Right now—I think I have documented it a dozen times—it is a horrendous situation when so many of our young people cannot afford to go to college, and the others who do go to college and graduate end up on average something like $25,000 in debt. These guys on the deficit reduction commission were recommending that the interest on that debt be accrued while students are in college.
Here we have us slipping behind the rest of the world in terms of our percentage of college graduates, and this recommendation is on young people, who do not have a lot of money, who were borrowing money, that they will have to pay more to go to college. You are going to see it.
Here is the argument—good, it is going to be in the Congressional Record. Check it out, see if I am right. The argument will be: The deficit is going up, the national debt is going up. We have to attack and cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans programs.
This year—Senator Landrieu from Louisiana made this point a little while ago—and I think this is roughly right—our soldiers, men and women in the Armed Forces, are going to get a 1.8-percent increase in their salaries this year, 1.8 percent for people putting their lives on the line to defend this country. A $250 check for 50-plus million seniors and disabled vets—we couldn't pass it; too much money—$14 billion. They are going to come back and cut and cut in the name of trying to deal with the high deficit which they are now increasing. That is an issue we must be addressing.
In my view, while there are some good parts of the proposal, it is certainly one that should be significantly improved. I believe the way it can be improved is by the American people beginning to get involved in the process.
I can tell you, as I said earlier, I don't know how the calls are going today in my office because I have been here, but for the last 3 days, we have received thousands of phone calls and e-mails, and over 98 percent of them have been against this proposal. The American people believe, the people in Vermont believe we can do a lot better job in crafting a proposal that represents the middle class and our kids and not just the wealthiest people in this country.
When we talk about this proposal negotiated by the White House and Republican leadership, again, it has to be put within the broad context of what is going on in America. That context is not a pretty picture. That context requires us to understand that the middle class, which has been the backbone of this country for so very long, is in the process of disappearing. That context makes us understand that millions of families in this country are worried, parents are worried, not just about their own lives—they are prepared to work 50 or 60 hours a week; they are prepared to cut back on their own needs. I think what is hurting them more deeply is the kind of future they are contemplating for their children. They are worried that, for the first time in the modern history of America, their kids will get jobs that will pay them lower salaries than what the parents have earned. They are worried that unemployment will be much more likely for their kids than for themselves. They are worried that while they were able to scrape through—in my case, I was able to scrape through college. I borrowed some money, did some jobs, and made it like millions of other people. They are worried that with the high cost of a college education and the reduction in their real earnings, they are not going to be able to send their kids to college. I have received e-mails—and I am sure you have, Mr. President—the saddest thing in the world, where you have parents who are saying: We have saved all of our lives for the thing we wanted the most, which was to be able to send our son or daughter to college, and we can't do that now. That is the overall context this agreement has to be placed within.
The issue is, again and again, the richest people in this country do not need tax breaks. They are doing phenomenally well. They have already been given huge amounts of tax breaks. It is the middle class, it is the working families, it is the lower income people we have to be worrying about and not just the wealthy and the powerful.
When we talk about why the middle class is declining, that is a tough issue. I am not here to suggest I know all of the answers. I surely don't. It is a complicated issue. Honest people have differences of opinion. But let me touch on a few areas that I think will explain why poverty is going up and the middle class is going down. One of them deals with our trade policies.
I can remember a number of years ago I was in the House of Representatives, and I can remember the lobbyists and the big money interests coming around and saying: If you guys only pass NAFTA, this would create a whole lot of jobs in the United States because we would be able to ship products made in America to Mexico. In fact, as I recall—it seems almost humorous now— what they said is: If we pass NAFTA, it would solve the problem of illegal immigration because the economy of Mexico would be so strong that people would stay in their own country and not try to sneak across the border. That is, as we look back on it, somewhat humorous, that that issue was even discussed.
But one of the areas that, unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, we have not dealt with is our disastrous trade policy. That is NAFTA; that is permanent normal trade relations; that is trade policies which have encouraged large corporations in this country to send jobs abroad because they can find workers in other countries, in lowwage countries, who are prepared to work for pennies an hour.
I think not only have we not addressed this issue from an economic perspective the way we should, I have to tell you, I know that during campaigns, a lot of Members of Congress put their 30-second ads on the air saying how concerned they are about outsourcing and our trade policy. But somehow, the day after the election, I didn't hear that discussion resume on the floor of the House or the Senate. I want to say this is true not just of Republicans but of Democrats as well.
A lot of Democrats campaign on the need for trade reform, but it does not happen. In fact, I have been here in the Senate now for almost 4 years. I have not heard one serious—underline "serious"—discussion to explain how in recent years we have lost millions and millions of manufacturing jobs, when those jobs were the backbone of the working class of this country, not providing only decent wages but decent benefits, decent health care, decent pensions.
There was once a time in this country when a manufacturing job was a ticket to the middle class. I have to say something because I remember not so many years ago, there were national leaders saying: Well—to the young people—you do not have to worry about that factory work anymore. You do not have to be involved in production because, you know what. All of the jobs in the future are going to be nice and clean in offices and on computers.
I think we demeaned and insulted the people who built the products we consumed. There is nothing wrong with a factory job if workers there earn a decent wage and have a decent benefit. Those are the jobs that built America. I remember, and we should never forget—and we now have celebrated the anniversary of Pearl Harbor. There was a speech that President Roosevelt gave a day after Pearl Harbor, in a joint session to the Congress, when he declared war on Japan.
I saw a video of that speech. It was a remarkable speech because, at that moment, at that moment, the United States was not only fighting Japan, and we knew the fight with Germany and Nazism was right around the corner, at that point we were having to fight a war on two fronts: in Asia and in Europe. Hitler was on the march; the Japanese were in China. The Japanese had just attacked Pearl Harbor. Here we were, just about to enter the war. How could we possibly win that war?
Yet because of the manufacturing capabilities that we had at that time, and this is an amazing story, literally in 2½ years the war was essentially won, obviously not completed until 1945. But because of the incredible industrial capabilities in this country, the ability to transform our manufacturing sector from a consumer-oriented sector, from automobiles into tanks; from shirts into uniforms; from hunting rifles into machine guns, within 2 or 3 years we had essentially won that war. It was an
