times, it is appropriate that we provide those folks—if we cannot get them a COLA, let's get them the equivalent of a measly 2 percent COLA, a $250 check to all of our seniors and disabled vets. That is what we did, by the way, in the stimulus package. That is all. For over 50 million people, a $250 check costs our government about $14 billion. 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 or $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. That about says it all. If you are very, very rich, the good news is you are going to get more tax breaks. But if you are a senior or disabled vet, we can't get you a $250 check.
I will say that the vote on the floor of the Senate was 53 people in favor of providing that one-time check, 45 against—53 to 45: We won. But here in the Senate, majority does not rule. Republicans filibuster almost everything, and it requires 60 votes. We did not get the 60 votes, and seniors did not get that check. I am going to do my best to see that they do get it. We are going to bring that issue back and back again.
I raise that issue to tell you that one of the very weakest proposals in this agreement, totally outrageous, is the decrease in taxes for the estate tax.
There is another issue I want to touch on. I am going to spend a lot of time on this issue because it has not gotten the coverage and the attention I think it deserves.
This agreement deals with the so-called payroll tax holiday. I know the Vice President and the President and others have been touting this. They say this is really a good thing because it will put more money into the pockets of the working people. What will happen—right now, if you are a worker, you put 6.2 percent into Social Security. It is going to be reduced for 1 year to 4.2 percent. You get the difference, and this is really a good thing. All of us want to see working people have more money in their pockets. That is what we do. That is what we are fighting for.
But let me be clear that while on the surface this so-called payroll tax holiday sounds like a good idea for working people, it is actually a very bad idea. What the American people should understand is that this payroll tax holiday originated from rightwing Republicans whose ultimate goal, trust me, is not to put more money into the pockets of working families; it is the ultimate destruction of Social Security. 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. 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 and we are giving it to workers today. It is like eating our seed.
Rather than going into Social Security, the President says: Don't worry, this is going to be covered this year by the Federal Government. We have never seen that before. I don't want Social Security to be dependent on the Federal Government because the Federal Government has a $13.7 trillion national debt. And what I worry about is this is not just a 1-year provision; this also could be extended.
Let me quote Barbara Kennelly.
I am glad to see I am joined here on the floor by one of the strongest fighters for working families in the Senate, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio. I just want to say this before I ask him a question or before he asks me a question or whatever the protocol is.
I want to quote what Barbara Kennelly, the president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said. This is one of the largest senior citizens groups in America.
Even though Social Security contributed nothing to the current economic crisis, it has been bartered in a deal that provides deficit-busting tax cuts for the wealthy.
Here is the key point:
Diverting $120 billion in Social Security contributions for a so-called "tax holiday" may sound like a good deal for workers now, but it's bad business for a program that a majority of middle-class seniors will rely upon in the future.
Barbara Kennelly, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.
I am joined by my very good friend from Ohio, and I want to ask him his sense of this overall agreement.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio.My sense is similar to yours. I was just on a TV show a minute ago. I was asked, the liberals or the conservatives, what they think about this. This really is not a liberal-conservative issue. First of all, the tax cuts overwhelmingly go to the wealthiest taxpayers. We are seeing the kinds of tax cuts that millionaires and billionaires get from the income tax and from the estate tax. But it is also equally important that it blows a hole in our budget deficit.
In some sense, we are borrowing tens of billions of dollars every year now—if this agreement becomes law, we are borrowing tens of billions of dollars every year from the Chinese, and we are putting it on the credit cards of our children and grandchildren for them to pay off who knows when, and then we are giving these tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires. In those simple terms, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense in our relationship with China. It doesn't make sense in the lost jobs that come from that China trade policy. It doesn't make sense in undermining the middle class. It doesn't make sense in terms of fairness in the tax system. It doesn't make sense for our children and grandchildren and the burden they are going to 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 Sanders has been on the floor 2 hours now talking about this and how important it is and really analyzing it and educating about it and all that. I think about the economic policy, too, that this embodies.
Nine or 10 years ago, Senator Sanders and the Presiding Officer, when he was a Member of the House, Senator Udall from Colorado, and I and others voted against the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, principally because those tax cuts overwhelmingly went to the wealthy and ended up adding to our national debt. We had a surplus then. We sure don't now. We had the largest surplus we ever had in 2001. It blew a hole in that. But we passed those tax cuts under the belief, those who supported it—President Bush and Senator McConnell and so many others—under the belief that that kind of trickle-down economics would grow our economy.
In the 8 years—and this is not partisan, this is not opinion, this is fact—from January 1, 2001, to January 1, 2009, President Bush's 8 years, we actually had private sector job loss in this country. Contrast that with a different economic policy—January 1, 1993, to January 1, 2001, the Clinton 8 years. Again, this isn't partisan, this isn't opinion, this is fact. During the Clinton 8 years, we had 21 million private sector jobs created—21 million private sector jobs created—and literally zero private sector jobs in the Bush 8 years of trickle-down economics.
Why would we blow a hole in the budget, which this bill does, for our kids to pay off? Why would we continue an economic policy that clearly did not work for this country? It didn't work for the middle class. We saw middle-class wages—not only no job increase during those 8 years, except for the people at the very top, we saw actual wage stagnation or worse. Most Americans did not get a raise during the 8 Bush years. Most Americans simply saw their wages flat or in many cases decline. The superwealthy saw a big increase in their incomes and in their net assets. And now we are going to give a tax break to them.
This is not class warfare. Lots of people I know have a lot of money. I don't have any ill will for them. But why would we help those people who have done so very well and then have our children pay for it?
Senator Sanders just mentioned the letter from Barbara Kennelly from one of the largest seniors organizations in the country and what this will mean for Social Security. Here is my fear. If this is passed, we are going to see our budget deficit increase, according to the Congressional Budget Office, about $900 billion because of this package, $800-some billion over the next couple of years.
As soon as it is signed by President Obama, even though it was negotiated
