reasons. They are hurting financially. As I mentioned earlier, there are millions of Americans today who have seen a substantial decline in their income and are working incredibly hard and they are wondering what has happened. Then, despite all that, with the trend that has led to the collapse of the middle class as a result of Wall Street greed, we have been driven into a major recession.

The American people want us to have the courage to stand up to Wall Street. I should say that in 2009 alone, our good friends on Wall Street who have unlimited resources spent $300 million in lobbying this institution. They spent $300 million. When they fought for the deregulation over a period of 10 years, they spent $5 billion to be able to engage in the activities which they did engage in and that led us to the recession we are in right now.

So these guys, I guess they can borrow zero interest loans from the Fed--I don't know if they can use that for lobbying or whatever--but they have an unlimited sum of money. I think the American people want us to have the courage to stand with them, to take these guys on no matter how powerful and wealthy they may be. I think the eyes of the country and the eyes of the world will be on what we do.

With that, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, the amendment I want to speak on is No. 3353. This amendment is extremely simple and it is extremely straightforward.

At a time when millions of senior citizens, veterans, and persons with disabilities have slipped out of the middle class and into poverty; at a time when the cost of prescription drugs, medical care, and heating oil have gone through the roof in many parts of our country; at a time when millions of seniors have seen the values of their pensions, their homes, and their life savings plummet; at a time--and here is the important point--for the first time in 36 years, seniors will not be receiving a COLA in their Social Security benefits.

The amendment I am offering today with Senators Dodd, Leahy, Schumer, Kerry, Whitehouse, Mikulski, Gillibrand, Lautenberg, and Begich will provide over 55 million senior citizens, veterans, and persons with disabilities $250 in much needed emergency relief. This $250 emergency payment is equivalent to a 2-percent increase in benefits for the average Social Security retiree, and it is, as you will recall, the same amount seniors received last year as part of the Recovery Act. In other words, what we are doing now is exactly the same as we did last year with the Recovery Act.

I do not know about New Mexico, but I do know that in Vermont, a lot of senior citizens and disabled veterans are wondering this year why they are not receiving a COLA. They have written to my office and they are saying to me: Hey, I don't know what you are talking about because my costs have increased over the last year. That is because, in fact, while inflation may not have gone up in general, those areas elderly people and people who have health problems utilize--prescription drugs, health care, other health-related issues--those costs have gone up very substantially. I think there is an awareness all over this country that we cannot, in the midst of this recession, turn our backs on disabled veterans and seniors.

This amendment has widespread support from organizations representing tens of millions of Americans. Among the organizations that are supporting this amendment are the AARP, the largest senior group in America; the American Legion, the largest veterans group in America; the Veterans of Foreign Wars; the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare; the Disabled American Veterans; AMVETS and OWL and many other organizations.

Money directed to this population will go almost immediately into the economy. So when we talk about stimulus, I don't know of a better way to get money out into the economy than passing this amendment.

I am also very happy and delighted that President Obama is very strongly supportive of a $250 emergency payment to seniors. As you know, the President has spoken out on this issue, he has also included it in his budget, and he has also recommended that it be included in the underlying legislation we are debating today.

Here is what President Obama has said about this issue:

Even as we seek to bring about recovery, we must act on

behalf of those hardest hit by this recession. That is why I

am announcing my support for an additional $250 in emergency

recovery assistance for seniors, veterans, and people with

disabilities to help them make it through these difficult

times. These payments will provide aid to more than 50

million people in the coming year, relief that will not only

make a difference for them, but for our economy as a whole,

complementing the tax cuts we've provided working families

and small businesses through the Recovery Act. This

additional assistance will be especially important in the

coming months as countless seniors and others have seen their

retirement accounts and home values decline as a result of

this economic crisis.

That is the end of the quote by President Obama. I very much appreciate the President speaking out and fighting for senior citizens and the disabled with regard to this issue.

I can tell you that just on Monday I had a meeting with senior citizens and senior citizens organizations in the State of Vermont. It was a very distressing meeting. When we talked, for example, about nutrition programs, the Meals on Wheels program or the congregate meals programs by which seniors come to senior citizens centers to get a decent lunch, what people are telling me is that for the first time in many years, when seniors are asked to put money into an envelope--and very carefully, the senior centers don't want to know what people contribute. They ask for, say, $2 or $3, but people can contribute whatever they want. What they are noticing now is that more and more seniors are putting nothing into the envelope or maybe just $1. They are seeing the same process when people get out in their cars and they deliver Meals on Wheels to very fragile and frail people, often in rural areas, and people don't even have the money, now, to even pay $2 for a lunch.

All over this country, seniors are hurting. I think they are upset and distressed that they are not getting a COLA this year. Essentially, what this payment is about is a substitute for a COLA. It is a 1-year payment, and it is the equivalent of about a 2-percent COLA.

Let me mention the response of some of the veterans organizations. This amendment, importantly, will be helping our disabled veterans. Here is what the VFW said in support of this amendment:

This year, veterans and seniors will not receive a COLA.

This could not come at a worse time. Your legislation would

provide a one-time check of $250 to 1.4 million veterans,

48.9 million Social Security recipients, and 5.1 million SSI

recipients. We believe that this will provide some relief to

those veterans and seniors living on fixed incomes who rely

on a COLA to keep up with daily living expenses. The VFW

commends you for concentrating on changes that can positively

impact the lives of others and looks forward to working with

you and your staff to ensure passage of this legislation.

I thank the Veterans of Foreign Wars for the great work they do and for supporting this amendment. We appreciate their support.

Let me quote a letter I recently received from another organization that has been very strong for many years in fighting for senior citizen rights; that is, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. This is what the national committee says:

The National Committee strongly urges you to pass

legislation to provide a $250 payment to our Nation's seniors

who did not receive a COLA this year. It is vitally important

that we provide help for seniors of modest means who have

been adversely affected by the economic recession and rapidly

rising health care costs. Seniors have been especially hard

hit by the 20 percent to 30 percent decline in the value of

employer pensions, IRAs and 401(k)s, as well as the steep

drop in housing values. And, unlike younger Americans, the

elderly are much less likely to recover their savings losses

due to their shorter economic horizon.

That is from the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. We very much appreciate their support for this amendment.

Here is a quote from the AARP, which represents over 40 million Americans, and we very much appreciate their support. This is what the AARP says:

For over three decades, millions of Americans have counted

on annual increases to help make ends meet. In this economy,

having this protection is even more critical for the

financial security of all older Americans. AARP applauds the

President for urging Congress to extend for 2010 the $250

economic relief provided to older Americans last year. The

65-plus population is facing extreme financial hardship.

Older Americans are paying more out of pocket for medical

care, have experienced a real decline in their retirement

accounts and in housing values, face longer periods of

unemployment for those who need work, and low returns on

interest bearing accounts. Without relief, millions of older

Americans will be unable to afford skyrocketing health care

and prescription drug costs as well as other basic

necessities. AARP will continue to work with Members of

Congress from both sides of the

aisle to provide $250 in economic relief to millions of

seniors who count on Social Security to pay their bills.

Here is the point, the point the VFW has made, the national committee has made, the AARP has made. Some people may say $250 is not a lot of money, but the truth is, if you are a senior in the State of Vermont or in any other State in this country and your health care costs are going up and your prescription drug costs are going up and your heating bills are going up and you are not getting any COLA this year, you are in trouble. You are in real trouble. I do not want to give any illusion that this $250 is going to turn people's lives around. It is not. But it is going to make a real difference in giving people a little bit of support, making their lives just a little bit easier.

This is extremely important legislation, and it is important legislation that I hope can have widespread bipartisan support.

Once again, I thank all the organizations that are supporting this amendment; that is, the AARP, the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, the Disabled American Veterans, AMVETS, and OWL as well.

The bottom line is, we are in the midst of a very serious recession. We are doing our best to try to figure out ways to create the millions of good-paying jobs working people need. We are going to pass COBRA to make sure when people lose their jobs they do not lose their health insurance. We are going to extend unemployment benefits. But in the middle of all of that, let's not forget our parents and our grandparents. Let's not forget senior citizens and disabled veterans. Let's pass this amendment.

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

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

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

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

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

Madam President, as senior citizens and disabled veterans all over this country know, this is the first year since 1975--36 years ago--that there will not be a Social Security cost-of- living adjustment or COLA. In my view, the fact that people in need-- seniors, disabled veterans, people who have disabilities--will not be receiving a COLA this year is wrong and it is an issue we have to address and I hope we will address it successfully this afternoon, in terms of the amendment I will offer.

The reality is, in recent years, senior citizens, veterans, and persons with disabilities have slipped out of the middle class and into poverty. That is a reality--out of the middle class and into poverty. The reality is, today prescription drug costs are soaring, medical care costs for seniors and disabled people are soaring, and heating oil has gone through the roof, especially relevant to those of us in cold- weather States.

At a time when millions of seniors have seen the value of their pensions, their homes, and their life savings plummet, we cannot turn our back on some of the most vulnerable people in this country. They are hurting and they need our emergency support and that is why I am offering, today, along with Senators Dodd, Leahy, Whitehouse, Gillibrand, Lautenberg, Begich, Stabenow, and Menendez, an amendment which will provide over 55 million seniors, veterans, and persons with disabilities $250--a one-time payment--in much needed emergency relief. This $250 emergency payment is equivalent to a 2-percent increase in benefits for the average Social Security retiree, and it is the same amount seniors received last year as part of the Recovery Act.

Two percent is not a lot of money, but it will, in fact, provide much needed help to millions of people who are demanding we not turn our back on them. This amendment is supported by a wide array of seniors and veterans organizations representing tens of millions of Americans. Let me give some of the organizations that are supporting this amendment: the AARP, which is the largest senior group in America; the American Legion, the largest veterans group in America; the Veterans of Foreign Wars; the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare; the American Federation of Teachers Program on Retirement and Retirees; the Disabled American Veterans; the Alliance for Retired Americans; Easter Seals; the Military Officers Association; the Vietnam Veterans of America; the National Council on Aging; AMVETS; and many other organizations.

One of the side benefits of this amendment is that funds directed to this population will go almost immediately into the economy. These are folks who will spend that money, providing the quickest possible stimulus to local economies and thus creating jobs in every community in our country. President Obama is strongly supportive of this $250 in emergency relief to seniors. The President has included it in his budget, and he has also recommended it be included in the underlying legislation we are debating today.

Here is what the President has said about this issue:

Even as we seek to bring about recovery, we must act on

behalf of those hardest hit by this recession. That is why I

am announcing my support for an additional $250 in emergency

recovery assistance to seniors, veterans, and people with

disabilities to help them make it through these difficult

times.

I very much appreciate the President's support for what we are trying to do here today.

In Vermont and all across this country, ordinary people believe the Congress is way out of touch with the realities of their lives. They believe that we just do not get it, that we do not understand that all over this country millions of people are hurting and that sometimes they are hurting desperately, that people are frantically trying to keep bread on their tables. People are trying to make sure they and their families can live with dignity, and they wonder if we in Congress get it. They know we are there for Wall Street. They know that. They know we are there to take care of big banks and insurance companies and drug companies, but they are not quite sure we are there to take care of vulnerable people who are elderly and who are disabled veterans.

Let me read some quotes from organizations and individuals on this issue. This is what the VFW has to say in support of this legislation:

This year veterans and seniors will not receive COLA. This

could not come at a worse time. Your legislation would

provide a one-time check of $250 to 1.4 million veterans,

48.9 million Social Security recipients, and 5.1 million SSI

recipients. We believe that this will provide some relief to

those veterans and seniors living on fixed incomes. . . .

We thank the VFW very much for their support.

Let me quote very briefly from the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare:

The National Committee strongly urges you to pass

legislation to provide a $250 payment to our Nation's seniors

who did not receive a COLA this year. It is vitally important

that we provide help for seniors of modest means who have

been adversely affected by the economic recession and rapidly

rising health care costs.

Here is a quote from AARP, a group that represents over 40 million Americans age 55 and older, in support of this amendment. This is what they say:

For over three decades, millions of Americans have counted

on annual increases to help make ends meet. In this economy,

having this protection is even more critical for the

financial security of all older Americans. AARP applauds the

President for urging Congress to extend for 2010 the $250

economic relief provided to older Americans last year.

Let me quote again from another statement by AARP which I think makes this case very cogently. I think they nail it, and they tell us why it is absolutely imperative that we pass this legislation.

Last year, the Social Security Administration announced

that for the first time since it began in 1975, seniors will

not receive an automatic cost of living adjustment for 2010.

Although the lack of a COLA was triggered by low overall

inflation--

And here is the point--

the costs of the things seniors depend on most--prescription

drugs and health care--have continued to increase above

inflation. Seniors spend an average of 30 percent of their

income on health care costs, 6 times greater than what those

with employer-sponsored health care coverage spend, and these

prescription drug costs, premiums, and copays have

skyrocketed.

I think that is the main point to be made today. That is why we should support this one-time payment.

AARP, of course, is a large national organization.

Let me give some quotes from letters I have received from Vermont and from around the country.

A gentleman from central Vermont writes:

As you know, Social Security has not given a COLA increase

on benefits in 2010, based on the CPI. I did some research

and found these increases from January 2009 to January 2010.

This is what he has calculated.

Power rates are up by 7 percent; heating oil up by 15

percent; propane up by 24 percent; property taxes up 3.7

percent; gasoline up 16.6 percent; food up, conservatively

speaking, 3 percent.

Here is where he said:

The CPI was obviously done by statisticians on vacation in

Jamaica while sipping some tropical concoctions that impaired

their judgment. These things above add up to nearly $3,000.

To cover this, I would require a 12 percent increase in my

disability benefits.

This is from central Vermont. I do not agree with the writer of this letter that the statisticians came to their conclusions by sipping tropical concoctions in Jamaica. I don't think that is the case. But I do believe he is correct in suggesting that the methodology by which COLAs for seniors are established is not right. Here is why. COLA increases are determined by a look at the purchasing practices of the entire population--all of us--and that is not fair to seniors today, whose purchasing needs are very different from the average person's. As the AARP pointed out, seniors spend a very disproportionate amount of their limited incomes on health care, prescription drugs, et cetera. Those costs have gone up. In other words, while costs may have gone down for younger people who may be purchasing laptop computers, IPODs, GPSs, flatscreen TVs, cell phones, and other products, they have not gone down for millions of seniors who are dependent and spend a whole lot on health care. By the way, that is why, when I was in the House, I offered legislation which received very strong bipartisan support to create a separate index for seniors in determining their COLAs. I do believe that is the direction we have to go.

I have received many letters. Let me read one more.

This comes from New Jersey. This is Claire from New Jersey:

I am 82 years old. Having been widowed and bankrupt at age

37 to raise my 3 young children alone, I thought that with my

Social Security and my small pension plus by savings, I would

never have to depend on my children to care for me in my old

age. But now that my savings have been depleted by 30 percent

and my health care insurance is costing me $3,200 a year, I

am very worried if my savings will last me much longer.

Elizabeth in Spur, TX, writes:

Social Security is my main source of income. I have bills

that I couldn't pay if it wasn't for this income. I think

that it is a disgrace that the Government will bail out the

banks and car manufacturers but not sure if the elderly will

get a COLA. The elderly are the people that have kept this

country together for years and they are considering not

giving them a little raise? I wish that some Members of the

Congress and the Senate had to live on the income that we

have to and see how they can manage, like the saying goes, if

the shoe was on the other foot.

Let me conclude by pointing out that there is bipartisan support for the concept we are talking about today, especially in the House of Representatives. In that body, in the House, Congressmen Walter Jones, Rodney Alexander, Phil Gingrey, and Roscoe Bartlett--all Republicans-- have introduced legislation which, frankly, goes further than the amendment I am offering. Instead of a one-time payment, they are proposing a 2.9-percent COLA for Social Security, which ends up, obviously, costing a lot more than a one-time payment of about 2 percent.

Here is what Congressman Alexander, a Republican from Louisiana, said about his legislation:

Although the annual adjustment is a small increase, it is a

much-needed benefit for our Nation's seniors to help them

compensate for inflation and to sustain the skyrocketing

prices of health care and prescription drugs. It is evident

that the current Social Security system is not keeping up

with our seniors' basic needs. Congress must take action

today so that our Social Security beneficiaries are protected

tomorrow.

That is from Congressman Alexander, a Republican from Louisiana. I agree with the Congressman, and I hope all of my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, will agree that seniors need emergency relief and they need it now.

Over 90 percent of the individuals who will receive this emergency relief make less than $75,000 and over 8 million who will receive help under this amendment make less than $14,000 a year.

That is where we are. Millions of people are wondering whether, in their times of need, when their costs are going up, when they are struggling to maintain their dignity--they are wondering whether a Congress that was there for Wall Street, a Congress which over a period of years has been there for the wealthiest people in this country, whether that same Congress will be there for disabled veterans and our seniors. I hope and believe we will be, and I ask for support for the amendment that will be voted on soon.

I yield the floor.

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

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

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

Madam President, tomorrow I intend to call up an amendment within the discussion of the jobs bill which I think will have significant impact on the lives of many millions of our fellow Americans. As you know, this year for the first time in many decades, our senior citizens are not going to be seeing a cost-of-living increase. In this very severe recession, that is unfortunate. Seniors in Vermont and around the country have told me that because of rising health care costs, because of rising energy and heating costs, because of rising prescription drug costs--all issues which seniors and disabled veterans are particularly prone to--it is unfair they not get a COLA this year.

I am very happy to inform my colleagues that President Obama, in his budget, has made it very clear he understands the need for a $250 emergency payment to go out to over 55 million seniors, veterans, and the disabled. I very much appreciate his support for this concept. And he is absolutely right, that in these very difficult times we cannot forget about some of the most vulnerable people in our society. There are a lot of lower income seniors out there who are struggling, as well as disabled veterans and disabled people in general.

This amendment, which essentially does this year what we did last year in the stimulus package, would provide a one-time $250 payment. This amendment has very widespread support all over this country, and let me mention to you some of the organizations that are supporting it. The largest senior group in America is the AARP, and they are very vigorously supporting this concept, the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars are supporting this $250 payment, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare is supporting it, the Disabled Veterans of America--the DVA--is supporting it, the Older Women's League is supporting it, and many other organizations representing seniors, disabled people, and our veterans are supporting it.

This recession has forced more and more seniors out of the middle class and into poverty. In fact, according to a National Academy of Sciences formula, the poverty rate among Americans 65 and older is close to 19 percent--almost double the official poverty rate of 9.7 percent. One of the problems I have had in dealing with Social Security COLAs for many years, including when I was in the House, is I have long believed it is an error, a statistical problem, when we lump everybody together and formulate what a COLA is. If you lump everybody together, I think you can probably make the argument that there is no inflation and in fact in some instances there is deflation.

We see that every day. Young people who go out and buy a laptop computer will probably pay less for that laptop today than they did a year ago. Prices may be going down. For wide-screen TVs, prices may be going down. For many items people buy, prices may be going down. But seniors have a different set of needs than ordinary Americans and 16- year-old kids have. Seniors are much more dependent on prescription drugs. The cost of prescription drugs is going up. Seniors are much more dependent on health care. The cost of health care is going up. Seniors are dependent--at least in the Northeast where I live, in Vermont--on keeping their homes warm, and the cost of fuel has gone up. So I think if you take a hard look at the needs of seniors, the needs of people with disabilities, the needs of disabled veterans, you will find they have seen increased costs over the year. And if we say to those folks: There is no COLA for Social Security, and we are not doing anything for you, they are going to find themselves in substantially worse shape than they were last year.

I did want to say that this amendment, as of now, is supported by Senators Dodd, Gillibrand, Leahy, and Whitehouse, and we look forward to more support. This concept is in the President's budget, and the President has been very clear about the need to go forward with a $250 payment. This amendment we will be offering tomorrow is supported by the AARP, the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the National Committee to Protect Social Security and Medicare, the Disabled Veterans of America, Older Women's League, and many other organizations.

We will be offering an amendment which simply says we are not going to leave America's seniors out in the cold. We are not going to leave America's disabled veterans out in the cold. And while there is no COLA this year, we are at least going to do what we did last year and provide them with a $250 emergency payment. Not a whole lot of money in the great scheme of things, but, trust me, having just met with seniors on Monday, a lot of seniors in this country today are finding it very difficult to feed themselves and to take care of their basic needs. While this is not going to solve all of their problems by any means, it is going to help. So I would hope that tomorrow my colleagues will be supporting this amendment when we bring it forth.

Madam President, with that, I yield the floor.

I thank Senator Leahy for yielding. There is not a lot more I can add to what he has already said.

As you well know, Vermont is a small State. We have 620,000 people-- one of the smallest States in the country. But a lot of our young people grow up on the slopes of Vermont. They are involved in skiing and snowboarding from a very young age. My grandson is out there. He is 5. He is doing pretty well as a snowboarder. That is true all over the State.

I think people who have watched the extraordinary Olympics in Vancouver noted that a lot of the participants, a lot of the outstanding athletes came from the State of Vermont. The world watched as Hannah Kearney of Norwich won the first gold medal for the United States. She was closely followed in the women's snowboarding halfpipe when Vermont took both second and third place on the podium. That is quite a feat for a small State. Kelly Clark of West Dover brought home the bronze, and Hannah Teter of Belmont, the silver medal. This is an incredible feat when you consider that there were a total of just eight women on the U.S. snowboarding team; three of them were from the Green Mountain State and two of them were in the top three. That is pretty good under anybody's definition of success.

In true Vermont fashion, our Olympians bring more than talent, excellence, and commitment to their sports. They showed exemplary dedication to their communities. In other words, these men and women are more than just athletes; they are people who are concerned about the world in which they are living and the communities in which they live. When Hannah Teter took gold in the Torino games in 2006, she combined her prize money with proceeds from maple syrup sales to start a charity called ``Hannah's Gold'' which brings aid to a village in Kenya. That is what Hannah Teter did. Liz Stephen, a cross-country skier from East Montpelier, supports ``Fast and Female,'' a charity geared toward getting young girls involved in sports. Lindsey Jacobellis, a snowboarder from Stratton, VT, used her love of animals as motivation to get involved with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. From charity efforts to hometown, family-owned restaurants, the impact of these outstanding individuals is felt by many.

The 11 athletes who are recognized today as Vermont Olympians are the following: in cross-country skiing, Caitlin Compton, Andy Newell; in Alpine skiing, Chelsea Marshall, Nolan Kasper, and Jimmy Cochran; in ski jumping, Nick Alexander; in freestyle skiing, gold medalist Hannah Kearney; and in snowboarding, silver medalist Hannah Teter, bronze medalist Kelly Clark, and Lindsey Jacobellis. It is with great pleasure that I congratulate these athletes on a spectacular job. The State of Vermont is very proud of you all.

Madam President, I wish to acknowledge the lifetime work and recent achievements of Katherine Paterson of Barre, VT. Recently, Ms. Paterson was named National Ambassador for Young People's Literature by the Librarian of Congress James H. Billington.

Katherine Paterson's accomplishments as an author surely merit her appointment. She has twice been awarded the prestigious Newbery Medal, once for ``Bridge to Terabithia'' and a second time for ``Jacob Have I Loved.'' In addition, she won the National Book Award, also twice, for ``The Great Gilly Hopkins'' and ``The Master Puppeteer.'' Nor are these the only major recognitions of her importance as one of the major writers of our time. She has won 19 additional literary awards for other works, including the Hans Christian Andersen Medal, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award and the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, which was awarded to her by her home State of Vermont.

Katherine Paterson was named a Living Legend by the Library of Congress in 2000.

Her most recent book is ``The Day of the Pelican,'' a moving, dramatic story of a refugee family's flight from war-torn Kosovo to America. It is the 2010 selection for Vermont Reads, a statewide reading program.

Katherine Paterson has long been dedicated to promoting literacy among young people, which makes her appointment as National Ambassador for Young People's Literature particularly appropriate. She has chosen ``Read for Your Life'' as the theme for her platform for the upcoming 2 years as National Ambassador. Throughout her tenure, she will be a most articulate advocate for the importance of literature in young people's lives.

We in Vermont are proud of Katherine Paterson's accomplishments as a writer. We are proud of her dedication to literacy among young readers. And, at this moment, we are proud that our national library, the Library of Congress, has conferred upon her this new honor, and the enlarged task of being the Nation's leading advocate for young people's literature.

I thank the Senator for yielding. We have talked about the fact that unemployment today and economic suffering is probably greater than at any time since the Great Depression of the 1930s. But I wonder if the Senator from Illinois is aware that the problem is not just high unemployment but long-term unemployment; that, in fact, I believe we have never seen in modern history a length of time in which people are unemployed as is currently the case. Would the Senator concur that what we are looking at now is a modern tragedy in terms of the length of time people are experiencing unemployment?

I want to ask another question. My recollection is that a number of months ago there was a vote here on the floor of the Senate regarding the repeal of the estate tax. My understanding is that vote to repeal a significant part of the estate tax would have benefited, as I recall, the top three-tenths of 1 percent of the population; 99.7 percent of the people would not have benefited. I could be wrong, but my understanding is that if that legislation, that bill, that amendment had passed, it would have cost our government about $1 trillion in a 10-year period, $1 trillion in benefits to the top three-tenths of 1 percent.

Can my friend from Illinois remind me as to how many Republicans voted against giving $1 trillion in tax breaks to the top three-tenths of 1 percent that was not paid for?

On my suspicion--I won't swear to it--I don't recall that any Republican did not. I may be wrong on this, but my recollection is that all Republicans voted to repeal the estate tax, voted for that legislation. Some Democrats did as well.

But I find it remarkable, picking up on the point the Senator from Oregon made a moment ago, here we were talking about $1 trillion over a 10-year

period to benefit the top three-tenths of 1 percent. I don't recall hearing anybody saying: Hey, we have a huge national debt. We can't afford another trillion dollars. But somehow, when it comes to desperate people who are hanging on by their fingernails, trying to keep their families afloat in the most serious economic moment since the Great Depression of the 1930s, somehow, right now that has to be paid for. We have to pay for $10 billion, but somehow you don't have to pay for $1 trillion over a 10-year period. I don't quite understand that. Maybe my friend from Illinois can elucidate.

For the record, the sum was $350 billion over 10 years, not $1 trillion. The trillion would have been the complete repeal of the estate tax. But nonetheless, $350 billion benefiting the top three- tenths of 1 percent is a sizable chunk of cash. I am somewhat amazed that nobody at that point was terribly worried about how that was going to be paid for.

I thank the Senator from Illinois.

I say to my good friend, the Senator from Tennessee, he is a good friend as is the Senator from Kentucky. I like the Senator from Kentucky. I know he is honest. He is sincere. He is not hiding. He is here. I respect that. We disagree very strongly on his position.

The Senator from Tennessee said a moment ago his point of view, this is not the way the Senate functions, that is not what the Senate is about, in so many words.

If you go and ask millions of people and say if the amendment of Senator Bunning came to the floor of the Senate--no one can predict what the vote would be, but my guess is he would probably lose. That is my guess. But he has decided, one person, to say to hundreds and hundreds of thousands of

workers, I, one Senator, am exercising my right, no question about that, and I am going to object. I, one person who does not have the votes to pass my amendment, am saying to people--you have heard the Senator from Illinois describing these stories of the pain, turmoil that families are going through. No one disputes what he is saying. It is going on in Tennessee, it is going on in Vermont, Kentucky, Missouri. We all understand that. I don't think there is a disagreement. People are hurting terribly.

I don't think there is a disagreement. When people Monday morning wake and find they are not getting the safety net of that life- supporting check, do you know what people are going to be feeling? Do you know what panic? They don't know how the bureaucracy works. Suddenly, they wake and somebody says: I am not getting my check. Am I ever going to get a check? Well, they are going to get a check, but it is delayed.

There was an article in the paper just the other day, one of the ramifications of this recession, and we all know it is true, is what it is doing to the emotional health of people. Think about people who want to work, who have worked their whole lives and cannot find a job. Do you know what it is doing to them? To their emotional well-being? Do you think they like unemployment checks? The vast majority don't want it--a thousand times more they would like a job. Suddenly, for no understandable--they don't understand what is going on. I don't understand what is going on half the time in the Senate. Suddenly, because one Senator says: I am sorry, I object, I object, and thousands and thousands of people are wondering whether they are going to survive.

They are going to get their checks. We will eventually pass this.

This is a good debate. We have a $14 trillion national debt. How did we get here? How do we resolve that debt? Who in this room thinks that a $14 trillion debt is sustainable? Nobody does. We have to deal with that issue. Who caused it? We have disagreements. How do you solve it? We have disagreements. Let's argue out those disagreements but not on the backs of people today who are hurting and hurting terribly.

One of the points I would like to ask the Senator about is we are not just looking at record-breaking unemployment in our lifetimes. This unemployment rate takes place after years and years of decline.

There was an interesting piece--I don't have the date, it was a couple months ago--in USA Today; astounding facts. What they said--this is from USA Today, I think going through the census data. Between 2000 and 2008, men between 25 and 34 saw an 11.7-percent drop in their median income; people, then, from 45 to 54, 11.2 percent drop. In other words, all over this country we see people who are furious. They are angry. They are confused. Do you know why? They went through a decade where they worked hard and at the end of that decade they were poorer than when they began the decade and then came the Wall Street collapse and then came massive unemployment. What we are trying to do--no one thinks the extension of unemployment is the solution. We have to rebuild the economy. We have to create jobs. But I hope nobody in this room thinks it is acceptable or moral that we allow desperate people to go over the cliff--not to have money to buy food?

Hunger in the United States of America today is a serious problem. It is not a joke. This is America. Desperate people, for their kids, for their parents, need that unemployment check.

We are going to pass this. I gather we will pass it next week. But all we are doing is disrupting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people for no good reason. Senator Bunning has raised important issues. I disagree with him, but those issues are important. Let's debate them. But you do not have to do it on the backs of the middle class and the working class who have been decimated for years and are now in worse shape than they have been and now we are suddenly pulling out the rug.

I ask my friend from Illinois, my assumption is, we are at some point soon going to pass these unemployment extensions. My understanding is, I don't know how it is going to be, but I suspect many Republicans are probably going to vote with many on this side; is that a correct assumption? And are we simply bringing more pain and confusion to hundreds of thousands of people who suddenly, Sunday, Monday, are going to find out they don't get a check?

I would say that the Senator and I have had strong agreements. I would ask the Senator from Illinois, in the hearing of the Senator from Kentucky: Look, the Senator from Kentucky has raised important issues. I would hope that he would allow us, not for our sake, but for the sake of tens and tens of thousands of people, to get those checks out. Let's come back and continue that debate.

You have raised the right issues. These unemployment checks are going to go out, unless I am mistaken. So all we are doing is disrupting the process. We understand where you are coming from. You have raised a fair point. It is a very important issue.

But I would, through my friend from Illinois, ask my friend from Kentucky, who is a friend--I like Jim Bunning: Let us continue this debate. But it does not have to be tonight. It does not have to be in a way that causes confusion and uncertainty and a lot of pain for a lot of people. So I would--

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

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

Mr. President, I think all across this country people are wondering about what is going on in Congress and, specifically, what is going on in the Senate. People are using the expression that government is broken and that we seem to be a dysfunctional institution.

The reason for the alarm is pretty obvious. The United States today faces the most serious set of crises we have seen since the Great Depression. Today, some 17 percent of our people are either unemployed or underemployed. This is on top of coming out of a decade where the median family income actually declined. So people by the millions are today working longer hours for lower wages. They are wondering what kind of life is going to be available for their kids. They are having a hard time affording childcare. They are having a hard time affording higher education. We have 46 million people who are uninsured. We have 45,000 people who die every single year because they can't get to a doctor. If we don't get a handle on health care, their costs are going to be doubling in the next 8 years. We recently saw Blue Cross in California asking for a 39-percent rate increase for their premiums. It is not unusual. It is going on all over the country.

People are saying, What is going on? Is the middle class going to continue to collapse? Is poverty going to continue to increase? Are you guys going to get your act together and begin to do something that benefits working families in this country?

It goes without saying that the American people want--I want, you want, we all want--bipartisan efforts to solve these problems, but, most importantly, we want to solve these issues. We have to deal with the economy. We have to deal with our friends on Wall Street whose recklessness and illegal behavior has driven this country into this terrible recession. We have to deal with it. We have to deal with health care. We don't have a choice. We have to deal with the $12 trillion national debt. We have to do it.

Unfortunately, I think what the American people are beginning to catch onto is that to have bipartisanship, you need a ``bi,'' you need two sides coming together. What we have here in the Senate is not two sides coming together but one side, our Republican friends who are saying: No, no, no. If it is good for Obama, it is bad for us. No, no, no. We have had a record-breaking number of filibusters, a record- breaking number of other obstructionist tactics. The end result is the American people are becoming very frustrated.

I do a national radio show every week and every week on that program somebody is calling me up and saying, I don't understand it. When the Republicans were in control of the Senate, they were able to bring forth sweeping proposals. They didn't have 60 votes. What is going on? You guys on your side, those who are Independents and in the Democratic caucus, you have 59 votes, why aren't you doing it? It is a good question.

I think more and more people are talking about using the reconciliation process, which is simply a parliamentary procedure which enables us to pass legislation with the end result of saving taxpayers' money and lowering the deficit. The beauty of that approach is you can go forward with 51 votes, not the 60 votes we are having a very difficult time obtaining, because we are not getting much support from the other side. Some people say, Well, this reconciliation approach is unfair. This is a radical idea. Why are you bringing it forth? The answer is that this has been done time after time after time, mostly, in fact, by Republicans. So it seems to me if this is a concept the Republicans have used year after year after year for very major pieces of legislation, it is appropriate for the Democratic caucus to do that as well.

Let me give a few examples. Many Americans will remember the Contract With America. That was Newt Gingrich's very big idea. I thought it was a very bad idea, but nonetheless it was a very comprehensive approach. The Contract With America in 1995 was passed in the Senate through reconciliation. This was a broad, comprehensive bill, and this is what President Clinton said. This is what the Washington Post reported President Clinton saying when he vetoed that legislation, and I am glad he did. This is what Clinton said:

Today I am vetoing the biggest Medicare and Medicaid cuts

in history, deep cuts in education, a rollback in

environmental protection, and a tax increase on working

families.

This was Clinton's veto message of the Republican Contract With America that was passed through reconciliation.

That is not the only effort the Republicans mounted through reconciliation. In 1996, Republicans passed legislation to enact welfare reform through reconciliation. In 1997, Congress used reconciliation to establish new health coverage programs or to substantially expand existing ones, including SCHIP passed through reconciliation. In 2005, Republicans pushed through reconciliation legislation that reduced spending on Medicaid and raised premiums on upper income Medicare beneficiaries. In 2003, Republicans used reconciliation to push through President Bush's 2003 tax cuts. In 2001, Republicans used reconciliation to pass President Bush's $1.35 trillion tax cut, much of it going to the wealthiest people in this country.

What is my point? My point is that it would be the utmost hypocrisy for Republicans to tell us we should not use reconciliation when they have used it time and time and time again.

Let me conclude by saying this country faces enormous problems. What has occurred over the last year, year and a half, is an unprecedented level of obstructionism and delaying tactics on the part of our Republican colleagues. The American people are hurting. They want to see this government begin the process of creating millions of decent- paying jobs. They want to see a transformation of our energy system so we can move from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy and jobs doing that. The American people want to see us rebuild our infrastructure which is presently crumbling and we can create jobs doing that. In the short term, the American people want us to do something about the high cost of a college education by expanding Pell grants and by also addressing the very serious problems with childcare and the needs for school construction. We can do that as well.

My point is the American people are angry. They are frustrated. They want action. If the Republicans choose, as is their right, to try to obstruct and try to use the rules to delay action, I think we should do what they have done time after time after time and that is use the reconciliation process. That is what I think we should do, and I hope we will.

Thank you very much, Madam President. I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

In a little while we are going to be casting votes on an issue of enormous consequence, and that is whether we reappoint Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Fed. I am here to argue that would be a very bad decision; that we should reject this nomination; that we need in this country a new Wall Street which understands its function is not simply to make as much money as it can for extraordinarily wealthy people on the Street, but to begin to interject the function of Wall Street into our productive economy, make credit available to small and medium-sized businesses so we can break out of this horrendous recession, which is causing so much pain from one end of this country to the other.

In order to create a new Wall Street, we need a new Fed, and we need a new Fed Chairman who is going to provide new leadership. The same old, same old is not going to work. Everybody in America agrees and understands that a little over 1 year ago, our Nation--in fact the world's financial system--came to the edge of a major collapse.

Everybody also understands that the function of the Fed is to protect the safety and soundness of our financial institutions. That is its main function. Can anybody deny with a straight face that the Fed and its Chairman, Mr. Bernanke, failed at its task? They failed. This is not a personal attack against Mr. Bernanke.

But while Wall Street became converted into the largest gambling casino in the history of the world, where was Mr. Bernanke and the Fed, whose job it is to protect the safety and soundness of our financial institutions? They were not there. It seems to me to be a very bad idea to reward somebody with reappointment who failed at an enormously important task which has driven this country into a severe recession so that 17 percent of our workforce today is either unemployed or underemployed.

Millions of our fellow Americans have lost their homes; they have lost their savings; they have lost their ability to send their kids to college; they have lost their hopes for the future. Mr. Bernanke failed at his job. He should not be rewarded with reappointment.

Further, many of us, after 8 years of the Bush administration, said it is time for a change. It is time to change the priority of this Nation, time to move us in a new direction. The evidence is overwhelming that from an economic perspective as well as many other perspectives, the Bush administration failed.

Let me quote from the Washington Post earlier this month. This is what they said about the Bush economy:

The past decade was the worst for the U.S. economy in

modern times. It was, according to a wide range of data, a

lost decade.

Let me repeat.

A lost decade for American workers. There has been zero net

job creation since December, 1999. Middle income households

made less in 2008, when adjusted for inflation, than they did

in 1999.

A lost decade. Standard of living for American workers down, creation of wealth down for American workers.

Ben Bernanke was appointed by George W. Bush to be Chairman of the Fed. He was a member of the Bush administration. In fact, he was the chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers.

Why do you want to reappoint someone who not only failed at his job as Chairman of the Fed, in terms of protecting the safety and soundness of our financial institutions, but was an architect of the Bush economy, which was a disaster for American workers? We need a new direction at the Fed.

It is not only looking back at the failures of Mr. Bernanke, it is looking forward and saying, how can the Fed respond to begin to protect the middle class and working families of our country? Here is something that has not been discussed enough. The Fed today has enormous powers.

Many will remember that as part of the bailout, Mr. Bernanke and the Bush administration not only pushed for a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street, but on top of that Mr. Bernanke provided trillions of dollars-- let me underline that--trillions of dollars in zero-interest loans to large financial institutions.

As a member of the Budget Committee, I had the opportunity to ask Mr. Bernanke which financial institutions received these trillions of dollars. I do not think that is an unreasonable question on behalf of the American people. Mr. Bernanke said, in so many words: Sorry, Senator, not going to tell you. The American people do not have to know who received trillions of dollars of their money. That to me is totally unacceptable. We need transparency at the Fed. Mr. Bernanke has not provided that transparency.

I have introduced legislation to bring that transparency to the Fed. Someone whose views are very different from mine on many issues, Ron Paul in the House, brought forth similar legislation. We need transparency. We need a Chairman of the Fed who will give us that transparency. That is something Mr. Bernanke can do tomorrow. In my State of Vermont, and I am sure in your state of New York, Madam President, people are calling you every single day and they are saying: We are sick and tired of paying 25 or 30 percent interest rates on our credit cards from the same banks and bunch of crooks that we bailed out who got us into this recession in the first place.

Imagine that. You have people who act on Wall Street in a reckless, irresponsible, illegal way. Taxpayers bail them out, and they say: Thank you, taxpayers. By the way, we are going to raise your interest rates on your credit cards. Have a nice day.

All over America, people cannot believe that. They are outraged this is happening. Well, you know what. Mr. Bernanke and the Fed have the authority today to lower interest rates on credit cards. They could do that today, and that is what they should do, because one of their responsibilities is to protect consumers against outrageous and fraudulent activities. In my view, charging people 25 or 30 percent is outrageous and fraudulent and usurious.

All over this country--the President mentioned it last night, appropriately so--small and medium-sized businesses that are making a profit are crying out for low-interest loans in order to expand their businesses and to hire new workers.

One of the great economic problems we are having as a Nation--the President touched on it last night--is the need for small productive businesses to get the low-interest loans they need.

Well, Mr. Bernanke was there with zero-interest loans for large, failed, fraudulent, dishonestly run Wall Street firms, but he is not there for small businesses all over this country that desperately need low-interest loans. The Fed has the authority today--not tomorrow, today--to provide low-interest loans to small and medium-sized businesses so that we can begin to hire new workers and bring our economy out of this severe recession we are currently in.

The reason, as I understand it, that the taxpayers of this country, against my vote, I should say, were asked to bail out the crooks on Wall Street was because they were too big to fail. You see, if a small business goes under, that is okay. Someone has worked their whole life building the business, the business fails, no problem. We do not help them. But if you are a big financial institution and you engage in reckless, illegal behavior, we bail you out because if you go down, you are going to take a large part of the economy with you, you are too big to fail.

Many of my colleagues might be surprised to know that three out of the four largest financial institutions we bailed out because they were too big to fail are bigger today than they were before we bailed them out because they were too big to fail. That may make sense to somebody, not to this Senator.

It seems to me that what common sense suggests is that we break up these large financial institutions so, A, the American people are never again put in the position of having to bail them out because they are too big to

fail and, B, that we begin to understand what Teddy Roosevelt understood 100 years ago: concentration of ownership is dangerous for the economy.

Today, we have four major banks providing two-thirds of the credit cards in the country--four major financial institutions, two-thirds of all credit cards. We have four financial institutions writing half of all the mortgages in America. That is wrong. Break up the large financial institutions.

Ben Bernanke has the ability to begin to do that tomorrow. I have not heard one word from him to suggest he will do so.

The American people are angry. The American people are frustrated. What they are angry and frustrated about is that in many instances, they are working longer hours for lower wages than they used to, if they are fortunate enough to have a job. The American people are frustrated and angry because this immediate financial crisis and severe recession was caused by the recklessness and irresponsibility of a handful of people on Wall Street. The American people are frustrated and angry because they are not seeing the kind of accountability and change in terms of the activities on Wall Street they expect and demand to happen. Quite the contrary. After having bailed out people who acted in an illegal and irresponsible way, what they are seeing is Wall Street pumping millions of dollars into campaign contributions and lobbying so that we can bring them back to where they were before the bailout.

The American people want change in the way our financial institutions run. The American people want change at the Fed. I believe the American people want a new Chairman or Chairwoman at the Fed. Now is the time to say to the American people: We hear you. We are going to bring about change. We are going to deny the reappointment of Ben Bernanke as Chairman. We are going to ask President Obama to give us a new nominee who will stand up for the middle class and working class of this country rather than for the big-money interests on Wall Street.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, this is, in fact, an enormously important issue. The reality is that all over our country, hard-working, decent people have lost their jobs. They have lost homes, their savings. They have lost their ability to go to college. We are experiencing the highest level of unemployment since the Great Depression. All of this did not happen by accident. It happened because of the greed, the recklessness, and the illegal behavior of Wall Street, of CEOs there who converted our financial institutions into the largest gambling casino in the history of the world.

One of the major functions of the Fed is to protect the safety and soundness of our financial institutions. There can be no debate, Mr. Bernanke, as Chairman of the Fed, failed at that important job, and this country and the world almost saw a major financial collapse, and we have seen in this country a horrendous recession.

I think average American citizens have a hard time understanding how we reward failure, how we say to somebody who was asleep at the switch in terms of regulating our financial institutions: Congratulations. You failed. There is a major recession. You are getting reappointed. I do not think people understand why and how that should happen.

Second of all, when we talk about the bailout, it is not just the $700 billion that went to TARP. There were trillions of dollars in zero-interest loans, or almost zero-interest loans, that went to major financial institutions. It is incomprehensible to me the Chairman of the Fed can lend out trillions of dollars, and when I asked him: Who got the money? He said: Sorry, the American people don't have a right to know that--in so many words. I am not telling you.

How can you have confidence in the leadership of the Fed when there is virtually no transparency--trillions of dollars being lent out, and we do not know who received it? That is not acceptable to me. We need a Fed Chairman who believes in transparency, who is going to tell the American people who has received those loans.

We are also today, importantly, not just talking about the past. We are talking about the future. We are talking about how we pull this country out of a recession in which 17 percent of our people are unemployed or underemployed. The fact is, the Fed today

has the capability, the power to take significant action to protect the middle class and working families of this country. I say to the Presiding Officer, I do not know about Illinois, but I will tell you, in Vermont I get calls every week.

People are saying: Why did you help bail out these large banks, and now they are charging me 25, 30 percent interest rates on my credit card?

Mr. Bernanke and the Fed have the power today to lower interest rates on credit cards. I want a Fed Chairman who is going to do that. Last night we heard from President Obama, who appropriately pointed out very serious problems that small businesses all over this country are having in terms of getting the low-interest loans they need in order to create the kind of jobs our economy desperately requires. The Chairman of the Fed today has the power to provide low-interest loans to small- and medium-sized businesses.

It is not just large financial institutions that can receive zero- interest or low-interest loans. I know it is a great shock to the Fed, but small- and medium-sized businesses--in a productive economy that creates real jobs--can also receive those loans. I want a Fed Chairman who will provide those loans.

It is hard to believe the largest financial institutions in this country that we bailed out because they were too big to fail--do you know what. Three out of four of them are even bigger today. It is time to break up those financial institutions that are too big to fail. If they are too big to fail, they are too big to exist.

Mr. President, we need a new direction on Wall Street. We need a new Fed Chairman.

Thank you very much.