mr. sanders: senator landrieu, i thank you very much for joining us here and i just wondered if you could give the american people your thought about this agreement and what's been going on? ms. landrieu: i thank the senator. i thank the senator from vermont for his eloquent and passionate presentation for hours this morning, and he clearly has presented to this chamber and to the american people some stark realities that are unpleasant, some people might even find them hard to believe, but he has done his homework. he has documented what he has

mr. sanders: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: we are not in a quorum call. mr. sanders: in that case i would ask to say a few words. the presiding officer: the senator is recognized. mr. sanders: mr. president, later on this afternoon we're going to be voting on a very simple and straightforward piece of legislation called the emergency senior citizens relief act. this legislation is cosponsored by majority leader reid, senators leahy, schumer, similar rod brown, whitehouse, lautenberg and menendez. and what this legislation would do is at a time when for the second consecutive year seniors and disabled veterans have received no cost-of-living adjustment, ko cola on their sol security, this would provide the equivalent of a 2% increase by providing them with a one-time $250 check. in addition to the senate cosponsors, this legislation is supported by president obama, and i appreciate that. it is

mr. sanders: and i would like to know. the irony, i think, senator landrieu made that point as well, there are millionaires out there who say thank you, i don't need it. i am more worried about the kids of this country or our crumbling infrastructure than giving me a tax break i don't need. thanks investment that's what warren buffet has said. that is what bill gates has said. ben cohen of ben and skwrer reus of ben and jerry's has said. i want to thank senator landrieu very much not only for her being here today, and please continue, but for raising these important issues. ms. landrieu: just one more point and i'm going to turn this back over to the senator. i was on the greta van sustern show last night. she is a tough interviewer but she's fair. it was a tough interview but we debated these things. i think that is important to debate them here, debate it on television, debate them in town hall meetings. she asked me a question i'd like to answer. she said, senator nobody everybody hears anybody say they want to cut spen

mr. sanders: mr. president, as i think almost everyone knows, president obama and republican leaders have reached an agreement on taxes. it is, in my view, a bad deal, and i think we can do a lot better. tonight i want to speak briefly -- and i think i'll have some other senators join me. tomorrow i intend to be back here to speak a lot longer about this issue, because i think that this is an issue that the american people want serious discussion about. because, mr. president, i can tell you that representing a small state, the state of vermont, we have received in the last three days thousands, thousands of phone calls from my state and from other states. and what i will tell you is that 99% of those calls was against this agreement. and what i want to do tonight briefly and at greater length tomorrow is to tell you why i vigorously oppose the deal that has been cut and how we have got to move in a very different way if we are going to save the disappearing middle class of our country. in my view, th

mr. sanders. the president would be the first to agree that there are -- there are aspects of it he doesn't like. rather than threaten our economic recovery, the president believed that this bipartisan agreement was the best way to go. >> so gibbs seeming to approve sanders' philosophical point but not the tactic he used to make it. house democrats are scheduled to meet in a closed door caucus tonight to discuss the tax package. that meeting comes after democratic leaders said they would not schedule a vote on the tax bill without some changes, specifically the higher estate tax. however, house majority leader steny hoyer predicted his chamber would ultimately approve the measure. >> the legislative process as the president said today is a series of taking sol things you want and taking some things you don't want because you think there's a net plus in the action that you're taking so i think that's what happened in the senate and i think that may well happennd will probably happen in the house. >

mr. sanders and others in the city attorney's office to look at potential next steps, and i also wanted to say that from what supervisor avalos' office has expressed to us, there have been good conversations with the industry. the voters that people put up today and last week are horrifying to me. the lack of public notice and lack of community input into the process is outrageous, and i do feel that the public was the right of way is a place that the federal government and state government have some say in, but we need stronger protections, not only raise issue of safety, but also esthetics and whether these boxes on utility poles are necessary and desirable, but it is a process that should be a community one from the local level in my opinion, but i know we have to be careful and legally defensible in what we propose, but the legislation before us is reasonable, and i do think the two-year appeals process makes a lot of sense to me. i wish it could be a shorter appeal, and i do think the industry's concerns have been listened to. on the claim of discriminatory treatment, i think that is

mr. sanders: mr. president, let me begin by adding senators whitehouse and begich as part of this amendment, 4809. mr. president, as i think many people know i have been extremely critical of the agreement struck between the president and the republican leadership. i have spoken out against it and i voted against cloture just yesterday. it is one thing to be critical of a proposal, it is another thing to come up with a better alternative. and i think i have done that today. i think the amendment that i'm offering is, i believe, a significant improvement over the agreement struck between the president and the republican leadership and i would hope very much that we can get strong bipartisan support for it. let me very briefly tell you what it does. first, as i think most americans appreciate, at a time of a record-breaking deficit, it makes very little sense to be providing huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people in our country, drives up the national debt, forces our kids to pay higher debt in the fu

mr. sanders: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: let me begin by thanking my friend from virginia who are doing what is very, very important. i think the essence of what he is saying is that today there are millions of federal employees, people in the armed forces who are doing the very best they can, and in many, many instances are doing a great job to protect our country, to keep it safe, and very often, to be honest with you, these folks get dumped on, and it is important that people like senator warner come here and point out individuals who are doing a great job and the people we are very proud of, so i thank you, senator warner, for that. mr. president, as i think everyone knows, the president of the united states, president obama, and the republican leadership have reached an agreement on a very significant tax bill. in my view, the agreement that they reached is a bad deal for the american people. i think we can do better, and i am here today to take a strong stand against this bill, and i intend to tell my colleague

mr. sanders is saying is completely overblown. host: your opinion is shared by the "washington post" editorial page today. later on the post writes this -- that is the "washington post" today. next call is patrick. good morning to you, sir. caller: good morning. what we need to do is get into those books and stephen and domestically who were the banks that lend it. if you remember correctly, a lot of those were not financial institutions. they changed their status overnight so they could get into the tills and take the money out. secondly, you said these companies had a joint -- a shortage of cash on hand. the fed opened of the lending bank and said, hey, take our money. now we are loaning money to worldwide banks and we have no way of getting that back. and on one last topic, caterpillar. they just issued a bunch of bonds for the first time in non- currency, which is the currency of china, bonds. host: next call to his foreign debt. .aller: i'm a veteran calling please let me make a comment. i want all our veterans to get togethe

mr. sanders: thank you. mr. president, what this debate is about is whether or not we continue to take money from the middle class and working families of this country who are struggling in a way that they have not struggled since the great depression, force their kids to borrow huge sums of money in order to provide $700 billion over a ten-year period to the wealthiest people in this country. mr. president, i hear my republican friends time and time again coming down to the floor of the senate, and they say, we have a huge deficit. we have a huge national debt. and today, what they want to do is to drive that national debt up by $700 billion over the next ten years in order to give huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. so, please, my friends, say what you want, but stop talking about the deficit and the national debt when what you're doing today is driving that debt up by $700 billion over the next ten years. and, second of all, what everybody in america knows is that what's going on in our country

mr. sanders talking about eight hours. we cover the whole thing. you can go to our website c- span.org and our video library or you can also search within the transcript of his eight hours for certain issues to the certain buzz words, that you like to hear him talk about. st. louis, missouri. do you need to be moderate to govern? caller: i think you do. to me, a moderate is someone who can compromise. and even though there are things you don't like, there are other things that are very important that they want to get done, so they have to compromise and take the things that they don't like in order to get the good things that they do like. and president obama is looking out for the middle-class americans and the republicans are not and if anybody thought that his crocodile tears on 60 minutes was anything but crocodile tears i am afraid that they better think again. and i hope that these people are happy with the tea party and who the tea party got back in. host: are you happy with the tax-cut deal president obama negotiated -- are you there? are y

mr. sanders: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i am aware that yesterday by a vote of 83-15 the senate voted to reach -- ask for cloture on the tax agreement reached between the president and the republican leadership. i was in the minority, and i want to very, very briefly -- i spoke on this issue at some length the other day. i will be a little briefer this afternoon, but i think it is important to explain why i think and a number of us think and many americans think this is a bad agreement and that, in fact, we can do a lot better. just a few points. number one, this country has a a $13.8 trillion national debt, our middle class is shrinking, and it is unconscionable to me that we are in the process of providing huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country to drive up the national debt which our kids and grandchildren will have to pay off. i think that that is absolutely wrong. mr. president, during the bush presidency alone, the wealthiest 400 americans saw their inc

collins, schumer, boxer, brown, gillibrand, inouye, nelson of florida, bennet of colorado, sanders and wyden. mr. president, the bill addresses a problem that everybody in the chamber agrees needs to be addressed, and that's the trouble that small businesses are having accessing capital so they can grow and create jobs. we just saw our unemployment rate inch up to 9.8% in november. that's indicative of the fact that our economy is having trouble gaining traction. but we all know that if small businesses expand and grow, our economy will be getting back on track. so if i might, let me just tell you how this bill would help small businesses. under current law, credit unions are doing what they can to help business interests and meet the demands of particularly family businesses, but they are constrained by an arbitrary cap on the size of the amount of loans they can actually issue. in every state, their credit unions would like to lend more. responsibly, i should add, but they would like to lend more, but the federal government gets in the way. what this legislation would do is get the federal gov

mr. sanders talking about eight hours. we cover the whole thing. you can go to our website c- span.org and our video library or you can also search within the transcript of his eight hours for certain issues to the certain buzz words, that you like to hear him talk about. st. louis, missouri. do you need to be moderate to govern? caller: i think you do. to me, a moderate is someone who can compromise. and even though there are things you don't like, there are other things that are very important that they want to get done, so they have to compromise and take the things that they don't like in order to get the good things that they do like. and president obama is looking out for the middle-class americans and the republicans are not and if anybody thought that his crocodile tears on 60 minutes was anything but crocodile tears i am afraid that they better think again. and i hope that these people are happy with the tea party and who the tea party got back in. host: are you happy with the tax-cut deal president obama negotiated -- are you there? are y

and this is not just bernie sanders' analysis. mr. president, there was recently -- and i distributed it recently at a meeting that we held -- a news release that came from the national committee to preserve social security and medicare. and the headline on their press release is, "cutting contributions to social security signals the beginning of the e end: payroll tax holiday is anything but." and what the national committee to preserve social security and medicare, which is one of the largest senior groups in ameri america, well understands is that there are people out there who want to destroy social security and one way you do that is you divert funds into the social security trust fund and they don't get there. now, what the president and others have said is, not to worry, this is just -- this is just a one-year program, just one year. and, in fact, they say, the general treasury -- the general treasury will pay the difference. so the social security trust fund is not going to lose funding. here's the problem. the problem is that

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 economi

and this is not just bernie sanders' analysis. mr. president, there was recently -- and i distributed it recently at a meeting that we held -- a news release that came from the national committee to preserve social security and medicare. and the headline on their press release is, "cutting contributions to social security signals the beginning of the e end: payroll tax holiday is anything but." and what the national committee to preserve social security and medicare, which is one of the largest senior groups in ameri america, well understands is that there are people out there who want to destroy social security and one way you do that is you divert funds into the social security trust fund and they don't get there. now, what the president and others have said is, not to worry, this is just -- this is just a one-year program, just one year. and, in fact, they say, the general treasury -- the general treasury will pay the difference. so the social security trust fund is not going to lose funding. here's the problem. the problem is that

sanders wanted to raise income taxes and estate taxes on wealthiest americans. all three measures were killed to protect the president's delicate compromise with the republicans. mr. obama again called on angry democrats who oppose the deal to get with the program. >> we heard to negotiate an agreement a win for middle class families and a win for the economy. we have can't afford to let it fall victim to delay or defeat. >> reporter: 27 centrist democrats you remembered pelosi to hurry up and pass the bill. "act to send it directly to the president's bill without delay." some house liberal want changes to estate tax provision and worry the 2% payroll tax holiday hurts security. pelosi postponed debate until thursday and instead focussed on repealing "don't ask, don't tell." >> let's make america safer. >> reporter: as they juggled host of issues, senate democrats hit accelerator. >> ewell a be in session this sunday. we hope we can complete what we have to do here. a day or two after saturday. >> reporter: senate, first moved to start ii treaty with russia, but minute minute minute threatened to have the -- jim demint threatened to have the treaty read allowed w

mr. president, i rise today to talk on a matter with my colleague, senator warner. i understood that senator warner and i had the sometime from 4:15 from senator sanders. unfortunately senator harkin used some of senator sanders time. i know senator kirk is coming down to give his maiden speech at 5:00. we have a number of folks that are going to speak quickly today on an issue of major importance to america. our fiscal house is in disarray. our budget process is broken and future generations will end up paying the price if we continue to ignore the difficult decisions required to fix things that this grave threat to this country's fiscal stability. recently the national commission on fiscal responsibility and reform has worked in a bipartisan manner to produce recommendations on how to best address our current levels of debt. while these recommendations may not reflect the beliefs of all members of this body, i commend the commission's members for having the courage and the open minds to tackle the problems. at the very least their recommendations can serve as a starting point for serious debate on how we can ensure a better life for our children and

mr. sanders: with that, i would yield the floor. mr. baucus: mr. president, i yield myself four minutes from the time under control of the leader's time. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. baucus: the national is about to pass a bill that should significantly bolster our economic recovery. the bill we are about to pass will cut rates for families, it will reauthorize unemployment insurance, it will extend the child tax credit and the college tuition tax deduction, it will extend the research and development tax credit, and accelerate depreciation for businesses, it will cut payroll taxes for workers. these are important provisions. but the bipartisan leadership did not include several other important items, several that include important attention. i worked hard to include these provisions in the bill we just passed. but some on the other side of the aisle would prevent their inclusion. these are commonsense provisions that frankly i cannot imagine how any senator could oppose them. one provision i would like to highlight this morning is