to all of our people—high-quality health care—or are we going to continue a situation where 45,000 Americans die each year because they don’t have access to a doctor? Are we going to invest in our energy system so we break our dependence on foreign oil? We spend about $350 billion a year importing oil from Saudi Arabia and other foreign countries—almost $1 billion a day—which should be used to make this country energy independent, which should be used to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel into energy efficiency and sustainable energy, technologies such as wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass.
By the way, none of that has been addressed, as I understand it, in this proposal.
So my point is not just that this proposal is a bad proposal as it stands before us now, but it is going to move us in the future in a direction that I do not believe this country should be going.
I mentioned earlier my own personal family’s history is the history of millions and millions of Americans. My father, as it happened, came to this country at the age of 17 without a nickel in his pocket. He worked hard his whole life. He never made very much money, but he and my mom—my mom graduated high school; she never went to college—had the satisfaction, the very significant satisfaction, of knowing their kids got a college education. My older brother Larry went to law school, and I graduated from the University of Chicago.
I think what is going on in this country and why the anxiety level is so high is not just that people are worried about themselves—parents worry more about their kids than they do about themselves. But what parents are sitting around and worrying about now is they are saying: Will, for the first time in the modern history of this country, my kids have a lower standard of living than their parents?
Will my kids earn less income? Will my kids not have the education I have? Will my kids not have the opportunity to travel and learn and grow as I have done? Are the best days of America behind us? That is really the question. I don’t think that has to be the case.
But I will tell my colleagues, as I mentioned earlier, if we are going to change the national priorities in this country, if we are going to start devoting our energy and our attention to the needs of working families and the middle class, we have to defeat this proposal and we have to defeat similar types of proposals which come down the pike. When this country has a $13.7 trillion national debt, it is insane— nothing less than insane—to be talking about huge tax breaks for people who don’t need them. Again, as I mentioned earlier, ironically, we have a lot of these millionaires out there who apparently love their country more than some of the people in this Chamber.
You have some of the richest people in America—Bill Gates and all the good, charitable work he does, and Warren Buffet and many others—who are saying: I am doing just fine. I am a billionaire or a multimillionaire. I don’t need your tax breaks. I am worried about the fact that we have the highest rate of childhood poverty; invest in our children. I am worried that our infrastructure is crumbling; invest in our infrastructure. I am worried that 45,000 Americans are dying this year who don’t have access to health care; invest in health care. I am worried about global warming; invest in transforming our energy system. These are patriotic Americans. They love their country. They are saying to us: We don’t even want it.
So we are giving money to people who, in some cases, don’t even want it. I do know there are others out there who do want it. I think if there is one issue that we as a Congress and a government have to address, it is the extraordinary level of greed in this country. We have to stand tall and draw a line in the sand and simply say: Enough is enough. How much do you want? How much do you need? How many yachts can you own? How many homes can you have? Isn’t it enough that the top 1 percent now earns 23.5 percent of the income in this country? How much more do they want? Do they want 30 percent, 35 percent? Isn’t it enough that the top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent? How much more do they need?
I mentioned earlier, when I talked about the situation that got us into this horrendous recession—and that is the collapse of Wall Street—I talked about what I think most Americans understand very well; that is, the incredible greed and recklessness and dishonesty that exists on Wall Street. We must not allow ourselves to encourage and continue the kind of greed we have seen in recent years. It is an abomination that the people who caused this economic crisis—the worst recession since the Great Depression—that the people on Wall Street who caused it are now earning more money than they did before we bailed them out.
Earlier today, I was reading some emails that came to my office from Vermonters who were struggling to keep their heads above water. They were terribly painful and poignant stories about honest, good, decent people who are now choosing whether they should put gas in their car or buy the food or prescription drugs they need. It is not just a Vermont story; it is an American story. It is a reality out there for tens of millions of Americans. In my view, we can negotiate a much better agreement than the one President Obama and the Republican leadership did. There are some good parts of that agreement, which obviously should be retained and perhaps even strengthened. Those include, of course, making sure we extend unemployment benefits to those who need it and, of course, that we extend tax breaks for the middle class. There are some very good other provisions in there which I think are worthwhile.
I think if the American people stand and agree with those of us who say no more tax breaks for the very wealthiest people in this country, we can defeat this proposal, and we can come up with a much better one that is fairer to the middle class of this country and is fairer to our young children.
I do not want to see our young kids— my children and grandchildren—have a lower standard of living than their parents. That is not what America is about. What I think we have to do is defeat this proposal. I think we have to urge our fellow Americans to stand and say no to tax breaks for those who don’t need it. I think we have to work in a very serious way about creating the millions and millions of good-paying jobs that this country desperately needs. I personally believe that is a far more effective approach than giving the variety of business taxes that were in this proposal at a time when corporate America is sitting on $2 million of unused cash. They have the money. I think a much better approach, as I said earlier, is investing in our crumbling infrastructure. I think that makes us healthier and stronger as a nation for the future and in the global economy.
I think it creates jobs quicker and in a more cost-effective way than these tax cuts. I also think it is high time the American people move—they want us to move in an entirely new direction in terms of trade. I am always amazed how Republicans and Democrats alike—and I speak as the longest serving Independent in Congress—come election time, have ads on television saying: Oh, we have to do something about outsourcing and about our trade policy. But somehow, the day after the election, when corporate America continues to throw American workers out on the street and moves to China, moves to other low-wage countries, that discussion ceases to exist and that legislation never seems to appear.
So it seems to me we have to defeat this proposal, and that in defeating this, we are going to tell the American people there are at least some of us here who understand what our jobs and obligations are; that is, that we are supposed to represent them, the middle class of the country, and not just wealthy campaign contributors or bow to the interests of the lobbyists who are all over this place.
When I talked a moment ago about the need to invest in our infrastructure as a way to create jobs, being more cost-effective than some of these business tax breaks, I am looking now at a Wall Street Journal article of December 9, 2010. Here is the headline: "Companies Clinging to Cash; Coffers Swell to 51-year High as Cautious Firms Put Off Investing in Growth."
That is a story by Justin Lahart. Here is the story. It makes the point I have been trying to express:
