i mean, you can only read so much from a single election. clearly we are ready satisfaction with the democrats, but, you know, beyond that it's hard exactly to know, you know, what could have been done differently. sometimes in washington, we fall into cliches. well, obama went too far left and now he's going back to the center. those kind of explanations are superficial and don't really help us that much. in all cases there's going to be this mix. i mean, with obama as well as with clinton, there were times in the first two years where they went left and then centrist. so, yeah, see this as an ongoing issue and obviously the state of the economy i think most people

would agree is the overriding issue right now. >> host: you can read him in slate. history lessons is the column and an assistant professor at rutgers university. thank you for being on the washington journal. >> guest: thank you. ..

senator sanders has been home to the other senators. what is behind and understand ursula bester? >> guest: senator sanders is one of those numbers of the chamber. from the beginning than the than the bose announced between senator obama and senate republicans, huge filibuster agreement. now a lot of times we see the republicans quote, unquote filibustering pieces of democratic legislation, holding it up procedurally. we haven't seen a full-fledged filibuster getting up on the floor, up to the roster and speaking of hours for and are quite sometime and senator sanders is on the floor today. he's very upset about the dealings of the tax cut should be extended for high income incomers. he's upset to estate tax, estates over a million-dollar suit being protected from the estate tax when it goes up next year. so he's upset about that is making a public spectacle to make sure everyone knows how frustrated he is.

>> host: is that it will be a long speech. any idea how it will go? >> guest: we don't know. it's in his fourth hour right now and that the top of his speech, he said i'm prepared to speak as long as possible. so there's really no end in sight. pages but the center from what mary landrieu onto the floor in a colloquy to help them out. so he might be showing signs of getting a bit tired. but it seems like they're still going strong. postcode your ilk are wrote in a piece we may see jim demint filibuster the bill as soon from another point of view. >> guest: that's right. he has also pledged to filibuster this bill. he's unhappy that these tax cuts were only extended for two years instead of permanently. and he also hasn't complained throughout the estate tax as well. but he just generally unhappy that it's going up at 0% right now. were not sure if senator

demint is going to pull a stunt like senator sanders here or if he's going to join him. i would seriously doubt that. the next senator harry reid has said he's going to bring this up for a vote on monday. so we can see senator may try to post a procedurally then. post what you wrote this morning and i hope that when harry reid brought to build to the florida senate last senate last night, there were her son site changes in tax credits which the white house is okay with, but which senator is not intended to please click >> guest: had intended to attract and support some of the senate who expressed frustration, especially tom harkin. harkin represents a big corn producing states in iowa and also the renewable energy tax credits for sheri brown of ohio was pushing for a renewable energy producer. he's looking to target some of

the liberal green senators beyond the steel with his deal it in a senate republican aides have assured me that this has been on discussion for a long time and they are basically looking to not portray this as a win or a confession or the democrats work this out with the white house themselves are but the white house is pushing really hard to try to get this before the end of the year. postcode to mention a procedural vote on monday. what else is coming out in terms of this tax package? just hope they are putting the's boat -- the presidents plan up for a vote. we also might see a vote on independent stand-alone bill to repeal don't ask don't tell. this is going to be introduced by senator joe lieberman. he announced it yesterday and speaker nancy pelosi in the house that she would support such a path to repeal the military been of service members. we can be seen that next week,

too. it seems there are 60 senators that would support that although we're not sure if some of these republican senators mike scott brown and murkowski will be okay with the aspect but they will try as last ditch effort. postcode you can read jodan fabian at dell.com. thanks very much for that update. >> that filibuster by bernie sanders in its entirety. he spoke on the senate floor all day about the president tax t proposal. everyone knows, the president of the p united states, presidenteh obama and the republicanav leadership have reached an a agreement on a very significant tax bill. the agree in my meview, the agreement that they reached is a bad deal for the american people. i think we can do better.ake

a name here today to take a strong stand against this billtt and i intend to tell my colleagues and the nationopposii exactly why, why i am in opposition to this bill. you can call what i'm doing it today whatever you want. you can call it a filibuster, you can call it a very long speech.i'mot h records or to make a spectacle. i am simply here today to takeo as long as i can to explain to the american people the fact that we have got to do a lot better than this agreement provides. l now let me just enumerate someta of the reasons that i am opposed to this agreement. first is everybody does this

station is a record-breaking $13.8 trillion national debt atd the same time the middle class i is collapsing and poverty isnc increasing. a mr. president, i think it's important we say word because i'm not sure a lot ofe americae necessarily know this about how we got to where we are today in terms of the national debt. i know there are some people wha think thist all began the day that president obama took office. well, it's not quite the case. when president clinton left office, this country was running in fact a very significantere te surplus and the projections werr that we were going to continue to run a surplus. presidentre bush, for a number f reasons including the war in iraq, the war in a chemist and,r

including huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country, including in medicare u part d prescription drug program sellouts among other things, all of which were not paid for. at those are the primary reasons du that we thought it's been almost doubling of the national debt during the bush administration.d and since president obama has pe been in office, we have passed a stimulus package, also adding to the deficit and national debt. bu but here we are today with a $13.8 trillion national debt, ad $1.4 trillion deficit and almost all americans are in greenland a that this is a very serious firt issue. so the first point that i wouldt make is that it seems to me tobe be unconscionable.his

unconscionable for my country conservative friends and everybody else in this country to be driving up this already too high national debt by giving tax breaks to millionaires and t billionaires who don't need it and then the number of cases, mr. president don't want it.iron this is one of the interesting m ironies.forward a their list ofnd many, many verye wealthyry people who come forwaw and say sure, i want a taxountry break. everybody wants a tax break with their other priorities in the ne country. i don't need it. and two of the wealthiest people in the world, bill gates of microsoft, w microsoft, warren buffett,ar its berkshire. these are billionaires and say it is absurd. we don't need a tax break or over the country. your a a lot of folks who have a lot of money saying don't shrug off the deficit. t force our kids to pay higher taxes that pay off the nationalo

debt in order to give tax breakn to the richest people in this country. now mr. president, we have beent told really not to worry too much because the extension of te these tax breaks to the wealthy, worry. well, maybe that's the case. but given the political reality that i have seen in washington,o my guess is that two years fromo now these tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country will be extended again. what happens around here is that the argument will be made but a few of these tax breaks, you'reo raising taxes. the if overhearing right now. arguml they see no reason why in the mn middle of a presidential auction those arguments will not be s me again.tax b and i see no reason not to believe that those tax breaks will be extended again.

and clearly we have a number ofe republicans who want to make at ext that extension permanent.ot, i now whether it will ever be made permanent or not i don't know.oa the point is when you hearr fols say that it's only a two-year inspection, i would suggest youw take that with a grain of salt. and let me just say that if into fact we do what the republicans have wanted to doig right now as we enter this debate, they wanted a 10 year extension.700 t that would add $700 billion to our national debt. and $700 billion geared at got four kids and six grandchildren. and i think it is grossly unfair. none of them have a whole lot od money.randchdren i think it is grossly unfair to have my children andand grandchildren all over this payn country to be paying higher t taxes in order to provide tax

we driven up the national average. that is just plain wrong.s mr. president, you think the wr. vast majority of the american people, whether they're professors like myself or whether they're conservative, and i think they perceive that a concept from the tax breaks come to millionaires when we have a high national debt makes no sense at all. billionaires furthermore, mr. president, it is important to point out thatms income tax rates for the top 2% is not the only unfair tax proposal inpr this agreement. rn this agreement between the president and the republican leadership also calls for a continuation of the bush era 15d tax rate on capital gains andvig dividends, meaning that those people will make their living off their investments will continue to pay a substantially

lower tax rate that firemen, teachers, nurses, carpenters ans virtually all the other workingj people of this country. and i just don't think that's fair. and we aree, continuing, if disagreement were to be passed that unfair arrangement. mr. president, on top of allnt that, this agreement includes and horrendous the pros allthe t regarding the estate tax. roo and that is a teddy rooseveltabt initiative. teddy ro tohesevelt was talking about this in the early years of the 20th century. it was enacted in 1916.ed for ved that was enacted for ateddye couple reasons. teddy roosevelt and the people of that era thought it was wronl that a handful of people could c have a huge concentration of wealth and then just give that alth wealth, transmit that wealth to

their children. he didn't think that that was right. furthermore, it was the source r of progressive loss of revenue. under the agreement struck between the republican leadership and the president, tx the estate tax rate, which waser 55% under president clinton. and let's all remember we haveer president clinton, but during those years we were creating a heck of a lot more jobs than wed did under president bush. that's the fact of the under president clinton below 600,000 private sector jobs bus. under president bush during thex clinton era, the estate tax wasd 55%. with this arrangement would you do is lower tax rate to 35% with an exemption on the first $5 million of an individual's

estate, 10 million for couples.m and here's the important point,e mr. president, but i think many people don't know. i thought have to confess, republican friends and their posters and their language people attend a good job. this is the so-called death tax- i think all of america people a$50,000 in the bank and they want to leave that to my kids and the government is going to take 55% of that. 35% 35% of that, what an outrage. oa so let us be very, very clear. this tax applies only, only, only to the top three tenths of% 1% of american families. familsl 99.7% of american families will not pay one nickel in an estatec tax. this is not a tax on the rich. this is a tax on the very, very, very rich.ad

and if my republican friends whh have been successful in doing what they want to do, which is eliminating the estate tax completely, it would have cost, mr. president, our treasury, raised the national debt by a trillion dollars over a 10 year. period. famy families like the walton familye of wal-mart fame would have receivedre this one family but a $30 billion tax rate.ve so i find it hard to believe prr that when we are talking aboutwg massive cuts in programs foruge working families, when we have this huge national debt, that anybody would be a clean to lowering the estate tax rate ofi 35%.t that is what this agreement does bad idea. and once again, while the agreement on estate taxes for le two years, once again, there is very little doubt in my mind for

that the republicans will continue to push for lower and lower and lower estate tax rates. c thi because what they want and i pet think president kyl has been clear about this, they want to permanently repeal the tax.he that is a trillion dollars in . tax breaks to the top three tenths of 1%. so i think were down about halfe there and that's another reason why this agreement does not make a whole lot of sense.t point th mr. president, ii would say thirdly and here's a veryten important point that i think is not yet gotten the attention idat it deserves.ax hol and that is this agreement contains a payroll tax, which ww would cut $120 billion from socl social security payroll taxesina for workers. i think there are a lot of folks out there who say well, this is pretty good. i'm a worker. my contribution will go from

6.2% today down to 4.2%. paycheck.'s let's take a deep breath and dee let's think about it for a whats second.ng let's understand what this whole thing is about. thisll payroll tax concept as id understand it originally startea with conservative republican. p i knowoi the vice president recently made the point is is ie virtually a republican idea.iths why did the republicans come upe with thisll idea?ve in well, these are exactly the same people who don't believe in social security. s these are the same people whorle either want to make significants cuts in social security or elsec they want to privatize social te security entirely. and here's the point. divert funding that is supposed to go into the social security l trust fund, which is what this payroll tax holiday does.rust

this is money that goes into the social security trust fund is now being diverted, d cut back o order to provide financial support for workers. but that is a lot of money not going into the trust fund. but the president announcers ar. saying is not to worry because that money will be covered by that is a very, very bad and bep dangerous precedent.y he gives up until now, what social security has been about his 100% funding from payroll contributions, not from the general tech space. again, is once again, this is a one-year of r program. the loss of revenue going into social security can be covered by the general fund. but we have a $13 trillion national debt. geral how much longer with the general fund put money into social security. is it a good idea for the general fund to be doing that? so i would argue, mr. presidenti

that this is not a good idea.rwe this is a very dangerous step sc forward for those of us who believe in social security. this is not just bernie sanders, sameness. ctive, mr. president, one of the more or gro effect does and i thinkee importuned senior groups in america is called the national committee to preserve social security and medicare. many, they have -- at a non sequitur how many, but there's many, mane members all over this country.an another active in the state of vermont. and i want to read to you from t press release that they just sent out the other day. and this is the headline on it at the national committee to preserve social security and medicare.ning cutting contributions to social security signals the beginning of the payroll tax holiday is anything comes but. and this is what they say. this comes from barbara kelley.

barbie is to solve the house of representatives. she is now the president and ceo of the o national committee to s preserve social security, one of the strong senior groups inays n america and this is what barbara said in ad quote. even though social security contributed nothing to the current economic crisis, it hasl been bartered in a deal thatcuts provides deficit busting tax cuts for the wealthy, diverting ax0 billion in social securitylt contributions for so-called taxe holiday may sound like a good deal forrs workers now, but it'f bad business for the program that the majority of middle-class seniors will rely y and that's what the national committee to preserve social security and medicare says about anat agreement and i agree witht them.at so for all of us who understand that social security is life ann

death for tens of millions ofs americans today and will bepeles vitally important for working people as they reach retirementa age, that we understand that social security has done a greaa job.g mr. president a few minutes agod you were on the floor talkinge about the strong work that are federal employees do in youror absolutely right. sometimes we also takete for granted that social security has been e an enormous success. it is exactly what those people who created it wanted it to do. nothing more, nothing less. it succeeded it has taken millions and millions of seniors out of poverty, given them an element of security. it is also help people with dignity. orphans are also getting home. s for 75 years it has worked well. it has a $2.6 trillion surplus today and it can pay outt to m

benefits for the next 29 years. it is strong. we want to make it stronger.uchn this payroll tax holiday and tha afraid is a step very much int the wrong direction and that is one of the important reasons whe this agreement between the president and the republicans should be d defeated. mr. presideemnt, included in the agreement are a number of business tax cuts.say that s and i'm not going to be here to wy that something may not for.e some of them may work. work be some of them will work bettertte than others, the whole list of them. but this is what i will say. o political spectrum believe that if we are serious aboute're addressing the horrendous economic crisis that we now,.8% 9.8% unemployment, that there are far more effect of ways of creating the jobs that we have t

to create the most tax proposals. with corporate america alreadycn fitting close to $2 trillionoram it's not that her friends in corporate america don't have any money with that to help them. g$ they got $2 trillion cash onn hand. the problem is not, in my view, that corporate taxes are toosn'e high. the it is that the middle class simply doesn't have the money ts purchase the goods and productso that make ourno economy go and create jobs. so i think that if our goal is to create the millions and millions of jobs that we need and if our goal is to make our in a very tough global economy, i would much prefer -- i think most economists would agree witr me, that a better way to do

jobs we've got to create is to s invest heavily in our our the truth is i don't think anyonee disputes this.intr the infrastructure in the unitel states is struggling. a point more detail about that inrmation on later. i've got some very good information on it. but, you know come you don't have to be a civil engineer to t know that.ay all you have to do is get in your car and drive someplace. and in my state and all over to see our rows that are in roat disrepair. you're going to see bridges thas in some cases have actually bee. shut down. see you're going to see water systems. i remember, mr. president, as ie berlin, vermont, secular city and the state of vermont.piece and the mayor there showed me an piece of pipe.eer he said you know, the engineer who helped develop this water system and laid the pipe, he went off after he did this work, you enough to fight fight in the

war. and i knew there was a catch line coming. said itas i said well, what war was that? he said it was the civil war. so you're talking about water pipes being made in vermont. and this is true all over the te state, late in the civil war. we and the result is we lose an enormous amount of clean water y every day through these, water pipes burst the united states of america. we can put people to work, improving our water system, our wastewater plants for expensive proposition to develop good wastewater plants. i was a mayor. it was an expensive proposition. roads, bridges. mr. psident furthermore, mr. president, ioul should tell anyone here a railrt system, which used to be the wor greatest system in the world is now falling way behind every other major country on earth.uls in vermont, as a result of this

in v this package, which did a whole lot of very good thinks the state of vermont, one of the things we were able to do is use $15 million the federal fund private money to make major repairs on one of our important railways in the state. but we remain far behind most of the countries around the industrialized world, exploding in terms of the numbers of high-speed rail lines that they. have.ollers nd to our airports need work.f our air controllers need to be outdated in terms of technology they have, they used to make our flight safer. and the point here is that whatt most economists would tell you is when you invest in intructu infrastructure, you create -- te you get a bigger bang for the me buck. you create more jobs for yourn investment than in most instances giving a variety of tax breaks to the corporateworl.

world. and second of all and not an importantly, when you invest in improving the future of thisustc country and making us morey productive. which it's not just creating jobs. it's creating jobs for a very specific purpose, which makes yu our nation more productive and efficient. mayor. and thirdly, let me tell you something is a former mayor. infrastructure does not get better if you ignore it. you're you could turn your back if the you're a mayor or governor on the roads and on the highways because you don't have the money to fix them t today. bette income you get better next year. at some point they're going to have to we may as well do that right now. so i believe that the moneycome in a very substantial sums oft d money in this agreement between the president and, republicans, which goes into tax breaks for corporate america, could be much better spent, more effectivelyte spent on infrastructure.opsition

another point i want to make in opposition to this agreement is, that what we have heard from the president and others is that you book, this is a compromise.an't you can't get everything youere, want. you can't get everything we want around here. that's true. but one of the examples of the f compromise is an extension of unemployment benefits for 13ery, months. well, let me be very, very clear. in the midst of a serious and we major recession, at a time whena millions of our fellow americank are not only out of work througf no fault of their own, but they have been out of work for a very, very long time, it wouldo be in my view of moral and wrong to turn our backs on thoseenefis workers. their unemployment benefits are going to be running out soon and it is absolutely imperative that

benefits for the 2 million workers who lose them. but here's the point i want to make, mr. president.ple make thi some people say that this isnt . come on guys.t gave republicans gave on unemployment, the president gave on extending tax breaks for the rich, itrea. better. the but here's the point. i don't believe honestly that the republican support for extending unemployment benefits really constitutes much of a a the compromise. that because the truth of the matter is that for the past 40 years, d past 40 years, under both democratic and republican administrations, under the leadership in the senate and the republicans, it has beenwhever e bipartisan policy that whenever thene unemployment rate has bee, about 7.2%, unemploymentn insurance has always been

extended. so what you have had his long-standing bipartisan policy. that's what we have always donef that is what we should be doing in the future. i do not regard the republicans are now supporting what theirunm party has always supported for e unemployment becoming high price. cannot see that as a compromise. i see that is what has been going on in this country and ini the senate for four decades. mr. president, i talked about the negative aspects of this th, proposal, but i am going to be the first to admit that of course there are positive and good agreements in this. t and what are they? what are some of the positive aspects of this agreement? let me just list them off.stly d number one, i believe very strongly and i know the president does, that it is absolutely imperative that wetax extend middle-class tax cuts fok

90% of the american people. i don't think there's been any debate about that. when the median family income has gone down by over $2000the millions of our people today work longer hours for low wagesc to more people can't afford to send their kids to college or take care of child care, i think it makes absolute sense. absoluy i don't think anyone denies that it is absolutely imperative thas we extend middle-class tax cuts and that's what this provision does and it's the right thing. a furthermore this agreement, we e have an extension of the earned income tax credit for working a americans and the titles and tan credits are also in there. everyone of these agreements isv very, very important. ame these programs will keep millions of americans from slipping out of the middle clasf into poverty and they will allow millions of americans to send

their kids to college. so i'm not here to say that there is not anything of value e in this agreement between the r president and republicans.ight they are. and we've got to fight to make sure all of those programspaages remain in the final package when it is passed from when the finaa package is passed. when they look at the overall ad agreement, we must put it in a a broader context matters what will passage of this legislatior he for the future of ourook at t country. and in that area, if you look at it inhe that context i think the evidence is strong that it is sd just not a good agreements and not something that should be passed. would mr. president, passage of this agreement would mean that weof would continue the bush policyt of trickle down economics for am least twoor more years and thats not a good thing to do. because i think is mosty, americans know that philosophy,

that's economic approach simply soes not work. i the evidence is quite overwhelming. i don't think there's much ding debate. the median family income duringb bush's figures kutztown byte $2200, when we end up losingov p over 600,000 private sector jobs federal level, i don't see how o anybody would want to continue that philosophy. but that in essence is what will happen if this disagreement is passed. and i want to make another point here about what happens if -- ib i keep this from happening, wha? would happen if this agreement would pass, if anything would o seriously believe that ourell, w republican colleagues then click okay, tax breaks for the very richest h people.

would lower the tax rate on the e have estate tax is a victory for millionaires thate' we're goingt go g home. when a coin to continue to say. i don't thinki so. all. we're already doing or sounding about where our republican friends want to go. a the president put together what i thought was a very poorficit reficit reduction commission. i thought that the folks on that were not reflect is that the pe. american people. i thought there was a very muche big business, corporate partiality they are. and the initiatives that came out of that commission, whichde, fortunately didn't get the 14 votes they needed, suggest to mo that those of us who are class concerned about protecting thewg needs of the middle class andusi workingng families, we're goingr have to be pushing back pretty hard for what's coming down the pipe. i think that what we wille be

seeing is that if this proposalp negotiated between the president and republicans this past, whats you'll be seeing within a fewat, months are folks coming here onl the floor of the senate and this is what they'll say. what? josé you know what, deficit is high, national debt is too high. and yes, zero yes we took the to national debt and give you tax y breaks to billionaires, but that's the way it goes. deb we're going to have to do withaa their national debt. wi and the threpublicans and the republicans will tell us we have a great way to deal with it. we've given tax breaks tobut not billionaires, but now what we're going to have to do is startuts making deep cuts in social security and that deficit reduction commission started paving the way for that very cut substantial cut in social security. maybe we'll have to raise the socialent age in security to 69 or 70. to maybe we'll have to make cuts i. medicare. beginnio

they will have to make cuts in medicaid. when i think were beginning to see in the state of arizona now what goes on when you make deep, deeo cuts in arizona, in medicaid. in arizona right now there are people who are in line, who nee. transplants, who will die if they don't get transplants.d arizona's result of legislation that they pass their, they aree, saying to people, young people, sorry we can't afford to give you the transplant and you'reveo well, is that what we're looking forward to seeing all over america? i certainly will do everything o can to prevent that. o we're certainly going to see attacks on environmentaln protection on education.f some of us believe that if this countrsy is going to prosper, sueed in succeed in the global economy, we've got to have the best educational system in the world from childcare to college. right now it is extremely difficult for middle-class families to send their kids to t college.whsoever t does anhayone have any doubt

whatsoever that republican friends will not come back and say we can't afford to raise taxes we have in recent years. we have support working families who tried to cut, cut, cut.pretn ies would suggest that the argument that if we pass this gs agreement it only gives them to cut programs that benefit working families and the workin class. but let me aislso say that thery is also doubt in my mind butubln many, not all, but many of my at republican colleagues wantha to do.ack and that is they want to move this country back into the 1920s when essentially we had an economic political system which was controlled by

big-money interests. had no for working people metaclass that no programs to sustain them at things got bad and when theyr got six.ere labor unions were very hardiworr because of anti-work ofy legislation. and that's what they want. they don't believe in things like the environmental protection agency. they don't believe in things like social security, medicare, medicaid and that is the fight o we will be waging. i think the surrender on this iy simply to say that we're going to be waging fight after fight starting within a couple ofnow, months. now mr. president, president obama has said that he thought as hard as a he could againsthe wealthy and extension and well, may unemployment. well, maybe, but the reality is

that that can not be waged inside the beltway. is what our job is to appeal to the vast majority of the american people to stand up and to say wait a minute, i don't want to a i don't want to see my kids ando grandchildren paying higher taxes in order to get tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. the vast majority of the people american people do not supportro that agreement in terms of giving tax breaks to the veryo rich. our job is to rally thoseeople g people. and i would like very much to see the american people saying to our republican colleagues,ole democratic colleagues, excusearo me, don't force my kids to have a lower standard of living in order to give tax breaks to the richest people in this country.l and what the president and all g

that should be d call up members of the senate. call it the members of the house and six tease me, how about representing the middle-class and working families for a wealthiest people in this country? that's what democracy is about.o this fight is not going to be one inside the beltway here in t senate debate. won when it is going to be one when the d american people stand up and say wait a second, we cannotpeoplehe continue to give tax breaks topm people who are doing phenomenally well right now. we we can't give tax breaks to the rich when we already have theny most unequal distribution of coy income of any major country on earth. earns the top 1% earns 23% about income americans, more than the1 body 50%. they don't need more tax breaksr to be paid for by their kids and

their grandchildren. in my view, mr. president, thehe vast majority of people are behind us on this issue. but they have got to make theiro voices heard through their to t senators, to their congressmen. then when they do, i believe agreement, which protects the middle-class and working families and not as a boondoggls for the wealthiest people in co. this country. it is important to put the agreement that the president struck with the republicans in a

broader context. j you can just click an agreement unto itself. you have to look at it what is going on in this country todayid both economically andand politically. and iny my view and i think iof speak for millions and millions of americans on this, there is , war going on in this country and i'm not referring to the war in iraq or the war in afghanistan.t i'm talking about a war being waged by some of the wealthiest, sst powerful people in this country against the working families of the against the disappearing and o shrinking middle class of our country. the billionaires of america are on the warpath. they want more and more and more. and that has everything to do

with this agreement reached between the republicans and the pres president.id mr. president, in 2007, the top 1% of all income earners in thes united states made 23.5% of allt income. and they repeat that.r the top 1% earned over 23% of all income. the that is more than the bottomere, 50%.0% 1% here, 50% here. very for the very, very wealthy in, the country, that's apparently not enough. top the percentage of income going to the top 1% nearly tripled since the 1970s. now all over this country, frustrated.s it's true all over america.peope but one of the reasons that

people are angry and frustrated in hard. and the state of vermont, i can tell you they're people that b, don't work one job. t they don't work two jobs. there are people who were working three jobs and for jobs trying to cobble together in for income in order to support their families. and i suspect that goes on all across the country. the people are working harder wi and harder. in many cases their income is going down. fact is that 80%, 80% of all new income earned from 1980 to 2005 has gone to the top 1%. let me repeat that because that's an important fact.the amr and i think that explains why the american people are feeling as angry as they are right now.n they're working hard and i'm not going in place. in many cases their standard of

living is going down.ctuall 80% of all income in recent which is people become much richer. middle class shrinks.mill billions of americans fall out of middle class into poverty. t -- b but that is not apparently enough. grieving. they need more. 50 million is not enough.lion is they need 100 million. that's enough, they mean to billions. i'm not quite sure how much they need. when will it stop.d. today in terms of wealth is supposed to income, the top 1% now owns more wealth than the ns bottom 90%.more you know, mr. president, we went to school and is to than the textbooks about latin america

for example used refer to some of the countries there which are called banana republics, countries in which a handful ofl controlled economic and political life of the nieation. but i want to get the american people to accept, but we are not all that far away from thatt rey reality today. the top 1% have seen a tripling of the percentage of income thee earn since the 1970s.%, the top 1% on a 23% of allhe boo income, more than the bottom now 50%. the top 1% now owns more wealthm than the bottom 90%.atic socty. this is not the foundation of a democratic society. that is for the oligarchic society. but the rich get richer, middle apparently that is not goodea enough for some of the richestd people. and i say some of the richest because there a lot of folks there who have a lot of money who do love this country, who de want to do the right thing. there are some who want more,

more, more. that's what they need. for example, dissecting calls me and cause many people in the thi country. their horrendous recession that we're in right now, where t millions and millions of people have lost their jobs, they've lost their savings, they've losj their homes, this recession is y caused by the greed and recklessness and illegal caused behavior. i'll talk more about this laters the illegal behavior on wall st. street. so these guys they agreed resulted in the most severe economic recession since the great depression.d the american people bailed them out. and now two years after the bailout, guess what? they are giving themselves more compensation than they ever have.so they're so they are saying to the american people, sorry we caused this recession because of our

creed. sorry you're unemployed. sorry you lost your house. but you know what, that's not really all that important. what is important is that i amf wall street continued to get tens of millions of dollars in n compensation. how can i get by on one house it need five houses, townhouses, three jet planes to take meal of sorry american people, we've goe the money, we've got the power.t we've got the lobbyists here oni wall street. tough luckst or the world, get used to it.t. the rich get richer.t enoug middle class ranks not enough, not enough.ery the very rich seem to want moree and more and more and they are e prepared to dismantle the political and social order in order to get it. they are economic distribution.

t then the wealth is one thing. but then we're talking about as politics. and what happened last year as i think most americans know if tha ng strange decision. the supreme court decided that corporations are people and the, have the right of freedom of rit speech and they have the right without disclosure. all of desisted the citizensough united supreme court decision,ou the corporate heads can put asno much money as they want inton, a campaigns all over the country. in the last campaign that's what we saw. moneynto billionaires in secret, justry. pouring money into campaigns all over the country. democracy? she's got a handful of billionaires probably dividing up the country to put this mon o amount of money in virginia, o

vermont, wherever?ever. but that's what they're able to do. so the rich get richer and they don't sit on this money. what they then do is use a to to elect people who support them, o to unelect people who opposeir their agenda.itical and they use their politicalsed power to get legislation passed, wealthier. mr. president, one of the anifestations of that is in fact the agreement reached the president and the the republican leadership. the wealthy contribute huge sums of money into campaign. hav lobbyists around here with lobbyists around here with corporate america. what they are going to get out of this agreement are huge, hugt tax breaks that benefit is themselves. shoul and that is not what we should be supporting. as i mentioned earlier, we

should understand that this legislation, disagreement is really really just the beginning of an assault on legislation anf programs that have benefited the yeerican people for 70 or 80 years. mark my words.nsive eort there will be an intensive effort to privatize social security and medicare and asart medicaid. furthermore, as part of they republican agenda, they want to, expand. and it's not only republicans here in sa. some democrats as well. e they want to expand our disastrous trade policies so that large companies in this country can continue theirrican efforts to outsource american jobs to china and other low-wage i think any objective analysis of our trade policy have shown g

that it has been a grotesque o failure for ordinary americans. hard to c talculate exactly, buf think it's fair to say we have lost millions of decent paying jobs. during the buss.h years alone,st 40,000 factories in this country is that down. we went from 19 million2 manufacturing jobs to 12 millior manufacturingin jobs. and in this country historically, manufacturing jobs are the backbone of the working class of this country. that's how people made it into the middle class.health car fifa had these health care benefits. and every day, we're seeing corporate america would prefer to do business in china or other low-wage countries. i returned from a trip to vietnam last year.ear. beautiful country. people there work for 25, 30 cents an hour.times whenou go sometimes when you go to a

store, you may see a shirt made in bangladesh.made by a shirt in all likelihood is made by young girl who came inee from the countryside into thenow city, one of the factoriesn there. and the good news is inage a bangladesh the minimum wage a number of months ago waswas dou. doubled. minimum wage of bangladesh wasro doubled. c it went from 11 cents an hour to 23 cents an hour.le our american workers going to be able to compete against make desperate people who make 23 cents an hour? in my view i think reflects the views of the american people is that of course we want to see of the people of bangladesh and the people of china do well. but they don't have to do well at the expense of the american middle class. e we do not have to engage in awee race to the bottom. our goal is to bring them up, gs not us down. for one of the results of our disastrous trade policies isthea

that in many instances, wages ie the united states have gone down. months you're going to see an intensification of efforts to i t expand unfettered free trade. cont i think i will be a continuation of disastrous policy for american workers. >> let me just personalize this a little bit.

this gentleman, i'm no personal animus to them at all. his they think about a month and a large room. his name is james simon, the ce, of james morgan chase. over the past five years,, mr. simon who is the ceo ofeived jpmorgan chase receivedin $89 million in totaln compensation. i think we now know received hundreds of billions of low-interest loans and other financial assistance from the federal reserve and the treasury department. so mr. diamond received 89 million in total bailed compensation. his bank was bailed out big-time by the taxpayers. but under the legislation that the president negotiated with republicans, mr. diamond is

using one example. nothing personal to mr. damon here will m receive $1.1 million in tax breaks. million i $1.1 million in tax breaks for . major ceo on wall street whorec9 over the last five years received $89 million in total compensation. meanwhile, there is just a contrast to what is going on a, here. two days ago, mr. president, i le legislation which would provide a $250 one-time check to over 50 million seniors and disabled veterans who for the last two years have not received a call on their social security. many of those seniors ando disabled vets are trying to get, by on 14, 15, $18,000 a year. tl

the total package for that bill4 was approximately $14 billion 15 that would go out to over 50 million seniors and disabled sites. we won that vote on the floor of the senate 53 to 45. but just because you got 52 votes in the senate doesn't really mean you win because republicans filibustered. i needed 60 votes. i could not get 60 votes. one i could not get one republican vote to provide a $250 check toe a disabled better in trying to 0 get by on 15 or $16,000 a year. but mr. tiemann, who made $89 billion in the last fiveet years will get a $1 million taxd deduction if this agreement is-w

past. now that they make sense to som. people. it does not make a lot of sense to me. and again, there are no kn particular knowledge.mnim i don't know that i've ever mety john mack in my life. he is the ceo of.o morgan stanl. in 2006, he received a bonus, $40 million bonus, which at then time was the largest bonus ever. given to a wall street executive. rec two years after receivingei thi bonus, morgan stanley received some $2 trillion in low-interese loans in billions from the treasury department. this disagreement, mr. mack will be receiving an estimate of $926,000 tax rate next year. congratulations, mr. mack. you're doing just fine. couldn't get 250 bucks for

disabled but. mr. president, over the past o. five o years, ken lewis, a formr ceo of bank of america received over 165 million in total compensation 2.illion in 2008, bank of america received hundreds of billions of taxpayer backed loans from the fed in a $45 billion deal outurt from the treasury department. what will mr. lewis received if the agreement negotiated between the president and the republicans goes forth? you get a $713,000 tax cut. goe. on and on it goes. ck on i didn't mean to specifically pick on these guys, though some of the wealthiest people in thef country will be receiving a

million dollars plus tax break. and so we as a nation of god to decide whether or not that make a lot of sense. i think it does. . pres mr. president, let me mention that just a couple weeks ago, the fed, federal reserve published on their website some 21,000 transactions that took sr place during the wall street meltdown.le as par that i put into the financial reform bill, because i thought it was important that the american people, for the first time, lift the veil of secrecy

at the fed and get a sense of the kind of money that was lent out by the fed and who received that money. now, it's very interesting -- now what's very interesting is that the american people and the media have focused on the $700 billion wall street bailout now known as tarp. i happen to have voted against that agreement, but in fairness, that agreement was pretty transparent. >> that agreement was transparent. the treasury department put on their web site all of those people who received all of those banks and financial institutions do you want to know where the money went? it's on at the treasury department's web site. but at the same time, a bigger transaction was taking place than t.a.r.p., which got relatively little attention, and that was the role the fed was playing in terms of the wall

street bailout. while the t.a.r.p. issue was being debated during that period, ben bernanke, the chairman of the federal reserving tim geithner, then the president of the new york fed, and a handful of other very powerful people, were sitting behind closed doors, getting ready to lend out trillions -- underline trillions -- of taxpayer dollars to large financial institutions and corporations, with no debate going on in congress. no debate whatsoever. now, on march 3, 2009 -- i'm a member of the senate budget committee -- i asked mr. bernanke to tell the american people the names of the financial institutions that received this unprecedented back-door bailout from the fed. how much they received, and the

exact terms of this assistance. i will never forget that. i asked mr. bernanke for that information. he said, senator, not going to give it to you. not going to make it public. well, on that day, i introduced legislation to make that information public. working with a number of members of the house and the senate, some strange bed fellows conservatives came together. we managed to get into the wall street reform bill, a disclosure provision, and just on december 1st, last week, that information was made public. and let me talk a little bit about what was in that informing made public by the fed. after years of stonewalling, the american people have learned the

incredible, in jaw-dropping details, the fed's bailout of wall street and corporate america. not just wall street. this -- in my view, congress has to take an extensive look at all aspects of how the federal reserve functions and how we can make our financial institutions more responsive to the needs of ordinary americans and small businesses. now, what have we learned from the disclosure of december 1st this is based on an examination of over 21,000 separate federal reserve transactions. more research needs to be done. this is what we have learned so

far. as it turns out, while small business owners in the state of vermont and throughout this country were being turned down for loans, not only did large financial institutions -- and i'm talking about every major financial institution -- received substantial help from the fed, but also some of the largest corporations in this country. not financial institutions. also received help in terms of very, very low-interest loans. so you got every major financial institution, you have some of our largest private corporations, but here's something we also learned, and that is that this bailout impacted not just american banks and corporations but also foreign banks and foreign corporations as well, to the tune of many, many billions of

dollars. and then on top of that, a number of the wealthiest individuals in this country also received a major bailout from the fed. the emergency response -- which is what the fed described their action as during the wall street collapse -- appears to any objective observer to have been the clearest case that i can imagine of socialism for the very rich, and rugged free-market capitalism for everybody else. in other words, if you are a huge financial institution, whose recklessness and greed caused this great recession, no problem. you are going to receive a substantial amount of help from the taxpayers of this country.

if you are a major american corporation, like general electric, or mcdonald's or caterpillar or harley davidson or verizon, no problem. you are going to receive a major handout from the united states government. but if you are a small business in vermont, or in california, or virginia, well, guess what? you're on your own. because right now we know that one of the real impediments to the kind of job creation that we need in this country, is that small businesses are not getting the loans they need. furthermore, what we now know is the extent of the bailout for the large financial corporations. goldman sachs received nearly

$600 billion. morgan stanley received nearly $2 trillion. citigroup received 1.8 trillion. bear stearns received nearly a trillion. merrill lynch received $1.5 trillion in loans from the fed. what is most surprising for the american people is not just the bailout of wall street and the financial institutions and the bailout of large american corporations, like general electric, but i think the american people would find it very strange that at a time when the american automobile sector was on the verge of collapse, and goodness only knows how many thousands and thousands of jobs we have lost in automobile manufacturing in this country -- that the federal reserve was also bailing out toyota and

mitsubishi, two japanese carmakers, by purchasing $5 billion worth of their commercial paper, from november 5, 2008 to january 30, 2009. while virtually no american-made cars or products of any kind of bought in japan, i think the american people would be shocked to learn the fed extended over $380 billion to the central bank of japan, to bail out banks in that country. furthermore, i think the american people are interested to know that the fed bailed out the korea development bank, the wholly-owned state owned bank of south korea, by purchasing over $2 billion of its commercial paper. the sole purpose of the korea development bank is to finance and manage major industrial

projects to enhance the national economy, not of the united states of america, but of south korea. i'm not against south korea. i wish the south koreans al the luck in the world but it should not be the taxpayers of the united states lending their banks money to create jobs in south korea. i suggest we want to create jobs in the united states of america. at the same time, the fed also extended over $40 billion to the central bank of south korea so that it had enough money to bail out its own banks. now, mr. president, at a time when small businesses all over this country -- in vermont, all over this country -- cannot get the loans they need to expand their businesses, i think the american people would find it extremely -- i don't know what the word is -- maybe amusing --

that the fed bailed out the state-owned bank of bavaria -- not pennsylvania, not california, bavaria -- by purchasing over $2.2 billion of its commercial paper. furthermore, when we cannot get support on the floor of this senate to extend unemployment benefits to millions of americans who are on the verge of seeing them expire, i think the american people would find it incomprehensible that the fed chose to bail out the arab banking corporation based in bahrain by providing them with over $23 billion in loans, with an interest rate as low as one-quarter of 1%. so maybe you have to go to bahrain and work with the arab

banking corporation there to get some pretty good loans. but it would be a nice thing, i think, if maybe the feds would start to pay attention to banks in this country. furthermore, the fed extended over 9.6 billion to the central bank of mexico. now, what's interesting about all of this, mr. president, is that we had a very, very vigorous debate here in the senate and in the house, over the $700 billion t.a.r.p. program. every person in america could turn on c-span2 and see what president bush had to say, what senator mccain had to say, then senator obama. it was all pretty public. but what took place at the fed, which amounted to a larger bailout, was done behind closed doors.

over $3 trillion was lent out with zero transparent -- transparency. this is the first time we have gotten a glimpse of the magnitude and the particulars, the specificities, of where that money was lent out and. i think this is not a good thing for this country. the debate was open. people called their senators. that's called democracy. after the t.a.r.p. bailouts took place, all of the loans were put up on the web site, transparency, the american people knew who got the money. but the actions of the fed were done behind closed doors, and i think there were significant conflicts of interest. you had people sitting there at the new york fed who were beneficiaries of this bailout, and that is just an issue we

have to explore. i should tell you, mr. president, that as part of the position we got into the financial reform bill, the gao is doing just that, investigating possible conflicts of interest at the fed with regard to this bailout. but i think the question that the american people are asking, as they read about what the fed did during the financial crisis, is whether or not the fed has now become the central bank of the world, without any debate on the floor of the united states senate or the congress, and without the knowledge of the american people. and i think that that is wrong. so i would hope that out of this effort in bringing disclosure and transparency to the fed, that one of the things that will come will be more transparency

at the fed. mr. president, as i indicated a moment ago, the fed said that this bailout was necessary in order to present -- prevent the world economy from going over a cliff. but three years after the start of the recession, millions of americans remain unemployed and have lost their homes, their life savings, and their ability to send their kids college. meanwhile, huge banks, large corporations, have returned to making incredible profits and paying their executives record-breaking compensation packages, as if the financial crisis they started, never occurred. what this recent disclosure tells us, among many other things, is that despite this

huge taxpayer bailout, the fed did not make the appropriate demands on these financial institutions which would have been necessary to rebuild our economy and protect the needs of ordinary americans. in other words, what they simply did is give out billions and billions of dollars, which were used in the self-interests of these financial institutions, rather than saying, the american people, who are hurting, are bailing you out and now that we bail you out, your responsibility is to do what you can do to create jobs, and to improve the standard of living of the people, many of whom -- whose lives you have severely impacted. let me just give you a few examples of what could have been done and what should be done.

at a time when big banks are nearly $1 trillion in excess reserves parked at the fed, the fed has not required these institutions to increase lending to small and medium-size businesses as a condition of the bailout. in other words, instead of just giving money to the feds -- instead of the fed just giving money to these financial institutions, the fed should have said, we're giving you this money in order to get into it the economy. start providing affordable loans to small businesses. mr. president, at a time when large corporations are more profitable than ever, the fed did not demand that corporations that received this bailout create jobs and expand the economy once they return to profitability. what's going on in america, unemployment officially at 9.8,

in real since -- sense probably 15-16%. wall street earned 40% of all profits in america. they're doing great. but what the fed should have done and should do now is to tell wall street, you're part of the economy. you're not an isolated area living for yourself. you have to be part of the productive economy. you got to lend out money. to small businesses. to start creating jobs. mr. president, my office intends to investigate whether these secret fed loans turned out to be direct corporate welfare to big banks and they used the loans not to reinvest in the economy but rather to helped back to the federal government at a higher rate of interest by purchasing treasury securities. we don't know that. maybe it's true. maybe it's not true.

we'll take look at it. in other words, did the feds give one-half of 1% loans to a bank and that bank then purchased a treasury security at 2 or 3%? if so, you have a 2% profit margin, and that is nothing but corporate welfare. the goal of the bailout was not to make wall street richer. the goal was to expand our economy and put people to work. furthermore, mr. president, you know as part of the t.a.r.p. agreement, there was an effort to say to the financial institutions that, we're not bailing you out in order for you to get huge compensation packages. we're not going to give you federal money so that you can make all kinds of money. we put limitations on executive compensation. did the fed play the role of allowing some of the large

financial institutions to pay back the t.a.r.p. money, use the fed money, and then continue with their very, very high executive compensation? don't know that. it is worth investigating. furthermore, mr. president -- this is an issue that i have worked on for a number of years. you know, every major religion on earth, christianity, judaism, islam, you name it -- has always felt that usury was immoral. and usury is when somebody doesn't have a whole lot of money and you helped them -- you lend them a lot of money, you that's immoral. every major religion, all great philosophers have written about this. and yet today, mr. president, we have millions of people in our

country -- and i hear from vermonters every week on this issue -- who are paying 25% or 30% and in some cases even higher interest rates on their credit cards. 25%, 30% interest rates. that is getting blood out of a stone. and yet many of the credit card companies were bailed out by the taxpayers of this country. what the fed must do is say to those companies, sorry, you can't continue to rip off the american people and charge them 25% or 30% interest rates. now, as it appears, the four largest banks in this country, which are bank of america, j.p. morgan chase -- j.p. morgan chase, wells fargo and citigro citigroup, issue half of all mortgages in this country. four huge financial institutions

issue half of all mortgages in this country. now, that unto itself is a huge problem. problem. unto itself is a huge problem. the issue half of all mortgages. two-thirds of all credit cards. and that speaks to another issue about the need to start breaking up these financial institutions. when you have a handful of banks who have received huge bailouts from the federal government, who are issuing two-thirds of the credit cards in this country, it seems to me to be somewhat absurd, somewhat absurd, that the fed did not say to them, sorry, you can't charge people 25 or 30% interest rates on their credit card. and the same principle applies to the mortgage. i don't have to tell anybody in this country that we have seen millions of folks lose their homes through foreclosure, and once again, we see the four

largest banks in this country -- bank of america, j. p. morgan chase, wells fargo, and citigroup, issue half of all mortgages in this country. for banks issue two-thirds of the credit cards, half of the mortgages. we bail these financial institutions out. don't they have some responsibility -- some responsibility to the american people? how many more americans could have remained in their homes if the fed required those bailed-out banks to reduce mortgage payments as a condition of receiving these secret loans. >> in terms of the interest rates on credit cards, a lot of people don't know this -- but right now the banks are able to

charge as much as they want to charge, but in fact credit unions are not. right now we are looking at a situation where over one-quarter of all credit card holders holdn this country are now paying interest rates above 20%, and in some cases as high as 79%. and in my view, mr. president, when credit card companies charge over 20% interest, they are not engaged in the business of making credit available to their customers. they are involved in extortion and loan-sharking. nothing essentially different than gangsters who charge outrageously high prices for their loans and who break

kneecaps when their victims can't afford to pay them. so that's where we are right now. i get call -- and i'm sure every other senator gets calls -- from constituents who are going deeper and deeper into debt because they can't pay 25 or 30% interest rates on their credit cards. we bailed out the credit card companies. there was no provision that said, stop ripping off the american people. stop these companies from committing usury. and we are working on legislation which would say to these private banks, not to charge anymore money for the credit that they provide than do the credit unions. going to be a tough fight, because the lobbyists from wall street are all over this place. wall street spends huge amounts of money in campaign

contributions, and at it going to be tough. i think we need to pass that. i think the fed needs to be much more active in terms of what kind of interest rates credit card companies should be paying. mr. president, today i'm going to focus a lot, obviously, on an agreement reached between the president and the republican leadership that i think does not serve the american people well. one of the areas, as i mentioned earlier, where i think we could do a lot better in addressing the crisis of high unemployment in this nation, is by investing in the kinds of money we need in our infrastructure. according to the american society of civil engineers, they

graded america's roads, public transit and aviation, with a d and said we must invest 2.2 trillion over the next five years simply to get a passible condition. passible. unfortunately, in the agreement struck between the president and the republican leadership, to the best of my knowledge, not one nickel is going into investing in our infrastructure. and let me tell you why we need to invest in the infrastructure. a, that's where you create the millions of jobs that we desperately need in order to get us out of this recession, but second of all, we need to invest in infrastructure because if we don't, we will become less and less competitive internationally. according to the national

service transportation policy and revenue study commission, 225 billion is needed annually for the next 50 years to upgrade our surface transportation system to a state of good repair and create a more advanced system. the federal highway administration report said 130 billion must be invested annually for a 20-year period to improve our bridges and the operational performance of our highways. as president, mr. president, one in four of the nation's bridges are either structurally deficient or structurally obsolete. one in four of our brims are either structurally deficient or structurally obsolete and yet in this agreement, struck by the president and the republican leadership, to the best of my

knowledge, not one nickel is going in to our infrastructure. we need to invest in and improve our infrastructure, and when we do that, we can create millions of jobs. mr. president, the federal transit administration says 22 billion must be invested annually for 20 years to improve conditions and performance of our major transit system in my state of vermont, the situation noise different than the rest of the country. nearly 1,000 bridges are functionally obsolete. in recent years we had to shut down bridges, which caused a lot of inconvenience to people who lived in those areas, to workers who had to get to work using a bridge. nearly half of the bridges in the state of vermont have structural dive --

deefficiencies. in vermont, and in other areas of rural america, you have one choice in the vast majority of cases as to how you get to work and that one choice is your get your okay you pay three bucks for a gallon of gas and that's it. that's because rural transportation in this country is very, very weak. we can create jobs building the buses, building the vans we need, making it easier, cheaper, for workers in rural america to get to work. urban mare no different, new york, chicago, washington, dc. are in disrepair. let's expand our public transportation system. makes america run better, makes us more efficient and more prom

tettive and it creates jobs now. not one nickel as far as i can understand. has been invested in our infrastructure in this agreement. mr. president, the united states invested just 2.4% of gdp in infrastructure. 2.4%. whereas europe invest twice that amount, and here is something that i think every american should be keenly aware of and very worried about. i don't have to tell anybody that the chinese economy is exploding every single day in almost every way. in china, they are investing almost four times our rate, or 9% of their gdp, annually in their infrastructure. years ago, i was in shanghai, in china, and i was coming from the airport to downtown as part of a

congressional delegation. and while we were on the bus coming in, my wife noticed something. she says, what was that? it was a blur that went right by the window. i didn't notice it. she tide. turned out that blur was an experimental train they were working on, high-speed rail, which is now operational there, but is similar prototypes are being developed all over china. so, here we are, the united states of america, which so many years, for so many years, led the world in so many ways, and now you're seeing a newly developing country like china high-speed rail all over their country, making their country more productive and efficient, and our cities, our subways are break down, amtrak is going 50-miles-an-hour, 60-miles-an-hour, and the chinese, the europeans are traveling hundreds of miles an hour.

this is the united states of america. maybe i'm old-fashioned. i think we can do it, too. rebuild our rail system, make our country more efficient, and create jobs. mr. president, china invested 186 billion in rail from 2006 through 2009, and according to "the new york times," within two years, they will open 42 new high-speed raillines with trains reaching speeds of 200-miles-an-hour. that's china. so, i think, mr. president, if china can do it, the united states of america can do it. that's the way to rebuild america, make us stronger and create jobs. by 2020, china plans to add 26,000 additional miles of tracks for freight and travel as well as 230,000 miles of new or

improved roads, and 97 new airports. 97. anybody in america have the same problems i have when you good to the airport? and you're waiting on line and you have to deal with all of the problems of older airports? china is building 97 new ones. we're not. we're not. and if we're going to be effective in the international economy, if our kids are going to have decent jobs, it's high time we woke up and began investing in our infrastructure. so that is not only to improve the long-term strength of america, our economic prowess, but also to create jobs right now when we desperately need to do that. unfortunately, in this bill, this tax agreement between the president and the republican leadership, there are many wind of dollars going to tax breaks

for corporations and there's zero dollars going into rebilling our infrastructure. and similarly -- i know there's been debate just yesterday on this issue -- there may be a small breakthrough here -- i don't have to again tell americans, least of all the people of the state of vermont -- about what happens when the weather gets cold and you have to pay very high prices for heating oil. the time is long overdue for us to make the investments we need to transform our energy system away from coal, away from oil. we are spending, as a nation -- and everybody in america should appreciate this -- we're spending $350 billion every single year, a billion a day, roughly, importing oil from saudi arabia. and from other foreign countries. in order to make our economy go, and in order to keep people warm.

350 billion a year. the royal family of saudi arabia, they are doing just fine. don't worry about the royal family of saudi arabia. they got zillions and zillions of dollars. maybe it's a good idea we move to energy independence, that we broke our dependence on fossil fuel, we become far mow energy efficient, and investing in public transportation certainly will do that -- and we move to self-sustainable energies, wind, solar, and bio thermal. and that's what china is doing. many of the solar panels that are coming into this country, not made in the united states of america. made in china. they're big in wind turbines. so i think, mr. president, that the time is now for us to rebuild our infrastructure and create the jobs that we

desperately -- again, unfortunately, despite the enormous needs, infrastructure needs in the country, this agreement, signed by the president and the republican leadership -- does not do that. and when we talk about transforming our energy system and moving away from fossil fuel, and making our homes more energy-efficient, and building solar panels, moving toward solar power in the southwest of this country in new mexico, arizona, nevada -- we have some of the best solar exposure in the entire world. there are estimates that just in the southwest of this country, on federal land, we could provide 30% of the electricity that american homes need if we move toward solar thermal. need to invest in our transmission lines. so, mr. president, what we are talking about here is massive investment to create jobs, make

us energy independent, clean up the environment, deal with the huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, which are contributing to global warming -- that's a win-win situation, and yet we are not seeing that in this bill. i will want to tell you something, mr. president -- i'm going to get into this at greater length later. when we talk about our good friends in the oil industry -- and i'm not here to make a speech about b.p. and what they have done in louisiana and et cetera. i want everybody to know this -- i'm going to get into this at greater length later. last year, our friends at exxon-mobil -- and exxon-mobil has historically been the most profitable corporation in the history of the world -- last

year, exxon-mobil had, for them, very bad year. they only made $19 billion in profit. mr. president, based on $19 billion, you might be surprised to know that exxon-mobil not only paid nothing in taxes, they got $156 million return from the irs. how is that? for those of you who are working in an office, you're working in a factory, you're earning your 30, 40, 50, $60,000 a year, you pay taxes. but if you're exxon-mobil you made $19 billion in taxes -- in profits last year, not only did you not pay any taxes this year, you got $156 million return.

that's pretty good, i think. mr. president, it's not just the large oil companies who do not pay their fair share of taxes. i'm going to get into this a little bit later. but when we understand -- or try to understand why we have such a huge national debt, and a 1.3 or $4 trillion deficit, it's also important to understand that many large and profitable corporations avoid virtually all of their tax responsibilities. in august 2008, the general accountable office here issued a report, and according to this report, two out of every three corporations in the united states paid no federal income

taxes between 1998 and 2005. well, we got a $13.7 trillion national debt, and according to a gao report published in august of 2008, two out of every three corporations in the united states paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005. a amazingly, these corporations had a combined $2.5 trillion in sales, but paid no income taxes to the irs. furthermore, according to a report from citizens for tax justice, 82 fortune 500 companies in america -- i guess that's 82 out of 500 -- paid zero or less in federal income

taxes in at least one year from 2001 to 2003. that's a report from citizens for tax justice. and the citizens for tax justice report goes on to say, and i quote, in the years they paid no income tax, these companies earned $102 billion in u.s. profits. but instead of paying 35.6 bill in income taxes as the statutory 35% corporate tax rate seems to require, these companies generated so many excess tax breaks, they received outright tax rebate checks from the u.s. treasury totaling 12.6 billion. so, mr. president, when we take a comprehensive look at what is going on in this country, why we have a $13.7 trillion national debt, it is terribly important

to understand that while the middle class pays its share of taxes, there are many, many, many large corporations that not only are paying nothing in taxes, they are getting rebates from the federal government. i want to go into this in greater length later on. as a member of the budget committee, i can tell you, we discuss quite often about how every single year, every single year, corporate interests and wealthy individuals stash away huge amounts of money in tax havens, in the cayman islands, bermuda in order to avoid paying tacks in the united states of

america. american corporations turning their books on american people, saying -- mrs. helmsley said, only small people pay taxes. only the working stiffs out there pay taxes. if you're large corporation, got a good lawyer, you know what to do. a good accountant. invest your money in the okayman islands and bermuda. you don't have to pay american taxes, but by the way, as the disclosure report of last week indicated, no problem, you'll get bailed out. things go bad, you'll be bailed out by american taxpayers. mr. president, on and on and on it goes. the rich and large corporations get richer. the ceos earn huge compensation packages, when things get bad, don't worry uncle sam and the american taxpayers are here to

bail you out. when you are in trouble, we just can't afford to help you if you're in the working class or the middle class of this country. mr. president, i want to return for a moment to the agreement that the president and the republican leadership negotiated. i think that is the issue that all of america is now talking about. mr. president, republican leadership says it's a good deal. democrats in the house yesterday said, wait a second. doesn't look to us like it's a good deal. in fact we don't want to bring it up to the floor of the house. and i can tell you, here in the senate, there are many of us who say, not a good deal for the middle class, for our kids, for workers. we can negotiate a better deal. the reason we are trying to delay passage of this agreement -- and i hope very much it doesn't have the votes

here -- is we want the american people to stand up and say, wait a second. it makes no sense to us to be giving huge tax breaks to the richest people in this country, literally, millionaires and billionaires, driving then national debt, so that our kids can pay more in taxes in order to pay that debt off. this is a transfer of wealth. it's robin hood in reverse. they're taking from the middle class and working families and giving it to the wealthiest people in this country. so, mr. president, i believe that the agreement struck between the president and the republican leadership is a bad deal. some good parts to it. but by and large it is not a good deal. we can do better. and if the american people stand up and work with us, if they get on the phone, they've call up their senators, call if their congressmen, if they make their voices heard, and said, enough

is enough, the rich have got it all right now, top 1% earns 23.5% of all the income, that its absurd that we continue to bail out people who do not need any help, who are doing ufine. mr. president, i'm their take a stand against this bill, and i'm going to do everything i can to defeat this bill, and i'm going to tell my colleagues and the american people exactly why in my view, this is not good legislation. and let me just tick off some of the reasons why i think that this bill does not serve the best interests of the disappearing middle class of this country. and i should tell you, mr. president -- i don't know what kind of telephone calls you're getting from colorado but i can tell you that in the last three days alone, according to

my front desk staff, both here in washington and vermont, i think we're over 5,000 telephone calls and e-mails, and well over 98% of those messages are against this agreement. i don't know to what degree that's indicative of what's going on all over the country, but i suspect at it not radically different in other states. the american people are saying, $13.8 trillion national debt, let's not give tax breaks to billionaires, drive up the national debt, force our kids to pay more in taxes and at the same time have republicans slashing medicare and medicare and social security because of the large debt, that we are making larger. and i appeal to my conservative friend. i'm not a conservative. but many conservatives have spent their entire political careers saying we cannot afford to drive up the national debt. it's unsustainable.

i agree with that. so, vote against this agreement because it is driving up the national debt, and in a significant way, it's doing that by giving tax breaks to people who absolutely don't need them. once again, for these people who are earning a million a year or more, they, on average -- on average -- will be getting $100,000 a year tax break. people earning 100 million a year, that number is a lot higher. who believes that makes any sense at all? mr. president, let me give you some other reasons why i think this agreement is a bad agreement. mr. president, says, well, yes, we are going to extend tax breaks for all, including the top 2%. but don't work it's only for two years. only for two years. well, maybe that will be the case. but you know what?

i doubt that very much. i've been here in congress long enough to know that if you extend a tax break, it is very, very hard to undo that extension. because if we can't do it now, if we can't tell our republican colleagues that it is absurd to continue giving tax breaks to millionaired and billionaires, we want do it now, what makes you think we're going to do it in the midst of a presidential election? i have to say, that as somebody who admires and likes the president. the president is a friend of mine. his credibility has been severely damaged. he's going to -- if he's the democratic nominee, he will say i extended it for two years against my will, but don't worry, i'm going to repeal them after two years. mr. president, you tell me who is going to believe him? his credibility has been severely damaged. they're caving in on this issue. we should not be. the polls show us the american people do not believe millionaires and billionaires

need more tax breaks. if the calls to my office are indicative of what is going on in this country, overwhelming opposition to that agreement. so what i'm saying here, is that while the president says, don't worry, this is only temporary. yeah, i don't like it, says the president. don't like it. it's only two years. i have my doubts. i expect that in two years, if this agreement goes forward, it will be extended again. as you know, mr. president, they wanted ten years of an extension of tax breaks for the rich. i have my strong suspicion that that is exactly what will happen, if not made permanent and this country cannot afford to give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires and the middle class pay more. i also want to say, mr. president, that while a lot of attention has been focused on the personal income tax issue, that's not the only unfair tax

proposal in this agreement. this agreement continue the bush era 15% tax rate on capital games and dividends. meaning -- let's be very clear. meaning that those people who make their living off of their investments, if you invest, if you earn dividends -- pill continue to pay a substantially lower tax rate than the working class. our firemen, teachers, nurses. those people are not going to get -- pay 15%. they pay a higher rate than folks who have capital gains and dividends. i think that's wrong. this agreement steppeds those provisions. furthermore, mr. president -- and this is the point that has got to be made over and over and

over again -- this agreement between the president and the republicans lowers the estate tax rate to 35%. under this agreement, the estate tax will decline to 35%. under president clinton, when the economy was much stronger, the estate tax was 55%. now, i know, mr. president, the republicans have done a very good job in trying to convince the american people this is a so-called death tax and that in every family in america, when a loved one dies, the family is going to have to pay 35%, 45%, 55%. i have had people in burlington, vermont saying, what are you doing some i got $30,000 in the bank. i want to leave it to my kids.

why are you forcing my kids to pay such a tax? so let us be very, very clear. the republicans have done a very good job in totally distorting this issue. the estate tax is paid only by the top .3 of 1% in americans. even if you're modestly wealth y, if you're poor, if you're lower middle class, you don't pay a nickel in estate tax if somebody in your family for die and leave you wealthy. not a nickel. this applies not just to the rich, but to the very, very, very rich. so, what the republicans have been arguing for several years now is they want to repeal the estate tax entirely. if they were successful in doing that, mr. president, that would

mean increasing the national debt by $1 trillion over a ten-year period. how is that? and all of the benefits -- not some -- all of the benefits go to the top .3 of%, 99.7% of the people do not gain 1 nickel. what's in this agreement is not what the republicans want, which is a repeal of the tax entirely. but what they do get is a reduction to 35%, with an exemption on the first 5 million of an individual's estate. and here, mr. president, is a chart which indicates just what i said a moment ago. repealing the estate tax would add more than $1 trillion to the deficit over ten years.

over a trillion dollars, and the beneficiaries of it are just the very, very healthy. mr. president, mr. president, let me give you an example of what the repeal of the estate tax will be. i'll read right off this chart right here. sam walton's family -- those are the heirs heirs heirs to the wat fortune are worth an estimated 86.8 billion. one member of the family will receive a $32.7 billion tax break if the estate tax was completely repealed. this is what the republicans want. this agreement between the president and the republicans certainly does nose repeal the estate tax, but it does significantly lower the rates that the richest people, very richest people in the country,

would have to pay. mr. president, two days ago, two days ago, i brought to the floor of the senate a very simple piece of legislation, and i think how that legislation was treated speaks volumes about the debate that we're having now. this legislation said that with over 15 million senior citizens on social security or disabled vet, for the second year in a row not getting a cost of living adjustment, a cola, seniors and votes not getting any cola at all, despite the fact that their prescription drug costs are going up, their healthcare costs are going up, they got no cola. i think in these tough times, it

is appropriate that we provide those -- if we can't get them a cola, let get them a $250 check for our seniors and disabled vets. ... $14 billion. $14 billion. and yet, i could not get one republican vote in support of that. republicans say, my goodness, imagine a senior or disabled vet living on $15,000, $20,000 a year getting a $250 check. what an outrage. we have different priorities, they say. we want to give a $1 million tax break to somebody who earns $50 million a year. and that about says it all.

if you're very, very rich, the if you're very, very rich, the >> if you are a senior or a disabled vet, we can't get you a $250, but i will say, plint, the -- mr. president, the vote here in the senate was 53 people in favor of providing that one time check, 45 against. 53-45, we won, but here in the senate, majority does not rule. republican filibuster almost everything, and it requires 60 votes, and we didn't get the 60 vote, and seniors didn't get their check, and i'll do my best to make sure they do get it. we'll bring that issue back and back and back again. i raise that issue, mr. president, to tell you that one of the very weakest proposals in this greem, totally outrageous, is the decrease in the taxes for

the estate tax. now, there's another issue i want to touch on, and i'm going to spend a long time on this issue because it hasn't gotten the coverage and attention that i think it deserves. this agreement deals with the so-called -- this agreement deals with the payroll tax holiday, and i don't know the president and the vice president and others have been touting this saying it's a good thing because it puts more money in the pockets of the working people, and if you are working now you pay 6.2% in payroll tax. it's going to be reduced for a year to 4.2% and you get the difference, and this is really a good thing. well, all of us want to see

working people with more money in their pockets. that's what we'll do and fighting for. i'll be clear that while on the surface is so-called payroll tax holiday sounds like a good idea for working people, it's actually a very bad idea, and what the american people should understand is that this payroll tax holiday originated from right wing republicans whose ultimate goal, trust me is not to put more money in the pockets of working families, it's the ultimate destruction of social security, and what they understand is that if we divert funding that is supposed to go into the social security trust fund, this will ultimately weaken the long term financial viability of social security, so in other words, what we are

doing is for the very first time diverting money which is supposed to go into the social security trust fund. we're giving it to workers today. it's like eating our seed rather than going into social security, president says, don't worry this will be covered this year by the federal government, but we've never seen that before. i don't want social security to be dependent on the federal government because the federal government has a 13.-- $13.7 trillion national debt, and what i worry about is this is not just a one year provision, but it also could be extended. let me just quote barbara, and i'm glad to be joined here on the floor by one of the strongest fighters for u.s. families, senator brown from ohio, and i just want to say this before i ask him a question or before he asks a question or

whatever the protocol is, and that is i want to quote what the president and ceo of the national committee to preserve social security and medicare said. this is one the largest senior groups in america, and this is what she says, and i quote "even though social security contributed nothing to the current economic crisis, it has been bothered in a deal that provides tax cuts for the wealthy. here's the key point. diverting $120 billion in social security contributions for a so-called tax holiday may sound like a good idea for workers now, but it's bad business for the program that a majority of middle class seniors will rely on in the future." end of quote, national committee to preserve social security and medicare. i'm joined now by my good friend from ohio, and i wanted to ask him his sense of this overall agreement. >> my sense is similar to yours

in that i was just on a tv show a minute ago, and i was asked, you know, the liberals or the conservatives what they think about this, and this is not a liberal-conservative issue. first of all the tax cuts overwhelmingly go to the wealthiest taxpayers, and we're seeing the tax cuts that millionaires and billionaires get from the income tax and from the estate tax, but it's also equally importantly it blows a hole in our budget deficit. in some sense, we're borrowing tens of billions of dollars every year now if this agreement becomes law, we're borrowing tens of billions of dollars a year from the chinese and giving that to our grandchildren to pay off who knows when and giving

money to millionaires and billionaires. it doesn't make sense in the relationship with china or the lost job that come from the china loss policy and it doesn't make sense in underminding the middle class or fairness in the tax system or fairness to our children and grand children and the burden they have to bear to pay off this debt. giving a millionaire a tax cut and charging it to our kids who are paying taxes on unfortunately in the last few years declining wages is morally reprehensible. i know senator's been on the floor two hours now talking about this and analyzing and educating and all of that. i think about the economic policy to this too that it embodies. nine years ago, senator sand everies, -- sanders and the presiding

officer and senator from colorado and i and others voted against the bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 because those tax cuts overwhelmingly went to the wealthy and ended up in national debt. we had a surplus then, and we don't anymore because that blew a hole in that. we surpassed those tax cuts under the belief of those who supported it, president bush and senator mcconnell and so many others that that kind of trickle down economics would grow our economy. well, in the eight years, and this isn't partisan, this isn't opinion, this is fact. from january 1, 2001, until january 1, 2009, president bush's eight years, we had private sector job loss in this country. contrast that with a different economic policy january 1, 1993

until january 1, 2001, during the clinton years we had 21 million private sector jobs created. 21 million private sector jobs created, zero literally job loss because of the trickle down economics, so why would we blow a hole in the budget which this bill does? why would we for our kids pay off, continue an economic policy that clearly didn't work for this country? didn't work for the middle class. we saw wages, not only no job increase during those eight years except for the people at the very top. we saw actual wage stagnation or worse, people did -- most americans didn't get a raise during the eight bush years. americans saw their wages flat or in many cases decline. the superwealthy saw an increase

in their incomes and net assets, and now we are giving a tax break to them? this is not class warfare. i have a lot of people i know with a lot of money. i don't mean ill-will to them, but why help those people who have done so very well, and have our children pay for it. sanders just mentioned one of the largest senior organizations in the country, and what this means for social security. here's my fear, mr. president, that if this is passed, we're going to see our budget deficit increase according to the congressional budget office about $900 billion, or $800 billion and some. as soon as it's signed by president obama even though it was negotiated with the senator leadership and overwhelming number of republicans in the house, i assume we'll vote for it, we'll look at the huge budget deficit that president obama created. from that day on, they go after

ways 20 cut the budget -- to cut the budget. that's okay. i agree we need to deal with the whole picture, but i also know from watching republicans, i saw them in the house when they moved towards medicare privatization in 2003, 2004, and 2005, they had some success, and fortunately we beat back most of it. i remember in 2005 after president bush was reelected in a very, very close race, he spoke repeatedly about privatetizing social security. i know that's what they want to do. in the 1990s, speaker gingrich tried to privatetize medicare, and that's how they cult the budget -- cut the budget by going after social security and medicare. we need to call the president, to write the president, to work with the president to say no deal, and this that has got to be something very different than what it is now because it will cause huge deficits that our

children and grand children will have to bear. it will not help the economy because we saw what the trickle-down economic policies of the bush years did, and it doesn't help the middle class enough, so it's pretty clear to me how it jeopardizes social security, jeopardizes medicare and forces more cuts and pressure on those programs that lifted so many people into the middle class. in 1965 when medicare was first passed, half of senior citizens in this country had no health insurance, half of seniors had no health insurance. today, 99% of seniors have health insurance, something like that 6789 i know that we're a country now with a strong middle class. we've seen that middle class because of the tax cuts for the wealthy trickle down policy and seen the middle class shrink. i don't want that to keep happening. that's why i'm very concerned about this and why i'm working

with the president to say no deal, that we need to much more seriously focus on not running up a huge debt on making sure that the social security's protected on an economic policy that works for the middle class on a tax policy that's fair to the middle class. that's why senator sander's work is important today and taking the floor longer than anybody i've seen taking this and raising and asking questions, educating the public, talking to people all over the country in this chamber and outside to change this policy. >> i'd like to interrupt my friend there and ask him a question. it's an issue he dealt with last night. talk about the kind of priorities that we have seen in the senate recently with just a couple days ago you and i worked very hard to try to make sure that seniors on social security and disabled vets were able to get a $250 check at a cost of

$14 billion, and we couldn't get one republican vote for that while at the same time, republicans are pushing tax breaks of over $1 million a year for the richest people in this country. does that seem -- >> that tells a story, and i'm still -- i came to the floor right after that vote. i supported it all along and cospore sonned senator -- cosponsored senator sanders to support that effort to bring that $250 check to senior citizens and disabled vets. i came to the floor afterwards because i was pretty amazed. i know there's partisanship here and i know some people view the whole purpose is to give tax cuts to the richest people, and that's a good economic e theory that you might have learned at harvard or wherever, but it

doesn't work. it's a nice theory, but it doesn't work to lift all votes. senator sander's effort was to provide a $250 check one time, a cost of $14 billion. one time, for seniors who had not had a cost of living adjustment in two years. it just seemed to make so much sense when the average senior in this country gets about a $14,000 a year social security check, or $1200 a month. that's not the entire income for seniors, but that's a big, big part of it. many seniors live on that, but only another couple $300 a month, so when you see the cost -- you know, there's not inflation maybe for people my age so much in this country, but if you're older, and you've got a lot of health care costs, there is inflation because that's what health care costs seem to go up higher than maybe anything than

higher education and maybe as much as that. it was important that that $250 be provided to every senior in the country and every disabled vet. now, what was so amazing about it was that 42 republican senators signed a letter saying they will do nothing, nothing in the senate until the tax cuts for the rich are approved and signed into law. now, it's -- i've never seen the united states senators engage in a work stoppage or a strike. it wasn't quite like a strike. it's probably illegal for us to strike, i don't know, but it was a work stoppage saying we're not doing anything until you give tax cuts to my rich friends and also to many people in the house and senate whose income is in that bracket. i'm not accusing them of that for sure, but they were not there for a senior citizen living on $1200 a month who

could use the $250 a month. i know that the presiding officer when he travels to colorado springs or goes to denver, i know he hears seniors saying they cut their pills in half because the pripg needs to run for two months or i skipped my medicine today. we know seniors make choices, and we make choices here and the choice we made was 42 republicans blocked and we need 60 voters. we had an easy majority on the 53 votes to do this, but we need 60 votes. 42 republican senators engaged in their work stoppage saying we're not doing anything until we get the tax cuts for the rich, said no to seniors, and i'm just amazed by that, the callousness, and i'm more amazed

when you consider what's today? the 10th or 11th and in two weeks it's christmas day. it doesn't seem to bother them. 85,000 ohioans lost their unemployment benefits. their holiday season is ruined, but i guess all of us go home, and i want to go home and be we conny and kids on christmas. i have one grand child, and i want to be with them as much as i can on christmas, but we have a job to do here, and that is to extend unemployment benefits to people who lost them looking for jobs as hard as they can in a great majority of cases and extending the tax cuts for middle lass and doing the right thing, and so far we haven't done that, and i need to go to the airport, but i want to yield back to senator sanders for his work today. i hope next week when we come back on monday, we're prepared

to do whatever it takes to say no deal on this one, and to make this work for the middle class, make it work for social security beneficiaries, and make it work for unemployed workers. >> i want to thank my good friend from ohio, one of the good fighters of the working families here in the senate, and for his years of effort. he makes an important point. we have a job to do. our job is to represent working families in the middle class, and not the wealthiest people in the country. i've got four kids, six grandchildren. i look forward to spending the holidays with them, but you know what? we have a job to do, and if it means staying here through christmas eve, through new year's, that's our job, and let's pass a proposal that works well for ordinary families and not just for the wealthiest people in this country. i wanted to thank senator sherrod brown for coming down,

and what i want to say now is when you look add this agreement -- when you look at this agreement, we talk now about the absurdity in the middle of a time when we have a $13.7 trillion national debt giving tax breaks to people who don't need it, senator brown and i talked about the dangers inherit in this payroll tax holiday and what it might mean for the future of social security, but i also wanted to make another point, and that is that there are many, many billions of dollars in in proposal going to a variety of business tax cuts. some of them, in fact, might work. some of them, in fact, might not work. what is very, very clear is that if you your goal is to create as many jobs as possible for every dollar of investment, this

particular approach is not very effective. when we talk about tax breaks for corporations and companies, what we should be aware of is that corporate america today, today is sitting on close to $2 trillion in cash. they have to cash on hand, and the problem is not that they don't have the money, the problem is that working people, working people don't have the money to buy the products that these guys are producing. i believe, and not just me, but i think the variety of economists from across the board believe, that it makes a lot more sense if we're serious about creating jobs to invest in our infrastructure, and i say that for a number of reasons. when you put money into roads and bridges and public transportation, you are creating

for every dollar that you spend far more jobs than giving a variety of tax breaks. that's just what is an economic fact. second of all, when you are investing if our infrastructure, not only are you creating jobs short term, you're leaving the country with a long term improvement that increases our competitiveness in a very tough dploabl economy. i mention -- global economy. i mentioned a moment ago, and we'll get back to it later. china is investing huge amounts of money into high speed rail, into their roads, into their bridges, and yet if you drive around certain parts of america, you would think we are a third world nation. you have roads with potholes, bridges which you can't go across, you have rail systems where trains are going slower. there's a study out there that i'll get to later where somebody said that decades and decades ago it took less time to go from various parts of the country to

the other than it does today because our rails are in such bad shape. if we want to make our cree competitive, invest in infrastructure that adds long term value to this country. unfortunately, in this agreement, there is to the best of my knowledge, not one nickel going into infrastructure, and it is important that we, in fact, add provisions which do invest in our infrastructure and create jobs. another point, mr. president, that should be made when we look at this so-called compromise agreement established by the president and the republican leadership is that in the agreement there is an extension of unemployed benefits for 13 months. now, there's 0 question in my mind that that is something that absolutely has to be done right now. senator brown made this point. we have millions of americans

who have to no fault of their own, have lost their jobs. maybe their plants went to china. maybe their companies couldn't get the loans they needed to stay in business. small businesses going under. big businesses shutting down. plants -- no question that we have got to extend unemployment benefits, but what bothers me is that this provision in this agreement which is a good position suggests that this is a hard won compromise, that the republicans really conceded something, and they agreed to a 13-month extension of unemployment benefits, but here's the fact. the fact is that for the last 40 years when unemployment rates have gone above 7.2%, republicans and democrats in a nonpartisan way have come together to say of course we're going to extend unemployment benefits, this is america. we're not going to let working

families who are suffering hard times because through no fault of their own lost their jobs, we're not going to let them lose their homes or not feed their families. this is america. we're not going to do that. americans said that 40 years. democrats said that 40 years. democratic-republican presidents, leaders here in the house and senate have said that, so to say oh my goodness, republicans made a concession to allow the extension, that's not a concession, that's bipartisan public policy for the last 40 years. now, mr. president, i've been expressing to you and the american people why i think this is not a good agreement, why i think this agreement should be defeated, and why i think we can put together a much better agreement, but i do want to be very clear that there are

positive aspects to this agreement which should be mon tanned in an improved proposal. now, let me just mention some of them. this proposal, of course, in addition to extending unemployment benefits for 13 months extends the middle class tax cuts, and that is obviously, obviously, obviously something that we have to do. the reality is that the middle class in this country is collapsing during the bush years. we saw a $2200 decline per year in median family income, and working families are hurting, no question about it, and not to extend that tax cut when 98% of the america, that would be a travesty. we have to maintain those tax cuts, and that is a positive thing in that agreement and must

be maintained. also in the agreement is the earned income tax credits of working americans, a very important provision and the child in college tax credits are also in this agreement, and these proposals will keep millions of americans from slipping out of the middle class into poverty and allow millions of americans to send their kids to college. i'm not here to say to the president or the vice president that there aren't any good proposals in parts of this agreement. there are, but we can do much, much better. now, what the president says, and he makes a valid point. well, okay, show me the votes. show me the votes. he's good at counting. we tried a proposal here, mr. president, as you well know, was it last week? we only got 53 votes which said that we're going to spend the tax breaks for the middle class and not the very, very rich. the president knows as everybody

else knows around here republicans filibuster everything. you need 60 votes. show me the votes. well, this is what i would say. what our job right now is about is reaching occupant to the american people from one end of this country to the other, from california to vermont, including a lot of our very conservative states because frankly, it is not a conservative approach to substantially increase the national debt by giving tax breaks to billionaires. mr. president, how many times have you been here on the floor hearing our republican colleagues give long, long speeches about the danger and the unsustain bilityd of -- unstainability of a $13 trillion debt? you heard it day after day after day. that's their montra. well, if they believe that, why

are they voting for a proposal that substantially increases the national debt for the very unproductive reason of giving tax breaks to the richest people in this country who don't need it? i would hope, and the reason why we have to defeat this proposal and fight for a much better one is i would hope that people throughout this country and vermont and colorado in many of our conservative states, that they come forward and say, wait a second, i do not want to see my kids and grandchildren paying more in taxes because we borrowed money from china to increase the national debt to give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires who did well in recent years, and by the way, have seen a significant decline in their effective tax rate. mr. president, i know you have heard people like warren buff

fete, one of the richest guy in america, his effective tax rate is lower than his secretary's, and all over this country you have examples where very, very rich people who are able to stash their money in the kayman islandses and take advantage of loopholes are paying rather low effective tax rates and in many cases lower than police officers or firemen or teachers or nurses, so i think this is, in fact, our position for this agreement should be tripartisan. you should have conservative republicans, global democrats, i'm an independent progressive. i can tell you, mr. president, that in the last three days my office has received close to 3,000 phone calls, 98% of them against this agreement, probably

higher than 98%, and just a huge number of e-mails also overwhelmingly against this agreement. i suspect, i don't know this for a fact, but this is the kind of message that the american people are sending us all over america, but i think they have to continue to do that. they have got to make it clear so that we can win over at least a handful of republicans and some wavering democrats saying we are not going to hold hostage extending tax breaks to give tax breaks to millionaires or hold hostage extending unemployment for worker who lost their jobs by giving tax breaks to people who don't need them, and i think, mr. president, # if the american people give voice to what they are feeling, which this is not a good agreement, that we can do a lot better, i think, mr. president, we can defeat this proposal and come back with a much, much better

proposal protecting the unemployed, protects the middle class, extends the bush tax cuts for 98% of the population, and protects a lot of important programs, making college affordable, child care more affordable, and transform our energy system. there's a lot we can do if we defeat this proposal. we're not going to do it inside the beltway. that i'm sure of. republicans are very united, but what we have to do is win at least a handful of them, a handful of them, and some wavering democrats so say, mr. president, republican leadership, are you guys going to involve congress in this discussion? i was very pleased yesterday that the democratic caucus said, sorry, we're not bringing that proposal on to the floor, and i applaud speaker pelosi and the democratic caw sus for --

caucus for saying that. it took a lot of courage. i applaud congress welch, by i congratulate the caucus for saying we can do better. we can do better than we're doing, but let me be frank, we're not going to do better unless the american people stand up and help us. we're going to need a lot of phone calls, e-mails, a lot of messages, so that all of our colleagues in the house and the senate understand the american people do not want to see their kids having to pay off the debt incurred by giving tax breaks to billionaires. mr. president, this agreement, you know, doesn't come out of the blue. it comes within a context, but i think it frightens many people in this countriment i think many americans have a thinking --

sinking feeling that there is something very, very wrong in our country today. i know that my father came to this country at the age of 17 without a penny in his pocket, and became the proudest american that you could ever see, and didn't have much of an education, but he knew that this country gave him a great opportunity, and that's the american story. that's what it's all about, and millions and millions of families whether they came from other countries, whether, you know, just made it on their own. i know we've heard a majority leader harry reid growing up in a poor family. that's what america is about, but i think there are a lot of folks out there who believe in the facts that back them up is that there's something wrong, and what's going on in this country is the middle class is collapsing, poverty is increasing, and what people worry about is i have four kids

and six grandchildren. i'm not worried about me, but what happens to my kids and my grand children, and we have wonderful young pages here sitting on the floor, and we wonder about their futures as well, and we don't want to see our kids and our grandchildren to the the first generation to have the lower standard of living than their parents. we don't want to see this economy in the country move in the wrong way. we don't want to race to the bottom. we want to see our kids live healthier and better lives than we do, not have to work longer hours, not getting a lower quality of education or less education. that is not the history of this great country. i want to spend a minute now in talking about one aspect of what's going on in this country that does not get the kind of attention it deserves, and there's obvious reasons why having to do with who owns the media, the corporate control over the media and who pays own

provides the campaign contribution to elect members of the house and senate, having to do with all the lobbyists that surround this institution and wall street and millions of dollars, we don't talk about the issue. the very simple issue i want to talk about for a moment is who is winning and who is losing in the economy? you know, i come from new england. everybody follows the red sox, celtics, and patriots. you want to know who is winning and who is losing, and, in fact, in america, it's pretty clear in the economy who is winning and who is losing. the vast majority of people, working people, middle class people, low income people, are losing. that's who is losing, and it's very clear who is winning. the wealthiest people in this country are doing phenomenally well. they are winning the economic

struggle. in america today, mr. president, and again, we don't talk about this too much, but it's time we did. in america today, we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income in the industrialized world. i haven't heard so many people, mr. president, talk about that issue. why not? our republicans -- the republican colleagues want huge tax breaks for the richest people in this country, but the reality is that the top 1% already today owns more wealth than the bottom 90%. how much more do they want? when is enough enough? you want it all? we already have millions of families today that have 0 wealth. they own less. they owe more than they have.

millions of families have blow 0 wealth. we are living in a situation where the top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 90%. top 1% owns more wealth than the top 90%, and, mr. president, that is simply unacceptable. today in our country, and this is something we must be absolutely ashamed about and i've got to address, that instead of giving tax breaks to millionaires, maybe we should appreciate the fact that about 25% of our children are dependent on food stamps. we should understand that in the industrialized world, the united states of america has as this chart shows, the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. is this america?

is this america? united states today has over 20% of its kids living in poverty. in finland the number is 2 or 3%, norway 4%, sweden 4.5%, swits switzerland, 6%. if you are watching on tv, here's the netherlands in second place at 7%. this is the future of america. we are sitting here talking about an agreement which says let's give huge tax breaks to million tears, and -- millionaires, and here's the reality. we have a rate of childhood poverty surpassing any other country on earth. i don't know if we have a chart for this, but it is the other

half of the equation. what do you think happens when you have millions and millions of kids living in poverty? what do you think happens when you have kids who are dropping out of school when they are 13 or 14? i will tell you what happens because i talked to a fellow in vermont who runs one of our jails, and he said that about half of the kids who drop out of school end up in the penal system. that's what happens, so the result is the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, and then what we end up with is more people behind bars than any other country on earth. you got that? china is a communist totalitarian society, much, much larger than the united states of america which is a democratic

society. we have more people in jail than china and more people in jail than any other country, so what we end up doing, which seems to not be bright, # is we end up spending, perhaps, $50,000 a year keeping people in jail because they dropped out of school, they never found a job, got hopped up on drugs or whatever, and we paid to put them in jail rather than investing in child care, education, and sustaining their families. mr. president, when we look at the context in which the agreement was reached, we've got to see that it takes place at a time when the rich are already doing phenomenally well, while we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. mr. president, during the eight years of president bush, the

wealthiest 400 americans, that's not a lot of people, 400 families, saw their income more than double while their income tax rates dropped almost in half, so you got 400 families, all of whom are already multi, multimillionaires during the eight years of president bush, their income more than doubled while their income tax rates dropped almost in half. i would say to my colleagues here in the senate, we don't have to worry about these guys. they are doing just fine. they don't need an extension of tax breaks. mr. president, the wealthiest 400 americans now earn on average $345 million a year, and they pay an effective tax rate of 16.6%.

how's that? all right? top 400 wealthiest people in this country earn $345 million a year and pay an effective tax rate of 16.6 pngt. they -- 16.6%. they do not need an extension of tax breaks, and by the way, the united states of america this effective tax rate of 16.6% on average is the lowest tax rate for the very rich in america that has ever been, ever been. that we've already given the wealthiest people in this country the lowest effective tax rates in the history of our country. that's what we've done on record at least since they've been keeping records, so the idea of giving these guys who are doing phenomenally well who are already owning more wealth than the bottom 90%, more tax breaks is totally absurd. mr. president, under the eight

years of president bush, the wealthiest 400 americans, we talked about how they doubled their incomes in one year, under the eight years of bush, the wealthiest 400 americans increased their wealth by more than $380 billion. wealth by $380 billion. that averages to almost a billion dollars a family. a billion dollars in eight years. that's the average. some obviously are more. collectively, it and i know this is not an issue we talk about too much, collectively, the 400 richest americans have accumulated $1.27 trillion in wealth. if any of them die this year, their heirs can receive right now all of this money tax-free because the inheritance tax has been eliminated in 2010 as part

of the bush tax -- estate tax repeal this year. mr. president, the top 25 hedge mr. president, the top 25 hedge mr. president, the top 25 hedge fund managers last year made a d combined 25 billion come, a hede combined $1 billion. so if you are a hedge fund goo manager, you're doing pretty, and mentioned a moment ago we tried just the other day to get checks of $250 out with disablei vets senior citizens of social security who haven't had a colat in two years, couldn't get them that check can't look at the top 25 hedge fund managers last year at a combined 25 billion income and republican friends say my

word, my word, we've got to lower their taxes. mr. last year, mr. president, exxonl mobil, the bank of america and other large profitable corporations paid no federal. income taxes. which so what you got is a tax system which is totally distorted in le the sense that it allows large profitable corporations to pay in some cases and in many cases zero. in fact- last year, you know, t would be funny if it wasn't pathetic. and you have if i understood at last year exxon mobil 19 billion nothing in taxes. bank of america, huge bailouts to the american taxpayer, payy,e their executives all kinds of fancy huge compensation

packages.that they got a refund check from th, irs. word, i the people say my word, in order to deal with our deficit, they're going to have to cut back on medicare and medicaid and education. i guess we can afford to allow w exxon mobil the most profitable corporation in the history of pn the world to make huge sums of money and pay nothing in taxes. we can afford to do that come but we can't afford to protect working families in the middle class. mr. president, in the year 2005p one out of every four what corporations in the united of states paid no federal income taxes on revenue ofmaybre w $1.1 trillion. what dout you think?nd may be before we start cutting social security and medicare and medicaid and veterans programs, maybe we want to ask some of at

these very large and profitable corporations to pay at least something in taxes.998-2005 in 1998 to 2005, two out of states every three corporations in thes united states paid no federal g income taxes according to the gao report.perienci sadly the economic pain that millions of people are the experiencing didn't even begin as a result of the wall street bailout. the middle class was collapsing on before that. lot t you contribute a lot to it, butb not all appear that trend has gone on for many, many years.ndl as theet "washington post" an reported last january, and let again i want to put the economic realities facing the middle class in contrast to the economic reality facing the vere

rush country in which. january d as the "washington post" reported last january and i" -- quote, the bush eight years plus two years was the worst for then u.s. economy in modern times. we it was according to a wide rangl of data a lost decade for f ame american workers, and worst decade for american workers.ou do you know why people arend evy furious? to know why they're angry at washington and everybody else? the last decade was according to the "washington post" and the worst decade for american ameria workers. there has been zero net job zern creation since december 1999. twelve years, zero job creation,

high, not only for the generaldt population, but even worse for,e our young people. coll kids getting out of high schoolg young people graduating college- according to the "washington inj post"an in january, middle incoe households made less than 2008 when adjusted for inflation and they did in 1999. in other words, the american economy has turned into a nightmare for tens of millions ld families.seho imagine a middle-income in households made less than 2008i when adjusted for inflation tha. they did in 1999.e to and the number is sure to have difficult declined further than thethey d' typical 2009. certain is the but because of the wall street collapse that certainly is the , case. i so what did they talk about?'ve

to talk but they just demonstrated the people on toptn seen a doubling of their income on their effective tax rates are going down. you're seeing the middle-class i collapsing. and what this agreement says isi we're going to provide his tax rates for millionaires. that is insane.n and only within the beltway couldn't agreement like that be negotiated. he as i mentioned earlier, we have in the last three days receiveds thousands and thousands of phone calls and e-mails to my office. and over 98%, i dare say 99% say this is not a good agreement. don't support it. mr. president, i've been doing on the floor by the very distinguished senator from the state of louisiana and i ask

unanimous consent that i be permitted to enter into a colloquy with senator landrieu. >> is there objection?sanders: without objections ordered. and >> senator landrieu, a thank you very much for joining us. and w' i wonder if you could give the? american people your thought about this agreement and what's been going on. t >> i think the senator. i think the senator -- i think the senator from vermont for his eloquent and passionate and h presentation for hours this morning. he clearly has presented to this chamber and to the americanre people some stark realities thas arean unpleasant.ple mig some people might even find them hard to believe. but he has done his homework. he has documented what he has said.and in and in that that drop, it does make this agreement made between

the republican leadership in the president the president of the united states even harder forann some of us to understand. i said there are pressures on'vo all sides of my time is running out. we've got to make a decision about tax cuts and a short aal we don't have the benefit of several months or even a half af year. i understand the pressures of time. but as ant senator from rob pointed out, how about the pressures of the middle-class? i what about these pressures? the what about this thing? and i was wondering because irmi wanted to ask the senator w frog vermont, i was not able to follow his entire presentation a this morning.great ren did he quote from income and equity in the great recession of report by the u.s. congress joint economic committee a representative charles schumer.e

did you quote from this? directly quoted from a number ow studies, but not that one,el senator. >> i'd like to add in ourport tt quality that according to this report that just came out september of this year, it says income equality has skyrocketed. economists concur that income equality has risen dramatically over the past three decades. middle-class incomes stagnated under president bush during the 1990s under the middle-class incomes grew at a healthy pace.e however, during a joblesspresidt recovery of the 2000 underrevers president bush, that trend has reversed course. into middle-class incomes continue to fall well into the recovery, never remain their highs and i 2001. the report goes on to say, whicb is frightening, which is why i have been raising my voice in opposition so strongly to someoe parts of this package is thatist this report says senator, high y

levels of income inequity may ci precipitate economic crisis. the in other words, if the middle class can't see light at the end of the tunnel and if the economy itself can't grasp a way for thn middle-class to grow, senator, this recession may never and, na matter how much money you give to the very wealthy. mom and this is the reality we are facing at this moment, how to end this recession. it. now republicans are completely democrats were completely, youot know, innocent or vice versa.an' but it's not about who to blame. it's about how to fix it.p and were about to pick up a $980 billion hammer next week in an attempt to fix it before

hitting the nail right. you don't have many $980 billion hammers to pick up your blurb i read this one. so let's get it right.i this is an t important issue before our country. i i think ntthat is what the senas is w seen. am i putting words into your mouth, senator? is this what you're trying to p explain? lu >> the point cannot be colla understated. with senator landrieu is saying is that if you have a collapsing middle class and people unablen. to purchase anything, it impacts do the economy can't grow jobs if people don't have enough money of products made by other a people. and if lall or a substantial pat of the wealth of this nation ahs cruise in the hands of a few, i mean, they get airplanes i nes, guess, but b there is limit toy what they can push. >> and there is a limit to what they can consume.hey can and what the senator saying and what i'm saying and i want to be very clear because a senator and i don't agree on every piece off

legislation. he tends to be a little bit more liberal and progressive in his politics than i am.i on the subject, we are both equally concerned about the aren shrinking of the middle-class. and i want to say from myclas perspective, the senator may have a different view.mes i'm talking about the broad middle class. income of 50,000 to 500,000. now in my state, $500,000 of tng income -- i'm not talking aboutm network. i'm talking about income, is a f huge amount of money. in fact, photographing going to show here that 84% of theouseho household in louisiana -- so when i talk about middle-class, 84% of the households in louisiana make less than 75,000. 84%. naw most people in louisiana,n a most believed there in the middle-class. the 84% make low 75,000.s, and e

so when i use the term middle class we'll have a differentbroc view, i try to say the broad middle class between 55 and 500. if your 500,000 anytime, you're quite wealthy in louisiana. but i realize that we're not new york. we're connecticut, california. maybe if you make 300 or mak$300 $400,000 an am in some of thesee yourself very wealthy are rich.w i think i louisiana standards would be. but this is a i b big nation, si possibly be here. i'm not talking about the wealthy being 40,500,000. california. for what we're talking about in this tax bill is firing $50 billion to give tax breaks to families earning over asaidhr million. put so was the senator from vermont0 said, whether you put your mark at 250,000 or 100,000 oror $0,00

500,000, we can disagree aboutat how about the middle classes. but is there anyone -- anyone, s anyone in this chamber on any side of the idle for many stater they believe seriously, given what the senator from vermontt just outlined, which is really not debatable. sidof i are not just from one side of the aisle or another, but we should actually next week provide $50 billion in extended benefits for the families inlli? america who are making more than a million dollars a year.o great, when the needs of the middle-class is so great, whents there is no evidence suggest seh that even after this tax cut iso that i've seen that convincedwil dean, that the recession will end. and we're doing this for two prf years. what happens, mr. president, if

followed all this money to provide the extension of these n tax cuts in an addition givencor 50 billion to the million go dollars earners in this countrya what do we does that bars somet another trillion and tried again? i think we have to try somethint different. now, i don't know of the senatot another point befo i