There are many others who have sung her praises and highlighted her commitment to public service.
Prior to work at the FDA, Ms. Autor was a trial attorney for the Office of Consumer Litigation at the Department of Justice, where she served for 7 years. In this role, she litigated civil and criminal cases on behalf of the FDA.
I hope my colleagues will join me in honoring Ms. Autor for her dedicated public service and important contributions to our Nation's health and safety.
I would also add that in these challenging fiscal times, as we approach and go through the holiday season, I hope we all recognize the enormous contribution all of our Federal employees make. The Presiding Officer many times reminds all of us of the enormous role our men and women in the armed services play, and our thoughts and prayers are with all of them. But I think it is also important to recognize these great Federal employees such as Ms. Autor and literally the countless others who oftentimes—and sometimes at the disdain of folks in elective office—are the folks who provide enormous public service to all Americans. So I hope we keep them in our thoughts as well during this holiday season.
Before I conclude my remarks, I also wish to thank my friend, the Senator from Vermont, who is a passionate advocate for trying to end the growing income inequality in this country. I know he is going to be making some impassioned comments, and I appreciate his giving me a couple of moments to recognize this Federal employee, and I look forward to hearing his comments.
With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER.The Senator from Vermont.
THE ECONOMY
Mr. SANDERS.Mr. President, let me begin by thanking my friend from Virginia for doing what is very important. I think the essence of what he is saying is that today there are millions of Federal employees, people in the Armed Forces, who are doing the very best they can. In many instances, they are doing a great job to protect our country, to keep it safe. And very often, to be honest with you, these folks get dumped on. So it is important that people such as Senator Warner come here and point out individuals who are doing a great job, people of whom we are very proud. So I thank Senator Warner for that.
Mr. President, as I think everyone knows, President Obama and the Republican leadership have reached an agreement on a very significant tax bill. In my view, the agreement they reached is a bad deal for the American people. I think we can do better.
I am here today to take a strong stand against this bill, and I intend to tell my colleagues and the Nation exactly why I am in opposition to this bill. You can call what I am doing today whatever you want. You can call it a filibuster. You can call it a very long speech. I am not here to set any great records or to make a spectacle; I am simply here today to take as long as I can to explain to the American people the fact that we have to do a lot better than this agreement provides.
Let me enumerate some of the reasons I am opposed to this agreement.
First, as everybody knows, this Nation has a recordbreaking $13.8 trillion national debt at the same time as the middle class is collapsing and poverty is increasing. And I think it is important to say a word—because I am not necessarily sure a lot of Americans know this—about how we got to where we are today in terms of the national debt.
I know there are some people who think this all began the day President Obama took office. Well, that is not quite the case. When President Clinton left office, this country was running, in fact, a very significant surplus, and the projections were that we were going to continue to run a surplus. During the 8 years of President Bush's administration, for a number of reasons—the primary reasons being the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country, a Medicare Part D prescription drug program, the Wall Street bailout, among other things, all of which were not paid for—we saw an almost doubling of the national debt. Since President Obama has been in office, we have passed a stimulus package which has also added to the deficit and national debt.
But here we are today with a $13.8 trillion national debt, a $1.4 trillion deficit, and almost all Americans are in agreement that this is a very serious issue. So the first point I would make is that it seems to me to be unconscionable—unconscionable—for my conservative friends and for everybody else in this country to be driving up this already too high national debt by giving tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires who don't need it, and in a number of cases they don't even want it.
Here is one of the interesting ironies. There are lists of many very wealthy people who have come forward and said: Sure, I want a tax break. Everybody wants a tax break. But you know what, there are other priorities in this country, and I don't need it. Two of the wealthiest people in the world—and these are billionaires—Bill Gates of Microsoft and Warren Buffett of Berkshire, say: It is absurd. We don't need a tax break.
All over the country, you hear a lot of folks who have a lot of money saying: Don't drive up the deficit and force our kids to pay higher taxes to pay off the national debt in order to give tax breaks to the richest people in this country. We have been told not to worry too much because the extension of these tax breaks for the wealthy will only last 2 years—not to worry. Maybe that is the case. But given the political reality I have seen in Washington, my guess is that 2 years from now these tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country will be extended again. What happens around here is that the argument will be made that if you end these tax breaks you are raising taxes. That is what we are hearing right now. I see no reason why, in the middle of a Presidential election, those arguments will not be made again and I see no reason not to believe that those tax breaks will be extended again.
Mr. SANDERS.Clearly, we have a number of Republicans who want to make that extension permanent. Whether it will ever be made permanent I don't know. But the point is, when you hear folks say it is only a 2-year extension, I suggest you take that with a grain of salt.
Let me say, if in fact we do what the Republicans have wanted to do right now as we enter this debate—they wanted a 10-year extension—that would add $700 billion to our national debt. I have four kids and I have six grandchildren. None of them has a whole lot of money. I think it is grossly unfair to ask my kids and grandchildren and the children all over this country to be paying higher taxes in order to provide tax breaks for billionaires because we have driven up the national debt. That is plain wrong. I think the vast majority of the American people, whether they are progressives like myself or whether they are conservatives, perceive that concept of giving tax breaks to billionaires when we have such a high national debt makes no sense at all.
Furthermore, it is important to point out that extending income tax breaks to the top 2 percent is not the only unfair tax proposal in this agreement. This agreement between the President and the Republican leadership also calls for a continuation of the Bush era 15-percent tax rate on capital gains and dividends, meaning that those people who make their living off their investments will continue to pay a substantially lower tax rate than firemen, teachers, nurses, carpenters, and virtually all the other working people of this country. I do not think that is fair. That is wrong. If this agreement were to be passed, we would be continuing that unfair arrangement.
On top of all that, this agreement includes a horrendous proposal regarding the estate tax. That is a Teddy Roosevelt initiative. Teddy Roosevelt was talking about this in the early years of the 20th century. It was enacted in 1916 and it was enacted for a couple of reasons. Teddy Roosevelt and the people of that era thought it was wrong that a handful of people could have a huge
