Concurrent Resolution On The Budget, Fiscal Year 2016 -- Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, the amendment we are going to be discussing now--and I will say a few words about it in a moment--deals with one of the most important issues facing our country; that is, the lack of affordability of college and the reality that when millions of our young people graduate school, they are left in crushing debt year after year after year, and they are unable to refinance that debt which has a huge impact on their lives.

I give time now to Senator Warren, who has played a great role in focusing on this issue and has brought forth what I think is an excellent amendment.

I yield to the Senator from Massachusetts.

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let's be frank. We live in a global economy. We need the best educated workforce in the world to compete. Yet we are making it harder and harder for middle-class families to send their kids to college. At the same time, we are saying to those young people who go to college: You are going to be living with an oppressive debt for decades--for decades.

Several months ago, I talked to a young woman in Burlington, VT. Her crime was that she went to medical school in order to become a primary care physician. Those are exactly the people we need. She left medical school with $300,000 in debt. Does anybody think that makes any sense at all?

Right now, if you want to go out and buy a new car, you can get interest rates in some cases of 0 percent, 1 percent, 2 percent. If you want to refinance your home, you can pay 3 percent, 4 percent, 5 percent. Yet, when parents want to send their kids to college or young people themselves take out loans, they are forced to pay 6 percent, 8 percent, or even a higher percent for the crime of wanting to get a higher education.

Senator Warren's amendment is eminently sensible. It significantly lowers interest rates, cutting them almost in half to 3.9 percent. This would be a huge blessing for millions of young people who are having a hard time buying homes, a hard time even starting families because they are dealing with this oppressive debt.

The last point I would make--and I hope everybody remembers this--when Wall Street, because of their greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior, needed to be bailed out, the Fed provided them with zero and one-half of 1 percent interest rates by the trillions of dollars. If we could bail out Wall Street--if the Fed could bail out Wall Street with extremely low interest rates, it is time for us to treat the young people in this country and their parents with the same respect. We need to substantially lower interest rates on student debt, and the Warren amendment would do that.

I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from New Hampshire.

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, over the last several months, I have had three town meetings in Vermont with young people on this issue. It is an issue of huge concern to them and their parents. As Senator Booker just mentioned, we are competing with countries all over the world that say to their young people: If you have the ability and you have the desire, you can go to college regardless of your income.

In Germany, tuition for college is now zero. In many Scandinavian countries, it is now zero. What they are saying to the young people is, we need you to get the best education to help us create the strongest economy, to create the jobs we need.

How insane is it for us to literally discourage bright young people from attending college or to tell others that if they graduate college or graduate school, they are going to be $70,000, $80,000, $100,000 in debt? What sense does this make for the well-being of the middle class of this country or for our economic competitiveness?

In the next month, I will be personally introducing legislation that will cut and do away with tuition in public colleges and universities, but today what we are focusing on is legislation that is so sensible, so obvious, it is hard for me to imagine that anybody can vote against it. I have in my office at least two attorneys who are struggling with huge student debts. This is true all over this country. They graduated from college 15 years ago. They are still paying off that debt, and it impacts what they can do. We have evidence out there that families are not having children because of student debt, not buying homes because of student debt. Why is it that people have to pay double or triple interest rates because they got an education as opposed to what they would pay when they purchase a car or a home? Does anybody think that makes sense?

Today we have an opportunity to stand up for the young people of this country and say we want them to get an education and we want them to have the freedom to live their lives after they leave school. That is what this amendment is about.

I yield time to the Senator from Virginia, Mr. Kaine.

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me conclude by saying this: The high cost of college and student debt is one of the great issues facing our country. We are trying to lower student debt significantly. Our Republican colleagues' response to the crisis is to cut $90 billion in mandatory funding for Pell grants. The choice is pretty clear. We are looking at the future of this country and the need for our young people to get the best education possible and to not graduate college deeply in debt. That is what this amendment is about. I hope we will have strong bipartisan support for it.

I yield the floor.

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, we think the Burr-King amendment is a sensible, noncontroversial amendment, and I don't believe we have any objection to it on this side of the aisle.

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, not seeing the Senator from Massachusetts, I will make this point: If there is an eminently sensible amendment to come before us, this is it. It addresses the crisis that exists all over this country where young people are graduating college deeply in debt and have that onerous debt around their necks for decades.

This amendment simply gives these young people the opportunity to refinance their debts so they can substantially lower their student debt, and in some cases cut their student debt in half. It is hard for me to imagine how anybody could vote against an amendment as sensible as this amendment but so important to millions of families in this country who want to be able to send their kids to college and for the young people who want to graduate college without this oppressive debt.

I strongly ask for a ``yes'' vote on this amendment.

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I wish to try to, as we are about halfway through the budget debate, summarize where we are and the very clear differences that exist between my Republican colleagues and those of us on this side. I think if the American people pay attention, the differences are very clear.

What some of us are trying to do is to take a hard look at the very serious problems facing our Nation and do our best to come up with sensible solutions to those problems. I think that is what the budget process should be about. What are the problems facing this country? What are the best solutions that we go forward with?

But, already, we have strong disagreements as to how we even look at the problems facing the country. From my perspective, and I think from the perspective, quite honestly, of the vast majority of the American people, the major economic problem we face is a disappearing middle class.

The good news is that compared to where we were 6 1/2 years ago, we have made significant progress. I think most Americans remember that after the Wall Street crash--caused by the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street--that at that point, as President Bush was leaving office, we were hemorrhaging 800,000 jobs a month. That is hard to imagine, 800,000 jobs a month.

My Republican colleagues and I would agree and say the job creation now is not as strong as it should be. Fair enough. I wish to see more than 200,000 jobs a month being created. But no one will deny that 200,000 jobs a month being created is a heck of a lot better than losing 800,000 jobs a month, which is where we were when President Bush left office.

My Republican friends say the deficit is too high. I think they have a point. It is about $483 billion, a very high deficit. But I hope no one denies that a $483 billion deficit is a heck of a lot less than the $1.3 trillion deficit that existed when President Bush left office.

When President Bush left office, the financial system not only in America but all over the world was teetering on collapse. We learned later, actually, that economists literally believed the system would collapse. If you put your credit card into the ATM machine, nothing comes out. That is where we were 6 1/2 years ago.

Today, for better or worse, the stock market is soaring and the financial system today seems reasonably solid. No one denies it is a lot better than it was 6 1/2 years ago.

So we have made some progress despite, I must say, consistent Republican obstructionism, but we have made some progress. But I would be the first to agree, with my Republican friends or anybody else, that we are not anywhere near where we should be.

Unemployment has gone down. The official unemployment rate is about 5 1/2 right now. But let me tell you, the official unemployment rate is not the real unemployment rate. When you include those people who have been given up looking for work and those who are looking for part time, real unemployment in this country today is about 11 percent. Youth unemployment--which we never talk about, but it is a very serious problem--is about 17 percent. African-American youth unemployment, which we never talk about, is much higher than that.

So what we are trying to do, as we look out and we recognize a problem that says--the American people tell us in every poll I have seen that their most serious issue is jobs and wages. How do we create jobs? How do those jobs pay us a decent wage?

Does anyone disagree with that? I don't think so. That is the issue. So what have we tried to do in this process? What we on this side have tried to do is say: OK, how do we create jobs? What is the fastest way we can create the millions of jobs our country and our economy need?

What economists tell us is the fastest way to create jobs is through investment in our infrastructure.

Does anybody, any Republican, Democrat, progressive, conservative, disagree that our infrastructure is in a state of terrible disrepair--that is, our roads, our bridges, our water systems, our wastewater plants, our airports, our rail systems, our levees, our dams. I don't think there is any disagreement.

What the experts tell us--and I speak as a former mayor and concur with the experts--is that when you delay work on infrastructure, it only gets worse.

If you do not rebuild a crumbling road, it gets worse. If you do not rebuild a decaying water system, it becomes worse and more expensive to repair.

So what have we said here on this side? What we have said is, let's not kick this can down the road, which we have done for many years. Let's acknowledge the problem, and let's make serious investments in infrastructure--rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges and rail systems and water plants and wastewater plants, et cetera. That is what we have said. And we brought forth an amendment, which I offered, which would create some 9 million jobs in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure--9 million jobs over a period of 6 years. I think the way we paid for that $478 billion investment makes sense to most Americans, who understand we have major corporation after major corporation that pays zero in Federal income taxes because they take advantage of absurd loopholes--loopholes that allow them to invest their money and put their money in the Cayman Islands, in Bermuda, in Luxembourg, and in other tax havens and pay nothing in Federal income taxes. So we have said: Let's repeal those loopholes. Let's raise the revenue we need. Let's invest it in the infrastructure. In the process, let's create millions of decent-paying jobs. I would say that is a sensible response to the job crisis.

In terms of income and wages, I think everybody or almost everybody understands that the Federal minimum wage today of $7.25 an hour is literally a starvation wage. It has to be raised. What we are trying to do on our side is to raise the minimum wage, and I will have an amendment to do that.

We are trying to deal with the serious inequities regarding pay differentiation in America between male and female workers. Women workers are making 78 cents an hour compared to the wages paid to men. That makes no sense. We brought forth an amendment--Senator Mikulski brought forth an amendment to bring pay equity. That is an important issue.

We are also going to fight for reform of overtime rules so that people who are making $25,000 a year--so-called supervisors at McDonald's or Burger King--are not earning time and a half despite the fact they are working 50 to 60 hours a week.

So those are a few of the issues we are trying to focus on--creating jobs and raising wages. I have to say, unhappily, that my Republican colleagues have not been supportive of those efforts. What they have been absolutely persistent about is doing anything to cut Medicare, cut Medicaid, cut education, and cut nutrition. They will do anything other than ask the wealthiest people in this country, who are doing phenomenally well, the largest corporations, which are enjoying recordbreaking profits--they will do anything to prevent those groups from paying more in taxes even if it means massive cuts to programs working families desperately depend upon.

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I wish to respond and speak as to why I am in opposition to the Blunt amendment which requires a point of order for a carbon tax.

The scientific community is not in debate. The scientific community tells us that climate change is real. It is caused by human activity and by a very significant increase in carbon emissions. The scientific community tells us that climate change is already causing devastating problems in our Nation and around the world. The scientific community tells us that if we do not get our act together--not just the United States but China, Russia, India, and the entire world--the planet we will be leaving for our kids and grandchildren will be substantially less habitable than the planet we enjoy.

We have a moral responsibility to respond to this crisis, and we have to use every tool we can in our arsenal. What does that mean? It means we need to invest heavily in weatherization and energy efficiency so we don't waste energy. It means we have to move aggressively toward wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and other sustainable energies. It also means we have to tell those people who are producing carbon in significant amounts and are causing the problem that they cannot continue to do that with impunity. They will have to pay a tax on that.

We can argue about how we go forward in transforming our energy system and how we cut carbon pollution, but we should not pick out one particular approach and say that it is going to require 60 votes to go forward.

I strongly object to Senator Blunt's amendment.

What we will be doing is offering a side-by-side. This side-by-side could not be simpler. The American people and the scientific community are pretty clear when it comes to climate change: It is, in fact, real, and it is caused by human activity. What we will do is offer a side-by-side to establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund to recognize that climate change is real, is caused by human activity, and that Congress needs to take action to cut carbon pollution.

Young people all over this country want action. While many of my Republican colleagues refuse to acknowledge the reality that climate change is caused by human activity, many Republicans outside of Capitol Hill, in fact, do understand that. We have prominent conservative economists and economic advisers, such as Nobel laureate economist Gary Becker, Mitt Romney's former economic adviser Gregory Mankiw, and former Reagan adviser Art Laffer, who have all called for taxing carbon. It is not a radical idea. These are conservative Republicans who understand that people who are causing the problem cannot do that with impunity.

More recently, George Shultz--I think we all know George Shultz is the former Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of State under Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan--published an op-ed in the Washington Post calling for a carbon tax. The idea of a carbon tax is something that is gaining more and more support from Democrats, Republicans, Independents, people who are very worried about what is happening to our environment.

In terms of the side-by-side, I personally am strongly opposed to Senator Blunt's amendment, which just looks at a tax on carbon. I should also say that as a coauthor, along with Senator Boxer, with regard to a carbon tax, we put huge amounts of money into helping those families who might see higher utility bills. That is probably the main source of funding allocation. So we are aware of the problem, and we address it in our legislation, and it should be addressed in any legislation.

But once again, in terms of the side-by-side, we are going to give our Republican colleagues an opportunity----

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, this amendment could not be simpler.

The scientific community has been very clear in telling us that climate change is the great environmental crisis of our time. It is caused by human activity, it is real, and it is already causing devastating problems in the United States and throughout the world.

This amendment establishes a deficit-neutral reserve fund to recognize that climate change is real, it is caused by human activity, and that Congress needs to take action to cut carbon pollution.

Let us stand with science. Let's pass this amendment.

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