-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, as people all over this country understand, we are a nation today that faces enormous crises. Sadly, the continuing resolution passed Tuesday in the U.S. House and which will come to this body very shortly not only does nothing to address these crises but, in fact, it makes a bad situation much worse.

Today, at a time when we have more income and wealth inequality than we have ever had in the history of this country, 60 percent of our people are living paycheck to paycheck. What that means--I grew up in a family living paycheck to paycheck. It means that people are worried about how they are going to afford housing. What happens if their landlord raises the rent? People go to the grocery store, and they see the high prices of food and wonder how they are going to feed their kids. People are looking at the outrageous cost of childcare, but you need childcare if you are going to go to work. How can you afford childcare? Our healthcare system is dysfunctional. People worry about how they can afford healthcare if they are lucky enough to be able to find a doctor.

That is the reality of what is going on in our country today: The rich are getting richer; working people are struggling; and 800,000 Americans are sleeping out on the streets.

So, given that reality, what does this bill do--the bill written by the rightwing extremists in the House of Representatives without any bipartisan discussion at all? What does this bill do?

Well, let me count the ways. It makes the financial struggles of working people even more difficult than they are today, and it does all of that to lay the groundwork for massive tax breaks for Elon Musk and the billionaire class.

For a start, some 22 percent of our seniors in this country are trying to survive on $15,000 a year or less, which, to me, is really quite incredible. I don't know how anybody, let alone a senior, survives on $15,000 a year or less. Half of our seniors are trying to survive on $30,000 a year or less. So what does the Trump-Musk administration do to address the terrible economic pressures on seniors all over America? Well, they have got a brilliant idea. They illegally fire thousands of workers at the Social Security Administration, with plans to cut that staff in half.

In America today, 30,000 people die each year while waiting to receive their Social Security disability benefits because of a grossly understaffed and underresourced Social Security Administration. My office--and I expect the Presiding Officer's office and I expect every other office--gets calls every day from seniors, saying: I am having a problem with Social Security. I can't make contact with the Social Security people. They are not getting back to me.

That is because, today, they are understaffed. If Musk and Trump get their way and the Social Security Administration's staff is cut in half, nobody can deny that that will be a death sentence for many thousands of seniors who desperately need their benefits.

Now, Mr. Musk, who is worth a few hundred billion, may not understand that there are millions of seniors in this country who have nothing in the bank, who worry every day as to how they are going to heat their homes or buy the food that they need, and if they can't get the benefits that they need, some of them will, in fact, die.

Let me be clear: When you have Mr. Musk calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme despite the fact that it has paid out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the last 80-plus years, that ain't no Ponzi scheme.

When you have the President of the United States coming before Congress and lying--outrageously lying--about millions of people who are 150 or 200 years of age receiving Social Security benefits--a total lie--everybody should understand what is going on.

Trump and Musk are laying the groundwork for dismantling the most successful Federal program in history--Social Security--a program that keeps over 27 million Americans out of poverty. By the way, just to set the record straight, over 99 percent of the more than 70 million Social Security checks that go out each month are going to people who earned those benefits--over 99 percent. People 150 or 500 years of age are not getting Social Security checks.

But this continuing resolution that passed in the House is not just a vicious attack on Social Security; it is an attack on the veterans of our Nation--the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend our country. While we made some progress under the Biden administration in improving veterans' healthcare, the truth is that the VA has remained significantly understaffed. In the fourth quarter of 2024, there were 36,000 vacancies at the VA. We needed 2,400 more doctors, 6,300 more registered nurses, 3,400 more schedulers, 1,800 more social workers, and 1,200 more custodians.

So what do the Trump administration and Mr. Musk do to address this very serious workforce shortage? Their answer is that they are threatening to dismantle the VA by firing 83,000 employees. In other words, you have got a shortage today, and their solution to the shortage is to fire 83,000 workers. Not only does this CR do nothing to stop that, but it cuts more than $20 billion in funding needed to provide care for veterans exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances next year.

Pathetically, our Nation--the richest country on Earth--has the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on the planet, and that is often reflected in the crises facing many public schools today. Throughout America, children are coming into school hungry; kids are coming into school with serious mental issues; kids are coming into school from dysfunctional families and families often dealing with drug abuse.

And what is the Trump-Musk administration doing about that crisis?

Well, their response was interesting. Just the other day, they fired half of the staff at the Department of Education. That means that it will be far harder to administer the title I program that helps 26 million low-income kids get the education they need and pays the salaries of some 180,000 public school teachers throughout the country.

So how does a school in a working-class community survive if you don't get the funds to pay for teachers?

Further, it means that it will be far harder to administer the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the IDEA, that provides vital resources for 7\1/2\ million kids with disabilities. We have made progress in a bipartisan way over the last number of years to say to families: If your kid has a disability, that kid can still go to a public school. There will be services available for that kid.

But when you cut the Department of Education staff here in Washington in half, that is going to be extremely difficult to do, and it means that it will be far harder for some 7 million low-income and working- class students to get the Pell grants they need to get a higher education. In fact, just hours after the Department of Education laid off half of its staff, the website for the free application for Federal Student Aid that working families use to apply for Pell grants and other financial institutions crashed. They fired workers, and the website crashed for the people who were applying for Pell grants. This CR that we will be looking at perhaps tomorrow gives the Trump administration the green light to make these horrific cuts to education.

And it is not just education. We have a major healthcare crisis in our country.

Despite spending twice as much per capita on healthcare as the people of any other major country, 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured. Over 500,000 of our people go bankrupt because of medically related debt; over 60,000 people die each year because they can't afford to get to a doctor on time; and our life expectancy is not only lower than in almost any other major country, it is a system wherein working-class and low-income Americans die 7 years younger than wealthier Americans.

So you have got a crisis: People can't find a doctor. People are going bankrupt because of healthcare bills. And what does this CR do? Well, at a time when, in particular, our primary healthcare system is completely broken, when we don't have enough doctors or nurses or dentists or mental health counselors, this proposal cuts--cuts-- community health center funding by 3.2 percent; it cuts the National Health Service Corps by over 5 percent; and it cuts funding for teaching health centers--a program which helps train doctors in rural and underserved areas--by almost 13 percent.

So, in the midst of a horrific primary healthcare crisis in Vermont and all over rural America, this proposal will make it that much harder for people to get the healthcare that they desperately need.

But it is not just healthcare. Everybody in this country, from Vermont to Los Angeles, understands we have a major housing crisis. It is not just all of the homelessness we are seeing. Over 20 million of our people, incredibly, spend more than 50 percent of their limited income on housing. How in God's name do you pay for anything else? How do you buy food? How do you take care of healthcare if you are spending 50 percent or more for your housing?

So how does this CR address the housing crisis? Well, it does it by cutting rental assistance for low-income families in America by $700 million, which could lead to more than 32,000 families in our country being evicted from their homes. Well, that is a heck of a solution to the housing crisis: You make it much worse.

But it is not just housing. I know that the President might disagree. He thinks that climate change is a hoax. The whole scientific community understands that it is an existential threat. They understand that the last 10 years have been the warmest ever recorded, and extreme weather disturbances and natural disasters have been taking place all over the world--from California to India, across Europe, to North Carolina.

So what does the CR do about the existential threat of climate change? It does not even specify funding levels within the Environmental Protection Agency. In other words, the administration can simply eliminate funding for climate change and environmental justice, and that would be consistent with this CR.

And on top of all of this, the administration is already indicating that they will simply ignore the provisions of the spending bill they don't like. This week, it was reported that Vice President JD Vance said to the Senate Republican caucus: I want everyone to vote yes. The President, under section II, will ensure allocations from Congress are not spent on things that harm the taxpayer. There is so much grift in Washington. Let's move this CR, get to reconciliation, and for Congress to pass appropriations.

In other words, what Vance is saying is: Don't worry about what is actually in the bill. If the Trump administration doesn't like it, they won't do it.

And let's be clear: The House CR that was passed in an extremely partisan vote--I think they won by 3 or 4 votes. One Democrat out of-- whatever--215 voted for it. The House CR and the Trump administration are doing everything they can to lay the groundwork for more tax breaks for billionaires, paid for by massive cuts to Medicaid, nutrition assistance, housing, and education. So you are looking at a one-two punch: a very bad CR and then a reconciliation bill coming down, which will be the final kick in the teeth for the American people.

This legislation that the Republicans are working on--the reconciliation bill--would cut taxes for billionaires in the top 1 percent by over $1.1 trillion over the next decade. According to a recent study, if all of Trump's so-called ``America First'' policies are enacted, the bottom 95 percent of Americans will see their taxes go up, while the richest 5 percent will see their taxes go down--way down.

I should also mention that that reconciliation bill which Republicans are working on right now would also cut Medicaid by $880 billion.

Tax breaks for billionaires; throwing low-income kids off of healthcare; decimating nursing homes all over America, because nursing homes receive two-thirds of their funding from Medicaid; making it harder for community health centers to survive, which provide healthcare to 32 million Americans, because 43 percent of their revenue comes from Medicaid--cut Medicaid by $880 billion, and you will significantly deteriorate the quality of healthcare all over America, at a time when the system is already broken.

Further, the reconciliation bill proposes to cut at least $230 billion from nutrition. Today, nearly one out of five kids in America rely on Federal nutrition programs to keep them from going hungry. I find it rather remarkable that the richest person on Earth, somebody worth hundreds of billions of dollars--that he and his other oligarch friends are working night and day to cut programs for the working people of this country and to actually deny food to hungry kids in America. There is no world, no universe, no religion that would not believe that that is grossly immoral and unacceptable. You don't give tax breaks to the rich and take food away from hungry children.

The House CR bill that we will be soon voting on here is a piece of legislation I cannot support. Instead, what the Senate must do is pass a 30-day CR so that all Members of Congress, not just the House Republican leadership, can come together and produce a good piece of legislation that works for all Americans and not just the few.

We have an opportunity now to serve the American people. We have an opportunity to write something that reflects what people in the Congress feel, what the people in America feel.

I go around the country, and, just a couple of weeks ago, I held a telephone townhall in Vermont. We are a small State. We only have about 650,000 people. Yet on that telephone townhall, there were 34,000 people listening in. It is a significant percentage of a small State.

I have been in many parts of the country recently. I have been in Iowa. I have been in Wisconsin. I have been in Nebraska. I have been in Michigan. And what I can tell you with absolute certainty is, whether people are conservative, whether they are Republican, whether they are progressive, whether they are moderate, whether they are Independent-- whatever they may be--there are very few people in this country who think we should give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the rich and cut back on Medicaid, education, and nutritional programs for hungry children.

So, Mr. President, what I strongly propose is that we pass a 30-day CR; that we do what has always been the case here in the Senate: have both bodies, both parties work together to come up with a good piece of legislation.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source