issues. tell senator landrieu make a million dollars a year and i agree with her. i so i know people were listeningo i thinkse those callers.theyd, they made a million dollars ovey the air. they said please use the money for somebody else for somebody else. i'm counting my blessings. i survived the recession. another 33,000 people areits getting ready to run out of unemployment benefits and leave them alone if we don't extended. they know that middle-class families making under $75,000 in income or 200,000 in income for even 300,000. you cannot bring a thousand dollars of income in louisiana being a very strong business person doing very well and have, eight children. lies o you know, you have large hav families in the weste. famil we have very large families in the south. credit no one ever gives us credit enough i think for that. w the fact that people work very hard.father. sometimes a mother and father. their income ip 200, 250,000. but with six children, that doesn't go that far these days,w with eight children, i grew up 1 in a neighborhood where weey do return yet cultured and in a house. how much money do you think you have to make to see him himolleo close and sent to college for the children? usfather sent nine of college. anywhe we never made anywhere near thae money. i still think was a miracle any of us ever got there. nev nonetheless, the issue is next e week we're going to debatek this agreement.e. and i want to say i support extending tax cuts to the middle-class, to the broadclass. middle class.e but there is something terribly wrong here in denmark. something is not right inborrowg denmark. $ if we're spending or borrowing $50 billion, which is about whad it costs to extend income tax te rates, the lower rates in the onvidend rate and the capital oi gains rate that people make in over million dollars. some of the radio today said while senator, don't you think that giving tax cuts, that will, stimulate the economy? i said no. i'm not an economist. but every economist that i've read on this tax package says that's one of the least e of t stimulative, am i correct, senator?e one of the least stimulative so i want to know next week when we debating this. i'd like at least oneublican, jt republican, just one.r, it could be the minority leader mitch, mcconnell. dirr, j it could be the budget director, judd it could be just one republicang to give a passionate argumenthi for why they insisted this in the package. i just like to listen to it. i like to hear it with my ownhay thought was so important that they had to have been in the package? because i know it's angry as iio am with the president right now heout some matters, i know the t president did not insist this bn in the package. i know a enough about him to know that he didn't callroom everybody and say we forgot something. e let's make sure that this tax se extension includes people over million dollars. tax so i know he didn't give that speech. i want to know who did.llion. who did give it? it? because your constituents should know about it. and the american people have a right to know. that's one thing about our democracy. o cou it's open. it could be more open. we couldld be like what were tht all stand up and talk to one another in one of the rooms. very interesting. ver i find it very interesting to watch sometimes. we don't do that. but t at least the people want i know what their people are saying they can hear them.eople somebody said this. i'd like to know who and wherewa and when.he o was it in theva oval office? ec because i am going to be forcedd to vote because now i think the senator understands we are going to have any amendments.do so i'm going to be forced to vote and have to choose, which is going to be a very tough for choice between extending taxe cuts for 84% of the people in y state that make less thant $75,000, which of course i wantw to do, even though we have tot. borrow the money to do it, we we cannot do it. the economic circumstances ofbui such while we have to do it. but now in order to get them t something that i've talked about want to be serious about this. i'm very serious about it.n for me, borders on moralticized recklessness. debat i've been criticized on both sides of this debate. how can you use words w like th? i don't know. mass i went to catholic schools. we went to mouth almost everyevy week.every every week, every week, theeed. priest would say, don't take g more than you need. don'treit be greedy. share with others. i mean, did i go to the wrong t school? so i'd like to know. maybe those lessons were missed on the other side. and i don't normally speak like this. i've been criticized for her. i'm very, very torn because i ke to like to be part b of a team.i i understand the senator from vermont, that we can't have every package exactly the way ws believe. understand that. i've had to vote for something so hard for me to stomach it ane i've done it because there wereo good things in the bill. at works. but i actually cannot remember a time on either an appropriationf bill of this magnitude or a taxw bill ofe' this magnitude that we've been asked to cast a vote to something that on its face io so right list, so when necessary, so in your face toce the port interface to the take middle-class. we're going to take our money. don't you say a word about it.h? who said that? here and ask for a? f said bill perkins come down here to the gates come down here andr elsewhere? who asked for? why do you think you deserve it and what sender put their name on it?e a few now, i have a few more things ts say. i know when to keep the senatorn qaeda. fro the next senator from louisiana is making some very, very important points and i look appreciated and i look forward to hearing what she has to say. the mac thank you.mrpresident, mr. president, i wanted to just a few other things about thissem whole situation because the a senator from vermont and i agreed on something. obviously this one. tt we had a big difference ands i wanted to show this, just from my good. o i voted for the original taxri cut. i'm not sure that the senator from vermont did. good and they were very good reasons on both sides. to it's by to take a minute because i've got as i said critics ons n both sides here and i want to- t explain, not explain but share some thoughts about that and make something very clear. i was one of 12 democrats. they're only seven of us left iy the chamber today that voted for the bush tax cut.s and there was for the middle-class and for the wealthy.nd everybody. that's income tax relief, and capital gains tax relief, to m dividend tax relief. send a link in another semi-worked very hard to make sure that in that package, even, though i would've decided differently if i could have done it myself. but this is democracy.ve i understand and i've been doins it for 30 years.best w let'se try to shape that package the best they could to direct c and targeted to the middle-class. there were many critics who say you didn't do well enough. he didn't send it to the t middle-class are descended to the wealthy. i disagree. i think we did as well as we alo could.ug the higher brackets were lower as well. both of the big difference was it was paid for when we voted for it.ere there was $128 billion annual we surplus. in other words, we were spending $128 billion less than they were taking in. what a happy time that was. we were paying for pell grants.g we were paying for education. we were paying for health care. we had social security and we had 120 billion-dollar surplus.s and surplus is as far as the i this is before 9/11. so the 12 of us, let me speakt just for myself, thought what a situation this is. democrats had taken a toughget vote. r not one republican has taken a vote forec this budgetand too reconciliation of what the along senate was in the house and vott alongo with many to put on thatd tax. unprecedented levels and yes we were created millionaires. i'd like to say this. ili love creating a millionaire. it's why i got into politics. wy one of the reasons.olitic i like successful. i love to hear stories about myr constituents who came from poor families whose mothers were went household servants. fathers never went to high sma school. i left here about the smart from little girl from curt tom who gt got straight a's in school, went down the street to xavier university, dr. premed degrees,, went to become a.your anotherthe millionaires. i'm the one that fought for that to get the scholarship. not itin'sdividually but generat it's what i do. so it's what senators do.o it's what house members do.le tt i am so mad at people saying that b. is a democrat, we don'tt like people that are rich. we have something to get them.te nothing could be further from the truth. t i love the book, the millionaire next door. how it talks how it's a myth that most millionaires in america oft have inherited the money. the fact of the matter is thehe creative such a great countrywev over 250 years, we've actually found a way you put people to go from nothing to shoot 12 and to create a life changing opportunity for my children ande grandchildren. we celebrated. we movies about it. i write stories and books about it. there's nothing wrong with that. when we had a surplus, i thought we should give tax breaks and gv use some of that money.buto but today would be announced to provide tax credits when the nue deficit and i want to get this number because it's shocking actually. it is 1.294 trillion.he that is what the annual deficito is busier. i'm going to go back. we did the tax cut were generated 120 billion-dollar surplus y every year, surplus as far as the eye could see. we thought well, maybe we should give it your of this bombing and tax cut.tments o we have made investments inhe other things. vermont has but today, after what the senator vermont has described ae the economic inequality. when we have no surplus inlarget ceght, the biggest scum of thern largest most ferocious recession since the great depression andal we're running an annual deficit of $1.29 trillion.e aisle someone had the nerve on the other side of the aisle to say wait before you close the deal.b before you shut the door, beforn you stop the printing press, please put in the people in america that make over a billion dollars.are lots before that $50 billion, there's lots of ways that we could say,s that we could collect. i don't think we can. but if we could, as the senatorr knows, do we have been a billiou and a military. ver you know it's going to be, senator from vermont? 1.4%. exhibits only 1.4%?undending >> that's what my understanding is. a lot of folks in the middle are very upset about it. person >> every person in uniform is only getting a call this your1.. 1.4%. if anyonere over there when thet raise theirhe hands and without the millionaire said, did youllt we could've taken that moneywe y give it to them.o them they most certainly deserve it. legs, leaping and afghanistan. did anyone over the think aboutt that? the such an advocate for, they'reet. oot seen what they normally gett talk about tumulus. every dollar you think you get to senior citizens, senatorspen. would you say? it gets right-of-way spent. they're not going out in peruy same, you know, a yacht or anuy, airplane that they could or could not buy, they don't realld mean it. they need to eat. they go to theee corner drugsto. or they need to get them medicine.i they spend it.e yes we give money to the poor and the democratic side into tht middle class because it's the eight thing to do and it actually happens to be also the smart thing to do for the economy and for jobs. ha so when people say to the don senator, flip-flop on taxes, i don't understand how to say some thing. i voted for tax cuts when we had a surplus. i am challenged about how to address this package, mosttheide certainly want to extend it fory the middle class. unemployment. lazy, people are unemployed notthey ae because they are lazy for heaven sakes. they are unemployed because there are no jobs for them. unemployment that we had in rour nations history. so the other side is making us feel, they say to us, what we surely you should give up the tax breaks forx millionaires. the is that really an equal that trade? and if somebody believes that -- i've heard commentators say it prrams, a in different networks, but i've been on the news programs they say. the but you've got the unemployment. so that's a fair trade. tha if there is a senator thatgreatn thinks that, but for them to say that backseat because i think that would be great to have on the record. t so, this situation is what my s louisiana families in my state are facing. to provide tax relief for these families. we have less than 1.8% are over making over $200,000. and i'm checking right now to find out how many families inalm louisiana actually make over a t million. i was told he was 3200. that number might be too high. the senator from west virginia told the man stated 509 people in west virginia make over at yt million dollars a year. but yet, it looks like that is the package. tou so we're going to be in a toughe situation with our amendmentsco having to go for it. i'm going to see what my s constituents are saying of thehs weekend.nequitynd but i want to say one more thinr about this inequity and then turn it back over to the senator from vermont. besides the other things that have been put into the record about the inequality, the the -o challenges before our country n, right now. i came across some data and i'ds like the senator, if he has juse one more minute to be on the the floor to listen to this because it's very, very -- it was very g startling. >> senator landrieu, i'm not ywhere. going anywhere. i'm not sure what the timeless. i'm the chair of the small business and i have some of thes testimony was startling and i to wanted to share.sus the census data of the 2000 census data.ata. someone was testifying about who this recession was taking so long for us to get over even gi though we're givingvi them somee figures about the status of thei economy and the welncl for incoo in broad sections of thefey said population. and they said sort of the off-the-cuff, just like today'sd money. they said and by the way, the ts averageai net worth -- sorry, th median - net worth of householde in america, the average median t net worth, not income, net worth of the 67,000. an tha it looks very interesting. i thought it would be higher man t that. i mean, that's taking everything that you own minus everything th you know the difference is your net worth. i thought people might have more than that. i mean, in terms of equity in their home. coupldr you know, a couple hundred this idea that broken down by race by any chance? yes, ma'am. we have that. would you share?share they did and i'm going to share with you because i have not recovered from what i've heard. for the gentleman says to me, well,n for white families in america, the average median -- on more, 50% last company meetingso for white households and a nurse's 87,000. 87,000. for his hispanic families it isa house in. and for african-american families, it is 5000. now i want to repeat that again. 50% of all families in america who are caucasian, they're not worth the 67,000 or less. o for hispanic families in america, 50% of all hispanic households, they're not worth is a thousand. and for african-american families today, 2010, 40 years after the peak of the civilovemt rights movement in 150 euros orl so after the civil war and all e the things we think we've done to try and get people any more equal position i in our societys $5000. that's including home equity.wnp that's including homeownership i mean. without homeownership, without homeownership, that net worth fonr african-american families falls to $1000. peo so whepln people say people are obtained and suffering and anxious and they can buy there is no question in a recession tlike this. bruta how brutal is the recession? the people that had so little o cushion for a middle-class family of any race. can if you lose your job come you can get an appointment. your you got some equity in youryou e home. if you have some savings you cal fall back. bounce there's a cushion. you can land, you can bounce bru back. how brutal as this recession? to millions of families in america but have no cushion, they're just having hard rock. they are just sitting still.on there is no cushion there. and you wonder why people arerts angry. you wonder why this two-party movement is the stream.know, pee you wonder why people -- people are so angry they call. i understand that anger.o. i'm so angry myself i don't know what to do. much. >> my good friend. r and i thank her very much. t ad she is right that it's noole great secret that her politics and mine are not the same on many issues. but she has down here speaking from her heart, coming from the state of louisiana. were not radically different ina vermont. with a lot of struggling families. i want to reiterate the point. ide is effectively about the stress ond the middle-class and workingo families interested around the country. i want to reiterate this point, senator if ii' might. and i'm not here to pick on george w. bush. but during the presidency, his eight years, the wealthiest 400 americans, those are pretty high up guy. no matter how broadly you deploi that, they're in no more than doubles.il but that's whether incomee tax thr inco rate, their income tax rates the dropped less than half.rn on the wealthiest 400 americans oni fverage 300 for 5 billion figuro and pay an effective tax rate of t.6% on average. that's the lowest tax rate for . working individuals on record.ls the point is, senator landrieung is talking about aren't talkingr about the people out in the in r the real world are working longer hours for low wages, median family income has declined. people are scared for the first time in our moderr history, their kids are going to have a lower standard of living than they do. you hear that,e louisiana? >> i am. the >> people on top are doing well. senator landrieu is ask in a simple question. and if people are asking the same question. the wealthy people are becoming much a richer. middle class is declining poverty iss increasing. pple who decides? who are the people that said an billionaires really need an extended tax break and a reduction in the estate tax? a it is a very simple question that is asking. all it's a very profound question te because it speaks to what this country is all about. i didn't mean to interrupt. thak >> now, i think the senator froi vermont to know what to submit to the record is income inequality and great recessionqy report from senator schumer and the joint economic committee.. >> without objection. >> thank g you. but i want to go back to a poin. about this so that i'm not will misunderstood. i guess the matter what i say, critics will take it and do what they will with it. am but i am not against tax cuts. m i voted for them many times in my life. but we have surpluses.n i've even been pressured to vots for things that i've done so the even we didn't have the wer surpluses we have, when ite wasl targeted and focused. i'm actually have been some migt rational fraud attached to the e money, like we did in theand spd stimulus package and send it. se because if we don't get some ftr spending going, we could slip further into a recession, evenae conservative economists counseled us on parts of the stimulus package, which by the way, contrary to popular dance was about the same size as this package. this package is actually larger. this package will be 900 billion pain. s's going to beme less. that but in that stimulus package, there was about a third of it with tax cuts. do you remember that, senator,is mr. president?uts. a third for tax cuts. it wasn't all just spending.nom, but every economist, republican -- i mean, conservative, liberal, said theu government hasp got to step up w and spend economy because this place is shutting down, meaning. the country. and so we did.at w people still argue on the other side that was the wrong thing tb do and we shouldn't have done it. but i'm here to say that for the $2.8 billion that was spent in a louisiana through that stimulus package, tax cuts and spending, i'd like to ask the legislature who was struggling to balance the budget as i speak they'vewab been in budget committee over the last coupleud a of weeks. bt where would you be today withoub the 2.8 billion? i don't know how much went to vermont for the california orh went to colorado. but you know, people say was a failure. let me say that $2.8 billion went to our state and has worded cities and counties and parishes would've had to take.e. and it wouldn't have taxsot increases so that governorse didn't have to raise taxes and mayor said not to raise taxese however this country. some of them have done that, but they're trying too limit it because they know how fragile ts this middle classes. am i am not unmindful of the importance of providing tax cute when we can. we're but when we're asked to vote ont a package that has a provision t might as that borders on moraly recklessness, i have to catch mw breath and say who's idea was this? at theik know.g so it's going to be a long hou weekend. it's going to be along 30 hours i am glad the senator from vermont is going to make sure oe that we take every one of those 30 hours post-cloture, if we gel to cloture on the bill because o think the american people are f going to be waiting around toin find out who's idea was this?loi >> senator from louisiana. she makes a very important th is point. and that is ultimately we are a, democracy and it the american people who make the decisions. i know she shares with me toeope believe that the american people have got to become engaged in l this debate, and is very, very important debate, which has a lot to do with the future of lar thisie country. whi senator landrieu asked a very, very simple question, which iike would like and i think the american people they can brillia institute. whose brilliant idea was it that at a time when we have seen anon explosion in income and wealthwh to people ilon top, while theirl tax rates have already gone down, whose brilliant idea was s it that would drive up the kidst national debt, ask our kids toyf the higher taxes to pay off thas debt in order to give tax breaks to people who don't get it? that is the question senator landrieu is asking.rican people i think the american people neeh an answer. and my hope is that millions ofo americans start calling their senators to ask a question.: ank who's idea was that? and i would like to know. i don't think -- and the irony,s and senator landrieu made this y point. they're millionairesed out there was a thank you. i don't need it. i am more worried about the kids in this country or a infrastructure than giving me a tax rate i don't need.eed. i can't spend it.than thanks very muksch. thus the warren buffett has said, bill gates has said.said. i know ben of ben & jerry's hasa set up your risk of many millionaire saindon. we are giving some of these guys something they don't even want.t so i just want to thank senator landrieu very much, not only for being here today.ng please continue.tant but for raising these important issues. this >> one more point and i'm going to turn this back over to the ws senator. i was on the credits and show last night and i think greta ist always a tough, tough tou interviewer, but she shares i'd happily go unheard program. we debated these things. and i think that's important to, debate them here, debate them om television.hall that's what democracy is all qui about. she asked me questions like toa, answer. nobod she's a senator, were soy want frustrated. nobody ever hears anybody say they want to cut spending. they want to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse. let so let me concede this point e that for me i don't think we dog talk enough about eliminating eg the waste, eliminating fraud and eliminating abuse. i think we should spend more to time. and i'm going to commit myself because i know the american s people say every time we ask fot a tax cut can you say we can't afford it.et when did she cut spending, et cetera? i would say about voted for tax cuts. and for tax cuts. they been given tax cuts for m people that do make higher thanr the 75,000 or 100,000 or 2050 there will be no surplus, when i thought it was a fiscal responsible thing to do, i was able to disagree. this is the first time i'm able to provide tax cuts be earned over a million dollars in the deficit. but i'll say this. i'm going to commit myself to trying to find places that we can cut off support, federalan freeze. all supported in appropriations to share. senator it away as taking down the appropriations level the $8 billion below the president'o budget. and if we need to go even further, perhaps we should. but we have to be careful whereo we cut. and i asked people to beabout rational about this. do you want to cut pell grants, which now are valued in 1970. i looked at this the other day o and the senator from vermont particularly, when the pilgrims went in, it was a crypto kids gt to school. in the 1970s, mr. president, the pell grant paid 100% of the average, you know, two-yeary p college. it only pays 50% of the today. i think i remember he paid 40% f almost 60 or 40% of a four year. college, the that today. a value, because we have not lie kept up with a program like pelu grant, which is a powerful tool to lift the middle class or let the poor out of poverty andlass. expand the middle class.'s so when we cut programs, let's be careful to cut the waste, cus the abuse, but let's not cut the heart out of what we're arguing for tools, affect your tools to expand the middle class or we nr will never get out of this recession.ew because i promised you a comment a few thousand people in this country, i don't know how many 1 lift this country out of a to be recession. it is going to be the middle get class. we don't often get ahead, if what an up-to-date training, this recession will go on for a long time. the idea that one would think e, about cutting back on education, whether it's child care, primary school or college is simply ou cutting off nose to spite our faces. the senator is aware that we are at one time in this country, wed used to lead the world in thegr number of our people who graduated college. weow are now very significant. how do you become a great scientis economy if you don't have thefes scientists, engineers, teachers, the professionals out there and many other countries on the percentage of their high schoolg graduates going to college is gt something we've got to address s and anyone who comes word is w just moving us in exactly the wrong direction.ifome pe >> exactly. i am for o more accountability. if we get people on the otherha side of the aisle think some of that money is being wasted over not getting our bang for then buck, then don't come with an across-the-board cut to pell grants. come up a plan to changeco it. t and say these are the requirements for universities. t you have to graduate 65% of the yds that start. or you go to a certain benchmarks before you can applye for these loans are for these grants. but i'll play it, this country is at a crossroads. and i know that the president and his advisers understand thes extraordinary challenges beforee this country. i hope the members understand, you know, the economic danger, the minefield that were in heres we can't make too many mistakes- th push them off. there's no surplus left. down we are down to below five. d so when we do big things likeths this, this is a big thing. the same $980 billion pay aost 1 package. thomas a trillion dollars. i it's the best you can do it. don't put recklessly, don't do it purposely. don't do it for ideology for gosh almighty sake. and i just wish we could've fought harder for a better package. i've not yet decided how i'm going to vote. they said if i vote and i'm putting quietly. i may vote yes, i may vote no.eh but i'm going to vote with aud e loud voice about what i'm concerned about, whatt i believe my constituents are concerned about and try to do my best to o help them, to support them and n nex to make the best decisions we can next week. com it was troubling to me. i wanted to come to the floor id and speak about it and i think the senator from vermont. very much for coming. i thank her because i think on y different.di think are but on this issue, i think we are speaking for theot overwhelming majority of the people, not just amusing in a uw all over this country who cannot understand why we get tax rate to billionaires to drive up thet deficit and the national debt at iust death are so harsh. very so i want to thank senator landrieu so much for veryate thy articulate and heartfelt statement. i appreciate that very much. mr. president, i was mentioning a moment ago the great contrast about what is happening in our economy between the people on top and everybody else. and i indicated that the top 40y family during the bush presidency alone saw theirore income more than doubled. at the same time, by the way, ag their incomes tax rates dropped almost in half. so that's what is going on for the people in top who would makg out extr oemely well under thisn agreement between the president and republican leadership.i alst but i also talked about what is going on to the middle class and working families of this country. and that is, if you can believe this is really quite amazing. qi since december 1999, this is in a "washington post" article in january. since december 1999, there has been a zero net job creation, zero net job creation.om inflation than they did in 1999n andum the number is sure to have declined further in 2009. what does that mean?te it means that you look at a 10k year period.ve people were very hard. in many instances you've got husbands and wives in the vast majority of instances. both work and both work and they're still not making enough money to pay the bills.e less and in fact they have less money than they used t to. when i was a kid growing up, tho expectation was that to be in the middle class, what happened was that when people in thoseill days -- and they know the young people will not believe this, but this is true. years ago in the united states, before the great global economy, before robotics, before computers, one person could worh 40 hours a week and earn enough money to pay the bills for the family. one person. today in vermont and throughoutt this countryry, overwhelmingly u have had and then wives bothery, working. and in some instances, they are working very, very long hours. today a two income family has less disposable income than aon- one income familyin did 30 yeart ago because wages have not kept up with inflation and because sort, basicc necessities have thought, this is a description re a country moving in the wroni direction. thirty years ago, a one income family had more disposable income than a two income family and there are a lot of reasons n for that. maybe we'll touch on them a little bit later. oneer. of them in my view has to with our disastrous unfettered free trade policy, which hashe resulted in the shutdown of timf spent tens of thousands ofn hurries in this country. lost some 48,000lo to hurries. we lost -- we went from 19 million manufacturing jobs t1 12 million manufacturing jobs. and inuf many instant lives, the good jobs.dpowrn a worth a go?bu oth welcomeer to some shutdown for e variety of reasons, but other yu shutdown because we have trade laws that say you've got to be t not to shut down in america because you go to china, go tog developing country and pay workers they are a fraction of'u the wages you pay in america. why would you go? outmaneuvering your products right back into this country. a couple weeks though my wifeshp and i did some christmas shopping. frankly what a couple of stores. it's very hard to find a produce manufactured in the united states of america. and you don't have to be a phd e in economics to understand that strong economy unless we have a strong manufacturing capabilityo unless companies are we investing in colorado or vermont, creating good jobs here. you don't have an economictually future with virtually everythino you're buying is coming from reina or another company --e' country.low-d the matches target low-ends products. this is not stickers are a pair of pants. this is increasingly high-class stuff. so we are -- we are really f forfeiting our future is a greae economic nation unless we build our industrial base and unlessls we create millions and millions of jobs, producing the goods on. the products that we consume. we cannot continue to just purchase products from the rest of the world. mr. president, when we talk about the collapse of the middls class, it is important to also recognize the fact as reported e in "usa today" last dseptember. let me quote. the incomes of the young andmide middle-age, especially men have fallen off a cliff and 2000, e leaving many age groups pooreref than they were even in the, "usa 1970s. that's a quote, u.s.a. today. yg point being, for young workers, for example, when we had in in manufacturing base in america in the 40s, 50s, 60s, you could graduate high school, gows out and get a job in a factory.i was it a glamorous job? no. yes. was it a dirty job in some cases? but if you worked in yo manufacturing and especially if you have a union behyoind you, u likelihood is that you earned wages to take your family into ass.middle cl your decent health care coverage and you might even have a stron? pension. where are all those jobs now? ya during the bush years alone, we went from 19 million jobs in 12 manufacturing to 12 millionlossf jobs. her renaissance of today i manufacturing. so if your kid today in colorado or vermont, if you're out ofcolo your mind for whatever reason, o to go to college, 30 of 40 years ago you could go out and get a job in a factory and you make some money. in today what are your options. what are youry. options?-wage is that a minimum-wage job at or mcdonald's. or maybe a wal-mart. that's a far minimal or nonexistent. and that is basic if it canwantl transition of the american whenw economy. i want to tell you something else when we talk about manufacturing.publ we didn't get a wichole lot of publicity, but it is worth preparing here. the good news is that we haveer recently seen, after the loss of many, many thousands of jobs in the automobile industry, we hava seen the auto companies and others starting to rehire.idely what i think has not been widely reported is that the wages of the new workers who are being hired is 50% of the wages of the old workers in the plan. so you're going to help workers working side-by-side. worker for an older worker is making nx $25, $28 an hour. and right next to them, a new hire is making $14 an hour. and if you understand that the automobile industry was perhapsi the gold standard for manufacturingca in america, what to think is going to hop into the wages of blue-collar workers in the future? if all you can get with the union behind you in automobile o manufacturing is 14 bucks an c hour today, what are you goingol to make in colorado or vermont? he could make 10 bucks an hour, 11 bucks an hour? is that enough money to raise a? family on quake three clan have any benefits? so that is what happens. that is what happens when you ctfa are manufacturing base a sficant disappears. my and that's a significant degree, in my view as a result of the disastrous trade policy. i've got tell you that i think - in hindsight, most people agree i was right. all the corporations in the world were telling us how great hphtha with e., free trade with mexico, i didn't buy it. trade i was right. i thought it's going to be the better. we've got a free trade withh china. my god, think about how muchican china has in all the american products are going to buy over there. united states.ry. i never believed for a moment. i was in china a number of yearf ago and i walked into part of a congressional delegation. we went to visit wal-mart in china. on the wal-mart store with the different products, but the the style product. se aisles and you feel these american products. and got rupturing gambler, selfcts products. product a lot of the products were american products were pretty familiar.he h so yesea the guy who was theremt with us, was that i believe of o wal-mart, guys in charge of all the wal-mart there., i asked him a question. arican o i said tommy, how many of these? american company products are actually manufactured in the united states? b and he was a little bit sheepish and a little bit hesitant. and he said about 1%. so obviously, where everybody knew that it is a large sheet f book for a good companies to set up plants in china by chinese we workers at 55 cents an hour, 65 cents an hour or whatever it iss and have them build for the p chinese markets than it is to pay workers $15 an hour, $20 ane hour, provide health insurance committee with the union committee with the environment.y that is not a great revelation. i think anybody could've figured that one out.at but the big money interests were down here. they pushed it. i and congress and presidentnt clinton is now trying to find it. so if we look at what the middle class is in the shape that isy s that, it's important to make sure everybody understands. because i think one of the -- it things that happens in this world, human nature i suppose, as people feel very guilty and responsible if they are notthe taking care of their families. and right now we know withmplo unemployment so high, this is nt not just close statistics are throwing out.owing these are people who not onlyeoh earning an income that supported their families, they had a sense of work. every human being wants to be put out to. they want to redo something.to g they want oto be part of something. they want to go to work. hom or at home to bring it back. of you know what it is thaty you ae somebody said of human worth. suddenly you're sitting home, watching tv. you can't go out and earn aeople living.commit it destroys you. people become alcoholic. people commit suicide. people have mental break down lr because they are no longer lon utilizing their skills. a onger being ant productive member of society. that's unemployment is about. is and i think that one of the the reasons that unemployment is so highly, one of the reasons the s middle class is collapsing houss a lot to do with these disastrous trade policies. i got i've got to tell you, as we've th been talking about all day long, these policies, these taxes froo breaks, raall of this stuff emanates from corporate leaders whose sense of responsibility ie substantive. they want themselves to become richer. they want more and more profits for b c the company, but they cd care less about the needs of the american people. i remember there was one ceo ofn one of the largest american corporations. and he said, when i look at the future of general lack that, i c seehi china, china, china and ud china. and by the way, we ended up bailing out a particular corporation.ked he did that to china to get bailed out. he looked at the taxpayers of ntry.cou but the word has got to get out. corporate america is going to have to start reinvesting in th united states ofin america. they're going to have to startdd building the products on thericn good that the american peoplethe need, rather than run all over the country in search of cheap labor. and it's an absolute imperative before going to turn this econom ty around.n mr. president, according to a "boston globe" article publishe, last year, let me quote what they say. again again, i'm trying to document care what is happening to thee working class w of america beca' i don't wantt individual workers get somebody who may be hearing this on the tv or othe radio.ts so you know, it's my fault. there's something wrong with med because i can't go outet and gea chai. well, you're not alone. compl so the entire middle class isshn collapsing. has shed its millions and and i know that there people ouo there trying so hard to findst t workers and the work is notthe o there. and cre that's whyate we've got to rebuo the econnomy with great trust. this is at "the boston globe" said last year. quote, the recession has been more like a depression for blue-collar workers. and this is an important point to be made here. you know, when we talk about the ybody economy, we kind of lumpthe everybody together. that's wrong. the truth is right now and thect economy that people are verynt well on appropriate for upper income people is very low, veryi low. they're doing okay. as opposed to this "boston globe" article points out, whatt is happening to blue-collar workers? the recession has been more like a d depression for blue-collar workers who are losing jobs much more quickly than the nation asf a whole. this is the working class of america.ar the nation's blue-collar industries has slashed one in six jobs since 2007. let me repeat that."the ri shows an astronomical fact.it the nation's blue-collar industry manufacturing have/to one in six jobs since 2007 all compared with about one in 20 for all industries, leaving scores of the unemployed competing for the rare job opening in construction for manufacturing with many unlikels to work in those fields again. % again, never. up to 70% of unemployed blue-collar workers have lost jobs permanently, meaning their old jobs won't be there when the economy recovers. and if low. that's "the boston globe" last o year. so when we talk about the economy, what we have got to do is understand that blue-collar workers, middle-class younglly workers are really hurting very, very much. deb and in the context again of the debate we are now having, theetl discussion of whether wed should approve the agreement reached between the president and the o republicans on taxes, the idea g of not significantly investing inno our economy, but rather of dol giving tens of billions of dollars to thela very rich and more tax breaks makes no sense to many of us.eople but we talk about why people ard angry and americana, white people when asked the question, do you think america is moving in the right direction? overwhelmingly they think not.wy me tell you why they think not. this is just her and the president be of president bush o from 2001 through 2008. during that period alone, just n enough. and by the way, the pain isn't t certainly continued right now. t cring those eight years ofiddle bush, over 8 million americans slipped out of the middle classy and into poverty. today nearly 40 million pover. ceericans are living in povertyn 7.8 million americans lost their health insurance and that isth t continuing.s i think the reason study came out that suggest that the uninsured now are about 50 million americans.urance 50 million americans have no health insurance now. we hope to health care reform is going to make a dent in that. ma but as of today, without the major conditions of health oramc reform being implemented, 50 million americans. 50 million americans without any health insurance.mr. pr mr. president, during that period -- and we haven't talked- about this whole lot. there's nothing going on in the economy for the workingn class.i years and years ago, if you work in a manufacturing plant, used at a reasonable chance at having a pension, a pension.3.2 llion during the bush years, 3.2 million workers lost theirhe pensions and about half of have no pension coverage today whatsoever. the ati today of having a defined pension plan significantly paid for by your employer is going away of the dinosaur.more it is just not. there anymore. workers are more and more dependent on social security, which has been there for 75 years, which we've got d to yeas protect and demand will be thero another 75 years. because right now, millions of pensions. i mean, i'm throwing these statistics. the reason i am doing that ifhaf they want people to appreciate that if you're hurting now, stop being ashamed.,ery onef us it's not -- yet we can't do whi bechtter. everyone of us could do better., you're in an economy which is attracting especially for the families. according to an article in "usa today," from the year 2000 to 2008, middle-class men -- women have done better. drop middle-class men experience and 11.2% drop in their incomes. a reduction of $7700 after for adjusting for inflation. middle-class women in this age%c their incomes as well.ad sedated me that, but the men did even worse. so what we are seeing is any and understanding of why people are angry and why people think that wrong direction. most mr. president, i think most people understand that today our country ist experiencing the worstce economic crisis since te great depression of the 1930s. - and let me -- it's important tot say thatha because again it is v hard enough when you don't haven a job, would you don't havet i o income, when your dignity andbat self-respect is declining. but i don't want people to be banging their heads against the wall, blaming themselves for all the problems. something is going on in the the nation. a you're not in this alone. eein we talk about working-class families all across the countrys seeing the decline in their incomes, it's not because people are lazy. is not because people are notg working hard. it's not because people are not o find jobs.n what we have is an economy which is rotting in the middle and wen we've got to change the economy. if there's anything we can say about the american people, we f, were apart. we in fact worked longer hours than do the people in any other country -- industrialized a hark country on earth.he we are not a lazy people. we are hard-working people. work the jobs are there, people will if people have to work 60 hours a week or 70 hours a week, that is what they will do. but we've got to rebuild this economy. we don't need tax breaks for. billionaires. we need to create jobs for the k middle-class of this country so to takecan put people back work. now let me just take a minute to discuss how we are today. and in my view, what policies we need to move this country of forward to create the kinds of jobs that we desperately need. t now let's just take a quick looy of 2009.rs seems like a long time ago.d thw just a couple years ago.thedmins and that was the last month of the administration of president bush. in that month, we lost over 700,000 jobs. that is an absolutely incredible number. in fact, during the last sixlios months of the bush presidency, we lost over 3.5 million jobs, r all of which was caused by the greed and recklessness and illegal behavior on wall streetr our gross domestic outlets, which is the total funds purchased producers have gone down byg nearly 7% during the i- fourth quarter t of 2008.centur. that is the biggest decline in more than a quarter century. some $5 trillion of america's wealth evaporated in a 12 week. as people in vermont and all over the of their homes, retirement savings in stocks plummet.ain and i want to say just one word again about wall street.k because a thing for a variety of reasons we just don't talk about it enough.what which you had was a situation in which a small number of folks at the head of huge financial and u situations, through their greed, through the development of veryo reckless policies, through illegal behavior, through pushing out financial be instruments, which turned out in some cases to be worthless. seen since the great depression. from january -- is, at the end of the bush administration -- that is, at the end of the bush administration, but it's important to understand, very important to understand, that the wall street crisis took us over the wall in terms of precipitating the severe recession that we're in. but we have to remember that during those eight years, as i mentioned earlier, the middle class was also shrinking. so it wasn't oh, my goodness, everything has gone great, then you've got the wall street disaster, now we're in the midst of a terrible recession. this trend of a middle-class collapse went on long before bush. precipitated significantly during the bush years but it went on before as well. but just during the bush years. over the eight-year period of over the eight-year period of >> while president bush from 2001 to 2009, we lost 600,000 private sector jobs. we lost 600,000 private sector jobs, and only 1 million net new jobs were created. all of them in the government sector. so for my friends, my republican colleagues to tell us that we need more tax breaks for the very rich because that's going to create jobs, that's what trickled down, economically, what i would say to them, you had your chance. it failed. in case you don't know, losing 600,000 private sector jobs in eight years is not good. that's very, very bad. that's an economic policy that has failed. we don't need to look at that movie again. we saw it. it stunk. it was a bad movie. bad economic policy. more tax breaks for the rich are not what our economy needs. in fact, what every economist will tell you, that the least effective way to create jobs. during the bush era, median income dropped by nearly $2200. that means that family in the middle saw their income drop by $2200. during the eight years of bush, and i say all of these things just to tell you that we are not where we are today just because of the wall street crisis. that's the clip. that made a situation much, much worse. but it has been going on for a long time. going on before bush, it's going on after bush. during the eight years of bush, over 8 million americans slipped out of the middle class and into poverty. we don't talk about poverty in america anymore. we don't talk about the homelessness in america very much anymore. trust me, it's there. it's three blocks away from where i'm speaking with a large homeless shelter. it's in small towns in vermont where people tell me that for the first time, they are seeing families, more and more families with kids needing emergency shelter. because they can't afford housing. in vermont, a lot of people don't have low wage jobs making $10 an hour. it's hard to find a decent apartment or pay a mortgage on $10. that's true all over the country. homelessness is going up. during the bush years, the republicans lost jobs that were wealthy. i will likely talk about in a little while, it's health care. it's related to everything. we are the only country in the industrialized world that does not guarantee health care to all people as a right of citizenship. according to harvard university, 45,000 americans will die this year. because they lack health insurance and are not getting to a doctor when they should. during the bush administration, 5 million manufacturing jobs disappeared. as companies shut down plants in the united states and moved to china, mexico, vietnam, and other low-wage countries. as i mentioned earlier, profoundly important to understand what's going on in america in 2000, the year 2000, we had over 17,000 manufacturing jobs in this country. by 2008, we had less than 12,000. 17,000 to 12,000 in weight -- eight years. that's the loss much 5,000 manufacturing jobs. a 20% reduction. no more manufacturing jobs since the beginning of world war ii. under president bush, our trade deficit more than tripled with china, and our overall trade deficit nearly doubled. the point that i am making now within the context of this agreement is we need agreements now that do not give tax breaks to millionaires or billionaires that do not lower the tax rate for the estate tax which is applicable only to the top three months percent. we need agreements to rebuild our infrastructure, manufacturing, and create the millions of good paying jobs the american people desperately want. again, the point that's got to be made, i got to make it over and over and over again. when you look at the economy, it's one thing to say that everybody is hurting. you know? and sometimes that happens. the hurricane comes. and everybody gets out. the hurricane for america has not impacted everybody. it has impacted the working glass, middle class, the people on top are doing better than they ever were. our friends on wall street who's greed and illegal behavior caused this recession. they are now making more money than they ever did after being bailed out by the middle class of this country. during the bush years, the wealthier 400 americans saw their incomes more than double. do you really think that after seeing a doubling under the bush years of the incomes that these people are in desperate needs of 1 million a year tax breaks? in 2007, the 400 top income earners in this country made an average of $345 million in one year. a nice piece of change. that's the average, $345 million. in terms of wealth the wealthiest 400 americans saw of some $400 billion during the bush years. imagine that. during the period, the top 400 wealthiest saw the increase on average of 1 billion of piece. together the 400 families have a collective net worth of $1.7 trillion. does anybody in america believe they need another tax break so that our kids and grandchildren can pay more in taxes because the national debt has gone up. i don't think most of the americans believe that. that's why in my view the americans in disagreement. let me also say that when we look at what's going on around the rest of the world, what we have got to appreciate is that in the united states today, and again, this is not something that we can be proud of. it's something that we have got to address. we the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any other country on earth. i remember talking not so long again so somebody from scandinavia, finland, of course we have rich people. but there's a level in which they would become embarrassed. we now have the situation where the ceos make 300 times more than their workers. in many other countries, yeah, everybody wants to be rich. but there is a limb. you can't become a billionaire stepping over children or -- stepping over children who are sleeping out on the streets. that's where the country has to say enough is enough. mr. president, the top 23% earns 5% of the country. in the number it was 8%, in the 1990, it was approximately 18%. now it is 23.5%. so the people on top are getting a bigger and bigger chunk of all income. furthermore, it's not just the top 1%. there are economist who write you think the top 1% are losing wealth. they are. it's really the top 1/10 of 1%. if you can believe this. i want people to digest this. i don't know how many people. 300 million into 1/10 of 1%. that top 1/10 of 1% which is 11% of total income according to the latest data available. 1/10 of 1% earned 11% of all income in america. in the 1970s, as i just said, the top 1% only made something like 8% total income. in the 80s, it rose to 10 to 14. in the late 90s it was 15% to 19%. 2005, the past 21, and in 2007, the top 1% received 23.5% of all of the income earned in this country. the last time that people should be mindful of this, the last time that that time of income disparity took place was in 1928. and i think we all know what happened in 1929. and that's the point that senator mary landrieu was making a while back. what she understands quite correctly is that if working people and the vast majority of the people don't have the income to spend money to buy products and goods and services, we can't create the jobs. if all of the money or a big chunk of the money ends up with a few people on top, this is a limit, you know, to how many limousines and homes and yachts you can have. when you hit a situation where so few have so much, it is not just a moral issue, but it is also an economic issue. a strong and growing middle class goes out, spends money, and creates jobs. grossly unequal distribution of income and wealth, creates more economic shrinkage and loss of jobs because people just don't have the disposable income to go out, buy, and create jobs for their neighbors. now also, to add insult to injury, in terms of this agreement negotiated by the president and the republicans, while the very wealthiest people in this country become much wealthier, and the deficit soared, and under president bush the national debt almost doubled. what else happened? well, the tax rates for the very rich went down. rich get richer, tax rates go down. this was the result, not only of the tax breaks for the rich initiated during the bush administration, but also quite frankly, tax policy that took place before president bush. the result is that from 1992 to 2007 the latest statistics that we have, the effective federal tax rate what people really pay for the top 400 income earners was cut almost in half. so these cry babies, these multimillionaires and billionaires, these people who are making out like bandits, they are crying and crying and crying but their effective tax rates for the top 400 income earners in america was cut almost in half from 1992, to between. the -- from 1992 to 2007. the point that needs to be made, when is enough, enough? that is the essence that we are talking about. when is greed -- greed in my view is like a sickness. it's like an addiction. we know people on heroin. they can't stop. they destroy their lives. need more and more heroin. they can't stop smoking and have problems. nicotine, cost them their health. we all have our share of addictions. i would hope that for these people who are worth hundreds of millions of dollars they will look around them and say there is something more important in life than the richest people becoming richer when we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. maybe they will understand that they are americans, part of a great nation which is in trouble today. maybe they've got to go back to the bible or whatever they believe it and understanding that there is virtue in sharing and reaching out. you can't get it all. i think this is an issue that we have got to stay on and stay on and stay on. this greed, reckless, uncontrollable greed, it's almost like a disease. which is hurting this country terribly. how can anybody be proud to say i'm a multimillionaire and get a huge tax breaks and 1/4 of the kids in the country are on food stamps. how do you be proud of that? i don't know. mr. president, it's not just income, it's wealth. top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 90%. during the bush years, the wealthiest 400 americans saw their increase, their wealth increase by $400 billion. how much is enough? all of these things are related to the agreement that the president and the republicans worked out because we are all concerned about the national debt and our deficit. now in terms of the federal budget, when president bush first took office, we had a $236 billion surplus in 2001 and a projected ten year surplus of 5.6 trillion. that's good. senator andrew was talking -- lu was talking about it a moment ago. some things happened. we all know that 9/11 was not his fault. what happened is we went to war in afghanistan, we went to war in iraq. and the war in iraq was the fault of the president bush, something i certainly did not support, nor did most americans support. the war in iraq, by the time our last veteran is taken care of, will probably end up costing us something like $3 trillion. adding enormously to our national debt. when we talk about iraq, it's not only the terrible loss of life that our soldiers and the iraqi people have experienced, let's not forget what it has done to the national debt. we did not pay for the war in iraq, we put it on the credit card. president gave out, president bush gave out $700 billion in tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of americans. $700 billion. wherefores the offset? there was none. gave them tax breaks. that's it. adds to the national debt. president and republicans supported a $400 billion medicare part d prescription drug program. i have always believed as one the leaders in believing that we needed a strong prescription drug program for seniors. but the program that was passed was written by the pharmaceutical industry, written by the insurance companies, and nowhere near as cost effective as it could be. as the president undoubtedly knows, we are not even negotiating prescription drug prices with the drug companies, but at expense and cost to the american people. drug costs are now much more expensive on the medicare part d in terms of what the veterans administration department of defense is. we passed that. great idea. just another $400 billion prescription drug program unpaid for. then we bailed out wall street. $400 billion. a lot of that has been paid back. but there's expense there as well. you add all of the things together. and normal governmental growth, and it turned out that the bush administration turned $236 billion a year surplus into a $1.3 trillion a year deficit. more or less, that's where we are right now. in fact, the national debt nearly doubled under president bush going from $5.7 to $10.6 trillion in 2009. now we are at $13.7 trillion, borrowing huge sums of money from china and other countries, in order to maintain our existence. that's where we are. that's where we are. now have we been seeing in recent years some improvements in the economy? we sure have. there has been some job growth. nowhere near enough. we are surely not losing 700,000 a year. we are seeing some growth. but we need to do much better. and that takes me back to an issue that i feel very, very strongly about, mr. president. and one that i want to say a few words on. in this agreement that the president negotiated with the republicans, there are a substantial -- there's a substantial sum of money going into tax -- various types of business tax breaks. and the theory which has certainly some validity is that these business tax breaks will create jobs. the problem is that right now, the business, large corporations at least, are sitting on a huge bundle of money already that they are not spending. and the reason they are not investing that money is they perceive that working families don't have the money to buy their products and their services. i think that there are -- saying this i'm not alone. i think most economist agree with me, there's a far more effective way that we can create jobs in this country, rather than just a number of tax breaks going to businesses. and i talked on this point before, and i want to get into a little bit more detail now. for this, i am indebted to a very fine book written by an old friend of mine called arianna huffington. it's called "third world america." she used that word because the theme of her book is if we do not get our act together in terms of infrastructure, in terms of education, in terms of health care, that's where we are heading. we are heading. this great country is heading in the direction of being a third world nation. she has an interesting chapter which deals just with one very important part of what's going on in america. that is the crumbling of our infrastructure. and she writes from 1980 to 2005 the miles traveled by automobiles increased 94% for trucks, mileage increased 105%. yet there was only a 3.5% increase in highway laying miles. more and more cars, more and more traveling, we're not building roads. but you don't -- she writes, you don't need to numbers to know our roads are badly congestioned. anybody that lives around here in washington -- -- washington, d.c. knows the roads are congested. takes hours to get to work sometimes. you see it and hear it. according to the american society of civil nears, infrastructure, this is an interesting point, this is where we should be investing, not tax breaks for the rich. americans spend 4.2 billion hours a year stuck in traffic. think about that. 4.2 billion hours a stuck in traffic at a cost of $78 billion a year. think about all of the pollution, all of the greenhouse gas emissions, all of the frustration, anxiety, road rage. people are stuck in roads because our transportation is inadequate. our roads, our public transportation. then she talks about -- she talks about an interesting point as well. in studying automobile accidents, you know, when we talk about automobile accidents, what do we usually think? we think, well, somebody is driving recklessly. maybe they are drunk. those are serious issues. she says -- she writes in studying car crashes across the country, the transportation construction coalition determined that badly maintained or managed roads are responsible for $217 billion in car crashes. far more than the headline grabbing alcohol-related accidents or speed-related pileups. in other words, if you want to know why we are seeing automobile crashes, the issue of bad roads is even more significant than drunk drivers or people who are reckless drivers. i can remember, i think everybody has the same story, i was driving down a road in vermont. huge pothole. went into it. it costs me a few hundred to repair the car. we are spending as a nation, dollars because our roads aren't in good shapes. when there's a traffic jam, people are emitting greenhouse gas emissions. we are wasting money. if we invested in the transportation system, we would go a long way to addressing that. when we talk about transportation, and by the way, again, i bring this issue up. because in the bill agreed to by the president and the republican leadership, to the best of my knowledge, not one penny, not one penny is going into infrastructure. which is to me just -- doesn't make any sense at all. again, arianna huffington writes americas railway system is speeding down the tracks in reverse. it is one of the few technologies that is actually regressed over the past 80 years. regressed. now i'm not talking about china where they are building all of the high-speed rail lines. our rail situation in terms of the amount of time that goes from location one to location two has actually gotten longer. she writes, tom vanderbilt of slate.com, this is a good web site, came across preworld war ii timetables and make a startling discovery. many trade rides in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, took less time than those journeys we take today. can you imagine that? in the '30s, '40s, and '50s, people able to get on the train and get to their destination in less time than is the case today. for instance, in 1934, the burlington jeffer would get you from chicago to denver in 13 hours. the same trip takes 18 hours. i don't know if you are familiar with the burlington zepher, it go from chicago to denver. it took 13 hours. today it takes 18 hours. i know in vermont, i don't have statistics in front of me. i can tell you that it is -- i believe very strongly that it takes longer to get from the southern part of the state to the northern start of the state than it used to. and the frequency of the trips are less less than they used to. the trip from chicago to minneapolis to hie -- hiawatha, in 1950 took four and a half hours. today eight hours. in terms of our public transportation, not only are we neglecting it, not moving forward, we are moving backward. at the moment, the only high-speed trail is amtrak which travels the washington, new york, boston line. i use the term high-speed very losely. while in theory they had a peak at 150 miles per hour, they reach generally 90 miles per hour. china is having thousands and thousands of high-speed rail. here in the united states we are moving backwards, taking us longer time for various train rides than used to be the case. but it's not just trains. it is not just our roads, it is not just our bridges. well, it is also our bridges. let me say a word on bridges. i think we all remember, just a -- four years ago, i think it was. the terrible tragedy in the minneapolis area when one of their major bridges collapsed and a number of people lost their lives. that caught the front page headlines all over the country. i know in the state of vermont, we closed down bridges. we are not safe to travel. according to the department of transportation, one in four of americans bridges is either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. the numbers are even worse when it comes to bridges in urban areas where one in three bridges is deficient. small amount given the high level of passengers. huge amount of traffic in urban areas one is three, in rural areas, one in four. mr. president, how are these bridges going to be built? rebuilt? it is likely not going to be done by local and state governments who right now are experiencing enormous economic crises. if it is going to be done, it's going to have to be done here at the federal level. i have to say that in vermont, we saw some significant improvements. as a result of the stimulus package. in fact, in vermont, recently, we have put more money in rebuilding our roads and bridges with very good success. i think the people of vermont see the difference in the last couple of years by the direct result of the stimulus package. we have improved, maybe significant improvements on a number of bridges. but nowhere near enough. the point that i want to make is that with our infrastructure collapsing, the american society of civil engineering is suggesting that we need to spend $2.2 trillion in the next five years to maintain where we are, we have an agreement before us which puts zero dollars in infrastructure. according to this book, we need to invest $850 billion over the next 50 years to get all of america's bridges into good shape. trust me, we are not coming anywhere near that right now. but it's not just our roads, it's not just our public transportation, not just our bridges, we talk about infrastructure, we also have to talk about dams. on march 16, 2006, the colocal dam in hawaii breached and lapsed, sending 1.6 trillion of water down the stream. dams are a vital part of infrastructure, they help with drinking, and generate power and offer protection from floods. yet our dams are growing old. there are more than 85,000 dams in america and the average age is 51 years. at the same time, more and more people are moving into developments located below dams that require significantly greater safety standards. but we've had a hard time keeping up with the increase in the so-called high hazard dams. indeed, we are falling further and further behind. so the point here is we have a major, major agreement. people are concerned about creating jobs. we are investing zero in their infrastructure. and dams are a very important part of our infrastructure as are levies and i suspect that senator landrieu was here a little while ago would have something to say about levies. all right. so we're talking about an infrastructure which is collapsing, we're talking about china investing far more in terms of the gnp into infrastructure improvement than we are. we are talking about being in the midst of major recession where we want to grow jobs. yet this proposal does not add one cent into our infrastructure. now again i'm going back to the very good book written by arianna huffington called "third world america." as bads the sewer, bridges, dams, and power systems are, they pail in comparison to our school system. although the national education association estimates it would take $322 trillion to bring america's school buildings into good repair. i have been in schools in vermont and elsewhere which were old and crumbling and i have been in schools which are new and state-of-the-art. and i think anyone who have seen the contrast in terms of the attitude of the students in those types of schools will understand that this is important to give these kids good places in which to learn and to grow. it means a lot to them when they see a building that is new, that has state-of-the-art equipment as opposed to one that is crumbling. it suggests to them what we as a society feel about them. and she writes, arianna huffington writes that nothing is quickening our dissent into third world status faster than our rebounding failure to properly educate our children. this failure that has profound consequences for our future, both at home and as we look to compete with the rest of the world and the global economy. historically, education, she writes, has been the great equalizer. that is certainly, certainly the case. that has been the incredible virtue of our public school systems. what we have taken is kids who -- my father never went to and graduated high school. my mother did. that was it. given millions of young people the opportunity to get a good education in school and be to go to college. and use their potential. the spring board to the middle class and beyond has been education. it was the promise that we made to all of our people. we as a nation said regardless of your income, we're going to provide you with the best possible education in order to succeed in life. that just -- that is something extraordinary. that no matter what your income, we are going to provide you with a great education. i went to public schools as a kid, i did have a good education. but something has gone in recent years, terribly wrong. and we have slipped further and further behind many other countries. among 30 developed countries ranked by the organization for economic corporation and development, that's the oecd, the united states ranked 25th in math, 21st in science. 25th in math, 21st in science. even the top 20% of our students, ranked only 20% in the world in math literacy. there was another study, i think probably just a more updated oecd study that came out just the other day. it was reported in the "new york times" where kids in shanghai were leading the world in these types of test as compared to our own students. they are studying, better schools, better teachers, more investments in their education, and there's a culture there. there is a culture. it is not fair to blame the kids. does anyone seriously believe in the united states of america we take intellectual development seriously? does reading today? i don't remember the guys name, was it a basketball player, baseball player signing a contract with some untold tens of millions of dollars. yet you have teachers starting off at $32,000. is anyone going to suggest in a serious way that we reward people who become child care workers or teachers? we have child care workers who leave taking care of little kids, which maybe the most important job in our society because there's the brain development that takes place between zero and three that's a large part of what a human being becomes. people leave early childhood education in order to move up the economic ladder and get a job at mcdonald. because pay is so low. benefits are so low. what are we doing as a nation? what are we doing as a nation? she writes the national assessment of educational progress found just 33% of u.s. 4th graders and 32% of u.s. 8th graders were proficient in reading. et cetera, et cetera. i think her point is that if we are not going to become a third world nation, we have got to start investing in this country, in our physical infrastructure, in our human infrastructure, and in our educational infrastructure. let me just give you some examples of what this means in real terms. today, unemployment in our country, the unofficial unemployment is 9.8%. for those without a high school diploma, it's 15.6% compared to 5.6% for college graduates. 67% of high school graduates don't have enough of the skills required for success in college and the 21st century work force. as many as 170,000 high school graduates each year are prepared to go on to college but can't afford that. let me repeat that. about 170,000 young people in this country who graduate high school who want to go to college are unable to do it because they can't afford it. are we nuts? what are we doing in wasting the extraordinary intellectual potential of all of these young people? what we are saying to them is because you don't have the money, and because college is so expensive, and because our federal government is more busy giving tax breaks to billionaires and fighting two wars, we are not investing in you. that makes no sense at all. when you invest in the kids, you are investing in the future of america. they are america. if they are not well educated, how are they going to become productive members of society in how are we going to compete against china and europe and other countries around the world that are investing in education? and here's something that we don't talk about enough. the fastest growing occupations are those that require higher levels of education in greater technical competence. so you got a problem. it's true in vermont, and it's true all over the country. that you have jobs out there, good jobs, and those jobs cannot be filled because our young people don't have the job skills to fill them. now how absurd is that? i remember there was a piece in one of the papers. i think it was ohio. after the worst of the recession, and a lot of layoffs, i think it was ohio, they were beginning to rehire workers. these were sophisticated high-tech jobs. they brought workers in. and they brought them in and brought them in. they couldn't come up with the number of workers needed to fill the jobs that they had. what does that say about the educational system? data from alliance for excellent education, 2009, 1800 vermont dropouts cost the state $459 billion for the state and $19.4 in health care cost. in order, what everybody understands. if you don't invest in your young people, they are not going to become productive tax paying workers as often as not they will get involved in self-destructive activity, drugs, crime, whatever, they will end up in jail, and we end up spending tens of thousands of dollars keeping them in jail, rather than productive members of society, contributing their fair share in taxes. the urban institute says that we can reduce child poverty, which i mention earlier, is the highest in the industrialized world by 35% if we provide child care subsides to families with income less than 50%, a state medium. this is an issue that i feel very, very strongly about. it is to me, beyond comprehension that in vermont and throughout this country it is extremely difficult for working class families to find affordable, good quality child care. we are not back in the 1950s where daddy went to work and mommy stayed home taking care of the kids. mom is at work as well. you have families all over the country, middle class, working class families saying, you know, i cannot find quality child care where i'm comfortable leaving my 2-year-old or 3-year-old, i can't find that child care at a rate that i can afford. and in this area again, we are far behind many other countries around the world. because kids who do not get intellectual challenging early childhood education, kids who do not get the emotional support they need from zero to three to four, they will enter school already quite behind other kids. five years later, they will be dropping out of school and ending up in jail. how long does it take us to understand that investing in our children, our youngest children is enormously important for our country and it is a good investment. it is much better to invest in child care than in keeping people locked up in jails. mr. president,75% of american youth who apply to the military are ineligible to serve because of low cognitive capacities, criminal records, or obesity. this is unbelievable. we are not only talking about not being able to compete nationally because we are not bringing forth the kind of educated people that we need because of our schools and child care. it becomes a national security issue. they are not capable of serving because of low capacity, criminal records, or obesity. mr. president, it gives me no pride or happiness to bring forth the statistics. as a nation, we are going to have to grasp these things. either we can ignore, run away from reality, put our heads underneath the carpet here, or we can say we are not going to allow america to become a third world nation. we are going to turn the country around. we are not going to turn the country around unless we rethink our priorities. one of our priorities cannot be more tax breaks for the richest people in this country. mr. president, from the 1960s to 2006, the u.s., the united states fell from first to 18th out of 24 industrialized nations in high school graduation rate. now what happens in today's economy if a kid does not graduate high school? and if my memory is correct, about 30% of our kids. i know these figures are fuzzy. hard to determine who is dropping out and not. but my understanding is about 30% of our kids drop out of high school. what happened to those kids? where do they go? how many of them end up in jail? how many of them do drugs? as a nation, i think we do a lot better than that. we should not have gone from first to 18th out of 24 industrialized nations in high school graduation rates. mr. president, dropouts are eight times more likely to be incarcerated. in other words, when kids fail in school, they are going to end up in jail. eight times more likely. 82% of those in prison are high school dropouts. states -- it was funny. i'll tell you a funny experience. i was in burlington last week. i met this fellow. he was chatting with me. he said, you know, i just got out of jail. what struck me, he was a well educated young man. what struck me is how rare that is. as the statistics amply demonstrate, the people who end up in jail, overwhelmingly are high school dropouts. people who don't have the education to make it in the world. mr. president, when we talk about the need to substantially increase funding for early childhood education, we should understand that state-funded pre-k programs currently serve 24% of four year olds, and 4% of three year olds. in other words, there are millions of families that would like to see their kids be able to access good quality child care, but just can't find that in their states. mr. president, again, in contrast to giving tax breaks to billionaires, who don't need it, and in some cases aren't asking for it, the younger the age of investment in human capital, the higher the rate of return. if society invests early enough, it can raise cognitive and socioemotional levels of kids. you don't need to be a psychology. if kids get off to a good start in life, if they have the intellectual support, intellectual development, the emotional support, those kids are much, much more likely to do well in school, much less likely to drop out, much less likely to be a burden on society, much less likely to end up in jail, much less likely to do drugs, et cetera. this is an investment that we should be making. mr. president, i want to get back for a moment to the agreement that the president made with the republican leadership and why i think it is a bad agreement and why i believe we can do much better. and the way we are going to improve this agreement is when millions of people all over this country say wait a second. wait a second. this was an agreement reached behind closed doors. there was members in the house and senate that are upset that we didn't know about the agreement. what about the average american out there? i wonder how many people really believe that it makes a lot of sense with the $13.7 trillion national debt to be giving the huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people in the country. i got to tell you, mr. president, the calls in my office are coming 98, 99% to one against these agreements. people think we can do better, and our job is to do better. and the way we do better is when people all over this country stand up and say, wait a minute, congress, your job is to represent the middle class, to represent our kids, and not to represent the wealthiest people in this country. now i mentioned earlier, and i think certainly one the major objections, two this agreement is that it provides tens of billions of dollars to the wealthiest people in this country, at the time when the rich are already doing. -- already doing phenomenal well, and at a time when they have experienced huge tax breaks. and i think most people think that that does not make sense. let me just give you an example. i just want to -- not to pick on particular individuals, that's not my goal here. just so you know this, according to the citizens for tax justice, if the bush tax breaks for the top two% are extended, these are some of the people who will benefit and what kind of benefits they will receive. rupert murdoch, the ceo of news corporation would receive a $1.2 million tax break. he's a billionaire. do you really think he needs that? jamie diamond, the head of jpmorgan chase, who's bank got a $29 million bailout, would receive a $1.1 million tax break. trust me jamie diamond, the head of jpmorgan chase, he's doing just fine. tom, the ceo of citigroup, a bank that got a $50 billion bailout. he would receive $785,000 tax breaks. can lewis, the former ceo of bank of america, guys already fabulously wealthy, would receive $713,000 a year tax break. ceo of wells fargo, already making huge compensation. he would get, john, who's the ceo, would receive $313 tax breaks. the ceo of morgan stanley, john mack, who's bank got a $13 million breakout would receive $29,000 tax break. ceo of edna would receive the tax break worth $875,000. now, mr. president, i contrast that as i did earlier to the fact that two days ago, you and i at a total of 53 members of the senate said, you know, maybe we should provide a $250 check this year to seniors on social security and disable vets because they haven't got a call up for two years. $250 check. people making $14, $15,000 a year. desperately need a little bit of help. we couldn't get one republican vote. when it comes to the ceo of a bank who's already a multibillionaire, we're talking about $600, $700, $1 million in tax breaks, that's not what we should be doing as a nation. furthermore, mr. president, i know that president obama and others have said, well, let's not worry. because these tax breaks are just temporary. just temporary. they are only going to be given for two years. i have been in washington long enough to know that when you give a temporary tax break for two years, you are, in fact, giving a long-term tax break or maybe even a permanent tax break. because two years from now, the exact same argument will be made. that if you do away with those tax breaks for the rich, you are really raising taxes. do you really want to raise taxes? terrible thing to do. and that same argument will be made. but there's one difference. and the difference is when president obama ran for president, and since he has been president, he has time and time and time and time again come out against those tax breaks. he does not believe in them. and i believe him. i know that he doesn't. but if he says -- if he's the democratic candidate for president, than elect me or re-elect me to be president. because then in the future, i'm really going to get rid of the tax breaks. i'm afraid his creditability is not very, very high. that's what he said last time. you can only cry wolf, i guess there's a limit to how many times you can cry wolf. i think let's not kid ourselves. if these tax breaks for the wealthiest people are extended for two years, there's a very, very strong likelihood they will be extended for many, many years beyond the two years, and perhaps permanently. which brings us back to the bush era nonsense of leaving the tax breaks for the rich and trickle down economics are going to help the middle class and working families of this country. but while the personal income tax issue, and extenting them for the top 2% has received a lot of national attention, what has not gotten a whole lot of discussion is that that is not the only unfair and absurd tax proposal out there. the agreement struck between the president and the republican leadership continues, the bush era, 15% tax rate on capital gains and dividends. meaning that those people who make their living off of their investments will continue to pay a substantially lower tax rate than fireman, teachers, and nurses. so if you are a wealthy person, and you earn, and i believe that the overwhelming majority of capital gains benefits accrue to the top 1%, you are going to be paying a tax on that income of 15%. which is less than you pay if you are a fireman, whether you are a police officer, you are a teacher, or a nurse. so what we are doing there is extending not only the personal income tax breaks for the very rich, but a host of other taxes as well. mr. president, on top of all of that. i know that many of my colleagues have picked up on this and are upset. that's one the reasons why the democrat in the house said they do not want to bring this proposal to the floor for a vote is that this agreement includes a horrendous, a horrendous proposal, regarding the estate tax. and the estate tax is something we know was a proposal that teddy roosevelt talked about in the year -- in the year 1906. and was eventually enacted in 1916. and here's what teddy roosevelt said about this issue in august of 2010. and i quote, it's worth repeating that because what the proposal struck between the president and leadership is lower the estate tax substantially. tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power." this is teddy roosevelt, who by then had served as president of the united states. "no man" -- this is rose volt. "no man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. every dollar received should represent a dollar's worth of service rendered -- not gambling in stocks, but service rendered." end of quote. end of quote. >> my goodness, this guy was prophetic. this was back in 1910. then he continues. then the fortune by the mere fact of its size acquires qualities which differentiated in decline as well as degree what is passed by men of relatively small means. therefore, i believe in a graduated inherited tax on big fortunes properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the state." end of quote. wow, teddy roosevelt hit the nail on the head 100 years ago. he worried that a small group of people with an incredible amount of money would pass that money on and what you create in this country is a government with a few people holding not just economic power, but holding significant political power as well, and it is ironic that right now as a result of this disastrous citizen's united decision, that what roosevelt predicted it happening and a handful of billionaires deciding how much of their fortune to invest in political campaigns all across the country that defeat me and support people in agreement of their agenda. that is what roosevelt talked about, and that is exactly what is happening, so what we are looking at is in this proposal we are looking at a situation where the estate tax rate which was 55% on -- under president clinton declines with the first 5 million of an individual's estate, 10 million for couples. here's the important point to be made because i think a lot of people don't understand it, and certainly our republican friends have done a very, very good job in distorting reality on this one. there are millions of americans who believe that when they die, their children will have to pay an estate tax. that is absolutely an categorically incorrect. this chart shows only a tiny fraction from deaths in 2009 owed any estate tax. that number is .24%, less than .3% of family paying taxes on any of the estates they were left. 99.7% of american families did not pay one cent in estate taxes. that's the simple truth. the so-called death tax that our republican friends talk about a whole lot is the estate tax, 99.7% of families don't pay a nickel on it, and the people who do pay are not the rich. it is the very, very, very rich. let me just give you one example of the absurdity of lowering the tax rate or even worse of ending the estate tax as some of our republican colleagues would like to do, and here's this chart. let me give you one example of what ending this agreement does not do that. it just lowers the rates, but if they want to wipe out completely as the republicans want to do, wal-mart's owners, sam walton's family, they are the hairs to the wal-mart fortune which are worth about $86 billion. that's what this one family is worth. they are doing pretty good. if we abolish the estate tax, the walton family would have $32.7 billion tax break if the estate tax was completely repealed, $3 2.7. that is insane. we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the world, massive unemployment. i am trying to get 50-plus million people a $250 check. by the way, a $250 check because we have not seen the seniors or disabled vets that costs $14 billion. the walton family itself would get american double in a tax break than what some of us are fighting for for 50 million seniors and disabled vets, so we can't afford to give 14 billion to help the people in the country who are struggling the hard e, but -- hard e, but we can give 32.7 in tax breaks to one of the richest families in the country. if it doesn't make sense to me, and i think it doesn't make sense for the vast majority of the american people, so under this agreement, the estate tax rate which was 55% under president clinton will decline to 35% with an exemption on the first 5 million on an individual's estate estate. let us remember again this tax applies to the top three tenths of the 2% of families in this country, and this again is not just a tax break for the rich. it is a tax break for the very, very rich, and again, this agreement says well, we'll extending this for two years. well, frankly, i doubt that very much. i suspect two years from now the same argument they will be extending it, and frankly our republican colleagues representing the richest people in the world are hell bent on abolishing the estate tax completely, so those are some of the reasons we should be voting against this agreement. third, mr. president, and this is initial but i'm happy to hear that there is more discussion about in the last few days, and that is the so-called payroll tax holiday, and what that is about is that this would cut $120 billion in social security payroll tax for workers. now, on the surface, this sounds like a very good idea because the worker instead of paying 6.2% into social security pays 4.2 percent, but if you think about it for two seconds, you understand it's not a good idea because this is money being diverted from the social security trust fund, and social security in my view has been the most successful federal program in perhaps the history of our country. in the last 75 years whether in good times or bad times, social security has paid out every nickel owed to every eligible american. today, social security has a $2.6 trillion surplus. today, social security can pay out benefits for the next 29 years. our goal, and what we must do is make sure that we extend it beyond 29 years for the next 75 years. well, if you divert $120 billion from the social security trust fund and give it to workers today, what you are doing is cutting back the viability, the long term viability of social security. that is not just sanders raising this issue. there are many people representing millions of senior citizens who are deeply, deeply concerned about this proposal, this provision in the agreement between the president and the republican leadership. the national committee to preserve social security and medicare is one the very largest senior groups in america. they do a very, very good job. i know we have many seniors in vermont who are members of the organization, and they do what the title of the organization suggests and that is to preserve social security and medicare, and just the other day they sent out a news release and the title of the news release was, and i quote "cutting contributions to social security signals the beginning of the end." payroll tax holiday is anything but. let me quote from bash bra who -- barbara, president and ceo of the national committee to preserve social security and medicare. what she writes, and i quote "even though social security contributed nothing to the current economic crisis, it has been barred in a deal that provides tax cuts for the wealthy." diverted. that's what we are doing here, 120 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 the program that a majority of middle class seniors will rely on in the future, end of quote. mr. president, i think many of us should understand where this concept really originated. this is not a progressive idea. this is an idea that came from republicans and conservatives who want to end social security. i want to read you an interesting quote from a gentleman named bruce bartlett. he is a top advisor from presidents reagan and george h. w. bush. this is a guy who was an avisor. this is what he said. "what are the odds that republicans will ever allow this one year tax holiday to expire? they wrote the bush tax cuts with explicit expiration dates, and then when it came time for the law, they wrote to take effect exactly as they wrote it, they said any failure to extend them permanently would constitute the biggest tax increase in history." end of quote for the moment. what mr. bartlett is saying is what we all know to be true. if you provide a tax break for one year, in this case, a payroll tax holiday, a year from now if you restore the old rates, 6.2%, our republicans are going to say democrats are raising your taxes. it ain't going to happen. this one year extension could well become a permanent extension, and if it becomes a permanent extension, you are diverting a huge amount of money to social security, and you are weakening the entire financial structure of social security in this country which i except is exactly what some would like to do. now, president obama says, well, not to worry. it's just one year, and don't worry, that one year is covered by the federal government, so for the very first time out of the treasury department, # money is coming into the social security which has always been 100% dependent on payroll taxes as it should be. for the first time we are breaking that. around here, if you do that once, it will continue. what the president of the national committee to preserve social security and medicare says is cutting these contributions to social security signals the beginning of the end, so we should be very, very, very mindful of that. we should not support this payroll tax. it is one of the more dangerous provisions in this agreement. let me get back now, if i might, mr. president, to what bruce bartle trk t, the tomorrower top adviser for presidents reagan and bush. "if allowing the bush tax cuts to expire is the biggest tax increase in history, one republicans claim would decimate a frail economy, than truly expiration of a payroll tax holiday would constitute a massive tax increase on the working people of america. republicans -- this is bruce -- republicans would prefer to destroy social security's finances or permanently funded with general revenues that allow a once suspended payroll tax to be reimposed. social security hater peter told me that funding it with general revenues was part of his plan to destroy it by converting social security into a welfare program rather than an earned program. he was right." end of quote. that was a top advisor for president reagan and the first president bush. what he is saying, and this is maybe a sweeping issue in this agreement between the president and the republican leadership is we may be taking a huge step forward in destroying the most important program in this country which is social security by diverting now $120 billion and in the future hundreds and hundreds of billions into this program so in fact it will not be there for our kids and our grandchildren. mr. president, the fourth point that i want to make in opposition of this agreement, and one that i've made before and read a little bit about is that while some of the business taxes in this agreement may work to create jobs, some of them won't, but the more important point is that economists on both ends of the political spectrum believe that the better way to spur the economy and to create the millions and millions of jobs that we must create is to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. just a few minutes ago, i read from a excerpt, a very good book by a friend of mine, arianna huffington entitled "third world america." the purpose of her book was to warn the nation if we don't get our act together in infrastructure and variety of other ways, we are heading to a third world nation. according to the world society of civil engineers, we need to spend $2.2 trillion in the next five years alone to take care of our frik needs, but unfortunately, this agreement signed by the president and the republicans dent put one penny into infrastructure, so i think if they are serious about creating jobs, if we're serious about making sure our economy can be competitive in the global economy, we've got to be watching what other countries are doing, and they're investing far, far more than we are. i can tell you, mr. president, and the stimulus package will help us in this area, but if you were to drive around the state of vermont and other places around this country and you took out your cell phone, you would find it very hard to make calls in a number of areas of the state. a few months ago, i was literally a mile and a half away from our state capitol in northfield, vermont. i could not make a telephone call with my cell phone, and that's true in many parts of vermont and many parts of america. we are lagging behind many, many other countries in terms of the accessibility of cell phone service and broadband, and broadband. i am happy to say that in vermont, we received a generous grant in the stimulus package that is going to help us. other states did the same, but that's the area we have to invest in. you have to invest in broadband and making sure cell phone service is available in rural america, all over america. i talked about train services. there are train services today which are worse than they were 30 or 40 years ago. it takes longer to get to destination a to destination b. china is up vesting in high speed rails. we have money for business tax cuts, but i do not think that that is the best way to invest taxpayer money if we're serious about creating the jobs that we need. corporate america is sitting on there 2 trillion cash on hand. i don't know that more tax rates are going to help them very much. i think that it is a lot smarter, and i think most economists agree with me that we should be up vesting in our infrastructure, both to create jobs now, and to improve our competitiveness in years to come. further, mr. president, i want to say a word on this. i mentioned it earlier today. president obama talked about this thing of compromise agreement. you can't get everything you want, and i certainly understand that, but one of the aspects of the compromise he points to is an extension of unemployment benefits for 13 months. well, let me be very clearment i think at a time when 2 million of our fellow americans are about to lose their unemployment in a time when unemployment is extraordinarily high, long term unemployment is, i think, higher than any point on record. people are, you know, looking for work month after month after month. it would be morally unacceptable if this country did not extend unemployment benefits for those workers for 13 months. if the president sees this as a great sign of compromise, i would argue the contrary. i would suggest to you, mr. president, that for the past 40 years on the both democratic and republican administrations, under democratic and republican leadership here in the senate or in the house, whenever the unemployment rate has been above 7.2% unemployment, unemployment insurance has always been extended. in other words, this has been bipartisan policy for 40 years, and i don't want to see us seeing an accepting as a really great give on the part of republicans, a really, you know, something that they are giving us as part of a compromise when it's been bipartisan policy for 40 years on the democratic and republican leadership, so i don't accept that this is a great gift. i think what the american people understand is that you don't turn your backs on unemployed workers, people who have been unemployed for long periods of time. you don't allow those people to lose their homes or force these people into the streets or take away sleds of dignity they have remaining. that's always been republican philosophy as well as democratic philosophy. this is not a great gift, so i do not accept that this is a compromise. mr. president, let me be very clear as i said earlier that i do believe that there are positive parts of this agreement that must be maintains as we move forward toward a better agreement. let me give you just some of them that make a lot of sense to me that we have got to retain and build on. the obvious one is in addition to extending unemployment benefits, it's clear that we have got to extend middle class tax cuts for 98% of americans. as i've been documenting over and over again today, we are looking at a situation where the middle class in this country is complpsing under president bush and median family income went down by $2200 and people are losing their health care, and it would be unacceptable if the middle class did not continue to receive the tax breaks that were developed in 2001 and 2003. that to a large degree is what this fight is about. we have to extend those tax breaks to the middle class, but not tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. further in the agreement, there are other good provisions. you got the earned income tax credit, the working americans, and the child and college tax credits are in the agreement, and they are very, very important. they will keep millions of our fellow americans from slipping out the middle class into poverty and they will allow millions of our fellow citizens to send their kids to college. we talked about a moment ago there's over 100,000 families in the country where kids want to go to college and can't afford to do it. this proposal helps them do that, and that's right. mr. president, despite the fact there's some good important provisions in this proposal, when we look at the overall package, when we look at a 13.7 trillion debt, and a declining middle class, i think what we've got to say is that this package just doesn't do it. it's just not good enough. now, the president says that he knows how to count votes, and ipse that. i understand that. we have a couple votes here to make sure we wouldn't give tax breaks to millionaires. he said, what choice do i have? the answer is we have to fight this issue. in my view the solution ultimately will not be resolved here inside the beltway, in the senator and the house. it will be resolved with millions of americans get on their telephones, their computer disks, and -- computers, and let their senators and house of representatives know that they are profoundly outraged, that at a time when the rich have never had to so good, and when we have a huge national debt, that this agreement contains huge tax breaks for those people who don't need it. that's how we defeat this. i'm not sure that alone here in the debate i'm going to turp any of my republicans or democratic colleagues around, but i do believe that if people all over the country stand up and say, wait a minute, how much do the richest people in this country want? we just documented a few moments ago, the top 400 wealthiest people in this country start doubling their income under president bush, tax rates went down. when is enough enough? how much do they need? i think and i would hope by the way that this is not just a progressive issue. this is a conservative issue. i have heard year after year, mr. president, our conservative friends telling us, my goodness, we just cannot continue to raise the national debt. we've got to do something about the unsustainable deficit. this agreement increases the national debt. what kind of honest conservative can vote to increase the national debt, and if they do, please, please no more lectures here on the floor of the senate. your hypocrisy will be known to everybody. don't tell us you're concerned about the national debt, give tax rates to billionaires and raise the national debt so our kids and grand children in the middle class will have to pay higher taxes in order to pay off the debt that was caused by you giving tax breaks to billionaires. please, no more lectures on that issue. please, no more lectures about your concern about the national debt. now, again, i want to reiterate this point, and that is everybody says don't worry, these are only two years. these are not in my view two years. if you do them for two years, the same old argument will be back here and we will be in the midst of a presidential election, and what our republican friends will say as sure as i'm standing here and we have a gentleman putting this in the congressional record. i want people to go back to the congressional record because i'm sure i'll be right that our republican friends will come back and nay will say, oh, my word, if you repeal these tax breaks, you're going to be raising taxes. we can't do that, and what will make the situation even more difficult two years from now than today is you have president obama as a democratic candidate two years from now, saying, i don't believe in the tax breaks for the rich. i'll repeal them, but his credibility has been damaged because that's what he said in the last campaign. that's what he's been saying all along. the president does not believe in extending these tax breaks to the wealthy. i know that. everybody knows that, but if he caves in now, who is going to believe he won't do the same thing two years from now. that's the damage. what's even more troublesome is once we move down this path of more tax breaks for the very, very wealthy, we are accepting the heart and soul of trickle-down economics which has been to my mind a proven disaster and a failure. i would remind the listeners and my colleagues that these tax breaks have been in existence since 2001. they were in existence throughout almost all of president bush's tenure. the end result was that we lost 600,000 private sector jobs, lost 600,000 private sector jobs, the worst job performance record maybe in the history of this country. trickle-down economics does not work. giving tax breaks to millionaires does not stimulate the economy. helping working families and the middle class get decent jobs, tax breaks for people who need the money and are going to spend the money is what creates jobs, not giving tax breaks to billionaires who don't need it and are not going to spend it. again, the point i want to make here is if people think this is just temporary, this is just two years, i believe you are kidding yourself. i believe two years from now the debate will be about extending or perhaps making them permanent at a time, as i mentioned earlier, where the top 1% has seen a huge increase in the percentage of income they earn in this country going from 8% in the 1970s to 23.5% now with the top 1% earning more than the top 50%. it is absurd to be giving tax breaks to people who don't need them, and it is not good economics as well, and here's the other irate as i mentioned earlier. i guess by this time i'll be doing a little repetition here, but as i mentioned earlier, you have a number of million tears, and -- millionaires, and some of the richest people in this country benefiting. you know what warren buffet is saying, bill gates and many other wealthy people are saying? hey, thanks very much. i don't need it. up -- invest in our children and working families. we're doing just fine. thanks,. we don't need it. in other words, we have the absurd situation is not only is this bad public policy, we are actually forcing tax breaks on people who don't need them and don't even want them. rich os people -- richest people in this country, we don't want them. here's something else. here's something else that needs to be understood. what the republicans are doing in this agreement is driving up the national debt, and you may think, well, that's not what the republicans believe in. they are conservative. they don't want a high national debt. why would they give tax breaks to the rich and driving up the national debt? well, there are is rational. these guys are not dumb. if you drive up the national debt and deficit, you come back to the floor of the senate and you say, you know what? this national debt and deficit is unsustainable. the only way that we can deal with it now is by cutting, cutting, cutting, and we are already beginning to hear what some of those thoughts are going to develop. there was, as you know, mr. president, a deficit reduction commission appointed by the president, and i had very -- from what i heard was going to be chairing that commission or co-chairing it, and allen simpson, a nice gentleman, but a very, very conservative republican who has a -- attacked social security for a very, very long time, and i had very serious doubts about what was going to come out of that commission. the good news is they needed 14 votes to pass their recommendations. they didn't get the 14, but a lot of ideas that senator simpson and mr. bowles developed are going to be filtering around this institution, and what the republicans will say is when you have a huge debt which they helped create, we're going to have to cut. what are we going to do? as you recall, mr. president, that deficit debt commission recommended a cut in over 20% in social security benefits for young workers. major cuts. there was talk about raising the social security age up to i think, 69. they are talking about cuts in medicare, cuts in medicaid, cuts in education. i mean, right now, i think i documented it a dozen times, it is a horrendous situation when so many of our young people can't afford to go to college and the others who do, they end up with $25,000 in debt. these guys in the deficit debt commission were recommending that the interest on that debt be accrued while students were in college. here we have, they are slipping behind the rest of the world in college graduates, and this recommendation is in people who are borrowing money who have to pay more to go to college. you're going to see it. this is going to be in the congressional record. check it out. see if i'm right. the art will be deficit is going up, national debt is going up, we have to cut programs this year. senator lan drew made the point a little while ago saying our soldiers, men and women in the armed forces are going to get a 1.8% increase in their salaries, people putting their lives on the line to defend this country, $250 check for 50 plus seniors and sis abled vets, we couldn't pass it. too much money. they are going to come back and cut and cut and cut in the name of dealing with high deficit which they are now increasing, and that's an issue we must be addressing. mr. president, in my view while there are some good parts of the proposal, it is certainly one that should be significantly improved, and i believe that the way it can be improved is that t a pretty picture. that context, 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, and 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 50-60 hours a week and cut back on their own needs, but 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 that their kids get jobs that 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 will be worried that while they were able to scrape through and in my case, you know, i was able to scrape through college, borrowed money, did some jobs, and made it like millions of other people, but they're worried the cost of education and the reduction in their earnings, they can want send their kids to college. eve received e -- i have received e-mails and the parents who have saved all of our life. the thing we wanted most is to send our son or daughter to college, but we content can't afford to do that anymore. that's the overall context that this agreement has to be placed within. the issue is again and again and again the richest people in this country do not need tax breaks. they are doing phenomenally well. it is the middle class, the working families, the low income people that we have got to be worrying about, and not just the wealthy and the powerful. mr. president, when we talk about why the middle class is declining, that is a tough issue, and i'm not here to suggest i know all the answers because i don't. it's a complicated issue, and people have dirchs of opinion -- differences of opinion, but let me touch on why poverty is going up and middle class is going down, and one of them deals with our trade policies. i can remember, mr. president, a number of years ago i was in the house of representatives, and i can remember the lobbyists and big-money interests coming around and saying, well, if you guys only pass nafta, this would create a lot of jobs in the united states because we would be able to ship products made in america to mexico, and in fact as i recall, 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, and that is somewhat humorous that that issue was even discussed, but one of the reasons, mr. president, that unfortunately for a variety of reasons we have not dealt with is our disastrous trade policy. now, that is nafta, permanent normal trade relation, that is trade policies which have encouraged large corporations in this country to send jobs abroad because they can find workers in other countries and low age countries who are prepared to work for pennys an hour, and you know, i think we have not only vice president addressed this -- haven't addressed this issue from an economic issue like we should have, and i have tell you, mr. president, i know during campaigns a lot of members during congress put their 0 second ads on the air being concerned about trade policy, but the day of the election i don't hear that fight. it's true of democrats as well. a lot of democrats campaigned under trade reform, but it doesn't happen. in fact, i've been here in the senate now for four years #, and i have not heard one underlying 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, providing not only decent wages, decent health care, decent benefits. mr. president, there was a time in the country when the manufacturing job was a ticket. as i remember not so many years ago, there were national leaders saying well, to the young people, you don't have to worry about that factory work anymore. you don't have to be involved in production because you know what? all of the jobs in the future will be nice and clean and offices and on computers, and i think we demeaned and insulted the people who built the products that we consume. there is nothing wrong with a factory job if workers there have a decent wage and benefit. those are the jobs that built america, and you know, i remember, and we should never forget that, and we now celebrated just the anniversary of pearl harbor, and there was a speech that president roosevelt gave a day after pearl harbor in the joint session of the congress when he declared war on japan, and i saw a video of that speech, and it was a remarkable speech because at that moment, at that moment, the united states was not only fighting japan, we knew the fite with germany was right around the corner, and at that point, we had to fight a war on two fronts, in asia and europe. hitler was on the march, pearl harbor was just attacked, and here were are just about to enter the war, how could we possibly win that war? yet, mr. president, because of the manufacturing capabilities that we had in that time, and this is an amazing story, literally in two and a half 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 two or three years, we had essentially won that war. it was an incredible effort on the part of workers in this country who transformed our economy into an industrial to force and defeat hitler and the japanese. where are we today in terms of our manufacturing capabilities? as i mentioned earlier, a couple weeks ago my wife and i went shopping for christmas presents, literally, it was a department store, but it was hard to find a product that was not manufactured in china. it was hard to find a gift manufactured in the united states of america, and i think people understand that this country will not be a major economic player in years to come if we allow our manufacturing base to continue to decline. again, just under bush we went from 17 million manufacturing jobs down to 12 million jobs in eight years of bush. how do we survive as a strong industrial power if our manufacturing jobs disappear? today, mr. president, there are fewer manufacturing jobs in this country than there were in april of 1941, about eight months before the attack on pearl harbor. fewer manufacturing jobs today than in april of 1941, and the jobs that are left pay low wages with few benefits than they did a generation ago. in other words, we are moving not only in decline in the manufacturing jobs, but in the wages that our work is earned and the benefits that they receive, and i raise all of these issues to put this agreement between the president and the republican leadership in a broader, broader context. today, and this is just an incredible fact, and it's just absolutely frightening to the future of the middle class of the country. today, entry level automobile workers now earn half as much, half as much as their peers made one year ago. they are now making $14 an hour, and this is in the automobile industry which is always been the gold standard for plaintiffing jobs in america, -- manufacturing jobs in america. working in the automobile industry and just making $14 an hour, what do you think workers in new mexico are making without a strong union? what you're seeing is a dissolution of the middle class waimgs going down, and in this remarkable example, a 50% reduction. the older workers making decent wages, but the new workers are making half the wages. is this the future of america? is this what our kids have to look forward to? in the midst of all of that, we run up a huge national debt, send our jobs to china, and we give tax breaks to millionaires? is that the future for our kids? i certainly hope not, but we're going to have to be tough and take on very powerful special interests to turn this whole thing around. mr. president, you know, we often talk, and today i've been devoting 5 lot of time -- a lot of time in the national debt and to our deficit, but recannot ignore our trade deficit. in 2008, our trade deficit was nearly $700 billion. last year our trade deficit with china alone was almost $227 billion. in other words, we are purchasing o whole lot more product than we are selling. sometimes, i get a kick out of hearing the defendants on the trade policy talking about the product we export. we are importing a heck of a lot more, so, mr. president, i think what you got is major economic issue here, and that economic issue is that we are losing millions of good paying jobs because of our disastrous trade policies, and furthermore the jobs that we have. on those jobs, we see a decline in middle ages and in -- wages and in benefits, and i think the bottom line of this is not just if you like an economic issue, it's a miranda rule -- moral issue as well, and that is when companies like general electric and all the rest, i don't mean to pick on regime electric, but i have a quote here which i want to make. it was a few years back. i think it's important because it applies not just to general electric, but i want people to here this. ge is a major corporation, and, in fact, in a recent disclosure pointed out they provided $16 billion in bailout during the recent crisis. this is what the head of the ceo of general electric said in 2002, december 6. quote "when i am talking to ge managers, i talk china, china, china, china. you need to be there. you need to change the way people talk about it and how they get there. i am a nut on china. outsourcing from china is going to grow to 5 billion. we are building a tech center in china. every discussion today has china. the cost basis is extremely attractive. you can take an 18 cubic foot refrigerator, make it in china, land it in the united states, and land if tar less than we can make today ourselves." ceo of general electric quoting on december 6, 2002. when ge recently had a couple years ago some really difficult economic times, they needed $16 billion to bill them out. i didn't hear him going to china, china, china, china, china. i heard him going to the taxpayers of the united states for his welfare check. i say to all of these ceo's who are quick to run to china, that maybe it's time to reinvest in the united states of america, but it's not just this, and i don't mean to pick on him. it's all of them. they all see the future in china, vietnam, in countries where people work for pennys an hour. now, he came to his position in the footsteps of the former ceo of ge, jack welch, and he was quoted as saying, "ideally, we'd have every plant we own on a barge." remember that quote? he said, "we'd have every plant we own on a barge." what did he mean by that? if you're on a barge, you can move your plant to any part of the world where the labor is cheapest. if it's expense in in china, go to vietnam, then go to north korea. i don't know, but what he was saying is his goal was to make sure that ge world create jobs in those countries in the world where workers were paid the lowest possible wages, and former ge vice president, frank doyle said, "we did a lot of violence to the exemployeations of the american work force. we outsowterred. -- outsourced." again, i don't mean to pick on them. it is a history of corporations all over america. let me just mention that the ceo of cisco, john chambers, and this is what he says, and we tell the young people the future is an information technology. we want you guys to be smart, use the computers. you won't work in factories. this is what the ceo of cisco said. "china will become the i.t. center of the word, and we can have a healthy discussion of whether that's in 2020 or 2040, but we want an entire strategy of becoming a chinese company." ceo of cisco in 2004. furthermore he says on october 15, 2004, "we believe in giving something back and truly becoming a chinese company." meanwhile, when cisco needs tax breaks, they get it from the taxpayers of the united states of america. boy, are they taking us for dummies. they give jobs to china and so forth. now, in the last campaign, one of the folks who ended up getting more publicity more than he usually does is the president and the ceo of the u.s. chamber of commerce, and again, my point tonight is not just to pick on individuals because every quote that i'm giving you can be multiplied 50 or 100 times over. this is what corporations in america believe. they believe it's appropriate to throw american workers on the street and move to china and other countries, pay people a few crepts an hour, and bring the product back into the united states. thomas is the ceo of the u.s. chamber of commerce, and he got publicity in the last election because the chamber of commerce was a funnel for a lot of money that went into campaigns around this country. they raised tens and tens of millions of dollars. a lot of money was undisclosed and all you rich folks who gave money to the chamber of commerce, and they elected candidates sympathetic to their point of view. this is a quote back in 2004. thomas don, "one job sent overseas if it happens to be my job, is one too many, but the benefits of offshoring jobs outweighs the costs." president and ceo of the largest business organization in america. they are in favor of offshoring american jobs. they think it is a good idea because they understand that if corporations throw american workers on the street and go to china and pay them pennys, they will make more profit. that's what they think. they are upfront about it. we don't care about the united states of america. we don't care about young people. we don't care about the future of the country. we were told the future of the world is in china, and here's a quote that appeared in one of the papers, u.s. chamber of commerce, he urged american companies to send jobs overseas. i don't know if we have a date on that quote. in 2004, we think it is. i'll repeat that. it was in the newspapers. it was an ap story. u.s. chill beer of congress, the -- u.s. chamber of congress, the head of the largest corporations to provide campaign contributions, the u.s. chamber of commerce urged american companies to send jobs overseas. now, that's patriotic, living up to the united states of america. he said that exporting high-paid tech jobs to low-cost countries like india, china, and russia, saves companies money. it is no surprise to him who tripled the chamber of commerce's lobbying team since 1997 and aggressively promotes pro-business policy and endorses offshoring. the world's largest business consortium champions tax cuts, free trade, worker's compensation reform, and more liberal trade policies with china. what more do you need when you want to understand why we have lost millions of good paying manufacturing jobs, why wages are going down, what more do you need when the president of the chamber of commerce tells you that he thinks that it is good public policy to send jobs to china? i don't think there is, you know, much that you have to, you know, discover. they are telling you this. now, in a moment what i'm going talk talking about is how these ideas from the big money people become implemented into policy which has to do a lot with lobbying and campaign cricks, but before i -- contributions, but before i go there, i want to just give you some more examples about how the business leaderses of this country feel about the workers of this country, and the young people in this country. this again is a quote, i apologize, it is a few years old from 2004 perhaps? 2004. ar