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Floor Speech

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I speak with senior citizens all over Vermont and, in fact, in many parts of the country. Just last night, we held a telephone townhall in Vermont, and in our small State, 34,000 people were on the line. I think the reason for that is there is a great deal of anxiety among people in general and seniors in particular regarding the Republican budget proposal that was passed the other day in the House. Seniors and Americans all over this country have reason to be concerned.

At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, the Republican budget would give over $1 trillion in tax breaks to the top 1 percent-- that is billionaires and the wealthiest people in our country. In Vermont and all over this country, seniors are asking: Well, how are they going to pay for that trillion-dollar gift to the 1 percent? The answer is not complicated. They have made it clear. Republicans will be making massive cuts in healthcare, nutrition assistance, affordable housing, and education. These are precisely the programs that working families and kids and the elderly and the sick and the poor most depend upon. The Republican budget would cut Medicaid by $880 billion. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has estimated that if these cuts are implemented, up to 36 million Americans, including millions of children, would have their health insurance taken away from them.

Let's be clear. When we have Republicans in the House passing a budget to make massive cuts to Medicaid, we are not just talking about throwing millions of kids off of the healthcare they need; we are also talking about massive cuts to community health centers, where some 32 million Americans receive the primary healthcare they need and where community health centers receive 43 percent of their funding from Medicaid. So a massive cut to Medicaid is a cut to community health centers and is a cut to the services that 32 million Americans receive, including many, many seniors.

At a time when we have a major crisis in nursing home availability in Vermont and all over this country, let us understand that Medicaid provides for two out of every three seniors who live in nursing homes. A massive cut to Medicaid is a massive cut to nursing homes and the people who utilize those homes. How many seniors would be thrown out of nursing homes if the Republicans cut Medicaid by $880 billion? Nobody knows, but it would be a disaster for working families and their parents. That is for sure.

But it is not just Medicaid cuts that seniors are worried about. Today, nearly 22 percent of people over 65 years of age are trying to survive on an income of less than $15,000 a year. That is an unbelievable and horrific reality. Imagine anyone in America, in any part of this country--let alone a senior citizen--trying to survive on $15,000 a year or less. I don't know how anybody can possibly do that, especially seniors who have healthcare needs and need prescription drugs and who need to heat their homes more than the general public. And it is not just seniors trying to get by on $15,000; half of our Nation's seniors are trying to get by on less than $30,000 a year.

The bottom line is that in the richest country in the history of the world, you have millions and millions of seniors today--people who helped build this country, people who raised us--who are barely getting by in the year 2025.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the OECD, the United States now has the dubious distinction of not only having one of the highest rates of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, we also have one of the highest rates of senior poverty--senior poverty--compared to other wealthy nations.

In America today, according to the latest OECD estimates, 23 percent of seniors are living in poverty compared to just 4.1 percent in Norway, 6.1 percent in France, 9.5 percent in Ireland, and 14.9 percent in the United Kingdom. That is a dubious distinction. That is something we should not be proud of. That is a crisis we should be addressing.

In addition to the poverty that millions of seniors in America are experiencing today, about half of older workers--these are people in the workforce right now, people between the ages of 55 and 64--have no retirement savings at all. You are 60 years old. You have worked your entire life. Half of the people in that situation--from 55 to 64--have no retirement savings at all.

As bad as all of that is, many of my Republican colleagues have proposed making a bad situation--a tragic situation--even worse by cutting Social Security. Some want to cut benefits. Others want to raise the retirement age. Then there are some who simply want to privatize Social Security and give it over to Wall Street.

Well, I strongly disagree. At a time when millions of seniors are struggling to keep their heads above water, I don't believe that now is the time--in fact, never is the time--to cut Social Security benefits. Instead of cutting Social Security and giving tax breaks to billionaires, Congress must expand Social Security so that every senior in America can retire with the dignity and the respect that he or she deserves. Further and importantly to the younger generation, we must also make Social Security solvent for generations to come.

So that is the goal. The goal is to say to seniors all over this country, in the richest country on Earth: We are going to address the fact that many of you can't quite figure out how to buy the food you need, heat your homes, get the prescription drugs you need. You are struggling. You helped build this country. You are our parents and our grandparents. We stand with you.

That is why I have introduced legislation today with 10 of my colleagues--Senators Warren, Merkley, Welch, Padilla, Smith, Van Hollen, Markey, Booker, Gillibrand, and Whitehouse--to accomplish both of those goals. This legislation would make Social Security solvent for the next 75 years. It would lift millions of seniors out of poverty, and it would expand benefits for seniors and people with disabilities by $2,400 a year.

Now, I know that in the world here in Washington where the government is now run by billionaires, $2,400 doesn't seem like a whole lot of money, but if you are trying to get by on $15,000 a year and can't afford to heat your house and can't afford to buy a prescription drug that you need, $2,400 is something that will help.

How do we do this? What does this legislation do? Well, at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when billionaires pay an effective tax rate lower than the average worker, this legislation demands that the wealthiest people in America, the billionaires and others, start paying their fair share of taxes.

Today, absurdly and unfairly, a billionaire pays the same amount of money into Social Security as someone who makes $176,000 a year. A billionaire pays the same amount into Social Security as somebody who makes $176,000 a year. That is because there is a cap on the Social Security payroll tax.

What does that mean? It means, if you make up to $176,000 a year, you pay 6.2 percent of your income in Social Security taxes, but if you make 10 times more--$1.7 million a year--you pay just 0.62 percent of your income in Social Security taxes. If you make $1 billion a year, you pay nothing more into the Social Security fund than someone making $176,000.

Now, that may make sense to somebody--probably to the billionaire class--but it does not make sense to me. This legislation applies the Social Security payroll tax to all income--including capital gains and dividends--for those who make over $250,000 a year. Under this bill, 91 percent of households in our country would not see their taxes go up by one single penny--not one penny for the bottom 91 percent.

Not only is this legislation good public policy, it also happens to be precisely what the American people want. According to a Data for Progress poll, 81 percent of the American people, including 79 percent of Independents and 75 percent of Republicans, support expanding Social Security benefits. So in passing this legislation, it is not only good policy, it is precisely what Democrats, Republicans, and Independents want.

770, which was introduced earlier today; that the bill be considered read three times and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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