00:00:00:00 VS Democratic senatorial candidate Bob Abrams shakes hands w people as he stands next to subway entrance on city sidewalk and while Geraldine Ferraro supporter stands next to Abrams ho ...

CLINTON POOL. COVERAGE OF DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE ARKANSAS GOVERNOR BILL CLINTON CAMPAIGNING IN PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA. 12:28:30 WPVI / ABC SLATE. FTG OF CLINTON GREETING PEOPLE INSIDE A HOTEL LOBBY AND ON A STREET SIDEWALK. VS OF CLINTON SHAKING HANDS AND SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS. 12:30:00 FTG OF CLINTON WALKING W/ PENNSYLVANIA DEMOCRATIC SENATE CANDIDATE LYNN YEAKEL. SOUNDBITE OF CLINTON DISCUSSING FREE TRADE ISSUES. FTG OF CLINTON ENTERING A SUBWAY STATION AND CLIMBING ONTO A TRAIN. VS OF CLINTON GREETING RIDERS. CI: POLITICS: PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 1992. POLITICS: SENATORIAL, PENNSYLVANIA.

COVERAGE OF DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE ARKANSAS GOVERNOR BILL CLINTON CAMPAIGNING IN PHILADELPHIA AFTER PARTICIPATING IN THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE. 09:41:25 FTG OF CLINTON EMERGING FROM A HOTEL ELEVATOR CARRYING A CUP OF COFFEE AND SHAKING HANDS W/ WELL WISHERS. FTG OF CLINTON WALKING OUTSIDE AND SHAKING HANDS W/ WELL WISHERS. FTG OF PEOPLE SAYING HE DID WELL IN THE DEBATE. FTG OF CLINTON WALKING W/ PENNSYLVANIA DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CANDIDATE LYNN YEAKEL. VS OF CLINTON GREETING SUPPORTERS. 09:52:14 SOUNDBITE OF CLINTON DISCUSSING THE ISSUE OF AMERICAN COMPANIES MOVING TO MEXICO. 09:58:20 FTG OF CLINTON AND HIS ENTOURAGE WALKING INTO THE SUBWAY AND CLIMBING ONTO A TRAIN. FTG OF CLINTON AND YEAKEL STANDING TOGETHER ON A TRAIN AND GREETING RIDERS. 10:13:00 FTG OF CLINTON GREETING A LARGE GROUP OF SUPPORTERS AT THE MARKET / FRANKFORD STATION. 10:37:30 VS OF CLINTON GREETING SUPPORTERS OUT ON THE STREETS. FTG OF PEOPLE WAVING FROM OFFICE WINDOWS. CI: POLITICS: PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 1992. POLITICS: SENATORIAL, PENNSYLVANIA.

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA FEED WPVI LOCAL NEWS COVERAGE OF DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE ARKANSAS GOVERNOR BILL CLINTON CAMPAIGNING IN PHILADELPHIA AFTER THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE IN ST LOUIS, MISSOURI. 12:28:29 CLINTON CROSSES HIS HOTEL LOBBY AND SHAKES HANDS W/ AN ENTHUSIASTIC CROWD OF SUPPORTERS OUTSIDE, MANY OF WHOM SAY GREAT JOB LAST NIGHT. MS OF CLINTON STANDING BEFORE THE CLOTHESPIN SCULPTURE ON CENTER SQUARE CONFERRING W/ SENATOR HARRIS WOFFORD (D-PA), PENNSYLVANIA DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CANDIDATE LYNN YEAKEL AND REPRESENTATIVE LUCIEN BLACKWELL (D-PA). HE SHAKES HANDS W/ MORE SUPPORTERS MASSED NEARBY AND PAUSES TO EXPOUND ON TAX POLICY. 12:33:35 MS OF CLINTON PURCHASING A TOKEN AND CROSSING A TURNSTILE INTO THE CITY HALL SUBWAY STATION. CLINTON BOARDS A MARKET-FRANKFORD SUBWAY TRAIN W/ YEAKEL, WOFFORD, BLACKWELL AND A MOB OF REPORTERS. HE CHATS W/ PASSENGERS AS THE TRAIN RUMBLES TOWARDS THE NORTHEAST. CLIP OF CLINTON GRINNING AS HE IS CONGRATULATED BY AN ELDERLY WOMAN ON AN ELEVATED PLATFORM IN FRANKFORD. 12:28:29 BREAKUP UNTIL THE END. CI: POLITICS: PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 1992.

The senate convene for a period of morning business. They discuss the White House compromise on the the GW Bush tax cuts. BERNIE SANDERS FILIBUSTER CONTINUES. SEE MARS RECORD FOR TRANSCRIPT. 18:00:02 BERNIE SANDERS but they really want and you would I suspect they will continue to fight for a complete repeal of the estate tax. so just to give you one example -- i don't mean to pick on the walton family, but just as a flesh-and-blood example. 18:00:25salt walton's family -- and the waltons, of course, are the heirs to the wal-mart fortune. they are worth -- and this may 18:00:34be wrong because it's a couple of years old -- but give and take, $86 billion. that's one family, $86 billion. the walton family would receive an estimated $32.7 billion tax break if the estate tax was completely repealed. 18:00:52does anybody in their right mind believe that when this country has a national debt of $13.7 trillion and when we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world and our unemployment rate 18:01:08is 9.8%, can anybody for one second faith only member of the united states -- fathom members of the united states senate saying we want to give a $32 billion tax break to one family? 18:01:22so in terms of the estate tax, what we have done is made it even more regressive. we have given substantial help to exactly the people who need it the least. and that, to me, is not what we should be doing. 18:01:37our job here -- i know it's a radical idea, i admit it -- should be to represent the vast majority of the people in this country, the middle class, the working families of this country, and not just the top 1% or 2%. so under this proposal, this 18:01:54lowering of the estate tax, which will cost our government substantial sums of money because the revenue's not going to come in, this will benefit only the top .3%. and again, if some of my 18:02:15republican colleagues are successful in their desire -- and they're moving down the path -- if we repeal the estate tax entirely which is what they want to do -- i know it's hard to believe and some of the listeners out there think that i am kidding, but i am deadly serious, they want to completely 18:02:32remove the estate tax, which would drive up the national debt by a trillion dollars over a ten-year period. so, mr. president, that is this lowering of estate tax rates and 18:02:48raising the exemption is clearly an onerous -- clearly an onerous provision. and it is not just the walton family of wal-mart who benefits. 18:03:05according to "forbes" magazine, 18:03:09there are 403 billionaires living in this country with a combined net worth of $1.3 trillion. that's not shabby. that's pretty good. 403 billionaires are worth $1.3 trillion. 18:03:22anyone lucky enough to inherit this extraordinary wealth would benefit the most from repealing the estate tax. as robert frank wrote in his book, the wealthiest people in this country accumulated so much 18:03:42wealth that they have been competing to see who could own the largest private yacht, who could own the most private jets, who could own the most expensive cars, jewelry, art work, et cetera. in 1997, for example, leslie 18:03:57wexler, the chairman and c.e.o. of limited brands, the company that owns victoria's secret -- and none of us know what victoria's secret is, i know that -- paid a german ship maker to build what was then the largest private yacht in the 18:04:12united states. it's called the limitless. and there is a photo -- i guess this is the photo. it's a nice boat. it stretches 315 feet and has 3,000 square feet of teak wood 18:04:29and a gym. it's got a gym. according to "forbes" magazine, mr. wexler is one of the 400 richest people in this country worth an estimated $3.2 billion. permanently repealing the estate tax would allow mr. wexler's two children to inherit all of his 18:04:44wealth without paying a nickel to help this country deal with the enormous problems that we have. so i wish mr. wexler -- and i don't know him. i hope he is alive and well and i wish him a long life. but i believe very strongly that 18:05:02in this country, if we are going to see the middle class survive and our kids do well, we cannot repeal the estate tax and we cannot lower estate tax rates. mr. president, i want to get to 18:05:17another issue which i talked about earlier which i think there is some misunderstanding. and i know, mr. president, you raised this issue and i'm glad you did, at a recent meeting that we had. you know, all over the country, 18:05:32people say, isn't it great, we are going to lower the payroll tax on workers? we're going to go from 6.2%, which workers now pay, down 4.2%. people are going to have more money in their pocket, which 18:05:48certainly is a good thing. it's going to cost us $120 billion in social security payroll tax. here's the point. yes, we do want to put more money in workers' pockets. 18:06:03that's why many of us in the stimulus -- in the stimulus package supported a $500 -- it was a $400-a-year tax break for every worker -- virtually every worker in america. that's what we said. we want people in these 18:06:19difficult times to be able to have the money to take care of their families. and when they have that money, to go out spending it. and when they spend it, they create other jobs because people have got to provide goods and services for them. it has a good stimulus impact. yes, we do want workers to have 18:06:36more money in their pockets. but while this idea of lowering the payroll tax sounds like a good idea, in truth, it really is not a good idea. and, mr. president, i don't know if you know this, but this idea originated from very 18:06:54conservative republicans whose intention from the very beginning was to destroy social security by choking off the funds that go to it. and this is not just bernie 18:07:12sanders' analysis. mr. president, there was recently -- and i distributed it recently at a meeting that we held -- a news release that came from the national committee to preserve social security and medicare. 18:07:28and the headline on their press release is, "cutting contributions to social security signals the beginning of the end payroll tax holiday is anything but." and what the national committee to preserve social security and 18:07:45medicare, which is one of the largest senior groups in america, well understands is that there are people out there who want to destroy social security and one way you do that is you divert funds into the social security trust fund and 18:08:02they don't get there. now, what the president and 18:08:06others have said is, not to worry, this is just -- this is just a one-year program, just one year. and, in fact, they say, the general treasury -- the general treasury will pay the 18:08:23difference. so the social security trust fund is not going to lose funding. here's the problem. the problem is that historically, and the reason we have a $2.6 trillion surplus today in social security, the reason why social security is good for the next 29 years to pay out all benefits, is because 18:08:41it comes from the payroll tax, it is not dependent upon the whims of congress and the treasury. now, the president, republicans say well, this is just a one-year program, don't worry. i do worry. i worry that once you establish 18:08:56this one-year payroll tax holiday that next year our republican friends will say, oh, you want to end that? you're going to be raising taxes on workers. and enough people will support that concept. 18:09:11and this one-year payroll tax holiday will become permanent. and when you do that, you're going to be choking off over a period of years trillions of dollars that we need to make sure that social security is viable and is there for our kids and our grandchildren. 18:09:30but don't listen to me, listen to somebody who knows a lot more about this issue than i do. barbara kennelly is the -- a former congresswoman from connecticut. she's the president and c.e.o. of the national committee to 18:09:46preserve social security and medicare. and this is what barbara kennelly says. she is -- quote -- "even though social security contributed nothing to the current economic crisis, it has been bartered in 18:10:01a deal that provides deficit-busting tax cuts for the wealthy. diverting $120 billion in social security contributions for a so-called tax holiday may sound like a good deal for workers now 18:10:19but it's bad business for the program that a majority of middle-class seniors will rely upon in the future." end of quote, barbara kennelly. the headline "cutting contributions to social security 18:10:32signals the beginning of the end." this is not a good approach. providing and figuring out a way that we can get more money into the hands of working people, as we did in the stimulus package, does make a lot of sense. 18:10:52going forward with a payroll tax holiday is a backdoor method to end up breaking social security, and it's not anything that we 18:11:06should support. mr. president, let me just mention and quote from a gentleman who understands this issue very, very well and he understands the politics of what's going on here. his name is bruce bartlett. 18:11:22he is a former top advisor for presidents reagan and george h.w. bush. and he recently wrote the following in opposition to this payroll tax cut. and this is what mr. bartlett 18:11:40wrote "what are the odds that republicans will ever allow" -- ever allow -- "this one-year tax holiday to expire? they wrote the bush tax cuts with explicit expiration dates 18:11:58and then when it came time" -- right now -- "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. 18:12:15if allowing the bush tax cuts to expire is the biggest tax cut in history, one that republicans claim would decimate a still fragile economy, then surely expiration of a payroll tax 18:12:32holiday would also constitute a massive tax increase on the working people of america. republicans" -- this is brute bartlett who i'm -- bruce bartlett who i'm quoting, a 18:12:47former advisor to president reagan and the first president bush -- "republicans who would wish to destroy social security's finances or permanently fund it with general revenues switch the revenue base from the payroll tax to general revenues than allow a once 18:13:04suspended payroll tax to be 18:13:07imposed. arch social security hater peter ferraro once told me --" and again, this is bruce bartlett, former advisor to president reagan and bush one -- "peter ferraro once told me that funding it with general revenues was part of his plan to destroy 18:13:23it by converting social security into a welfare program rather than an earned benefit. he was right." in other words, what this issue is about is breaking the bonds that we've had since the 18:13:40inception of social security, where social security was paid for -- paid for -- by workers, you pay for it when you're working and you get the benefits when you're old. that's the deal. there is no federal money coming in from the general treasury. and this gentleman, 18:13:59mr. bartlett, thinks, and i suspect he is quite right, that -- that this is the beginning of an effort to destroy social security. and i would say that social security -- you know, the real debate about social security, 18:14:16mr. president, is not one about finances. there has been a lot of misinformation and disinformation out there. i hear from some of my friends on the republican side that social security is going bankrupt, it's not going to be 18:14:31there for our kids, and that is absolutely not true. social security today has a $2.6 trillion surplus. social security can pay out every benefit owed to every eligible american, if we don't 18:14:48start diverting funds for the next 29 years, at which point it pays out about 79% of benefits. so our challenge in 29 years is to fill that 22% gap. that's it. can we do it? sure, we can. president obama, when he was campaigning -- and i think has repeated since -- a very good 18:15:05suggestion that instead of having a cap in terms of which people contribute into the fund at $106,000, what we should do is do a bubble, go up to $250,000, and people -- $people who make $250,000 or more should 18:15:23contribute into the social security trust fund. if you did that and nothing else, you have essentially solved the social security problem for the next 75 years. very easy, it is done. so what this payroll tax holiday 18:15:39is doing in my view is pretty dangerous. i don't think enough people understand that, and i think that is one of the strong reasons why this agreement should be opposed. now, mr. president, another 18:15:55reason that i believe that this agreement is not as good an agreement as we can get is that it provides tens and tens of billions of dollars in tax cuts for various types of businesses. 18:16:11and i'm not here to say that these tax cuts cannot do some good. i suspect that they can. but i think there is a lot better way to create the jobs 18:16:25that we need than providing these particular business tax cuts. frankly, i think economists from almost all political spectrums, conservative to progressive, understand that if we are serious about creating the kinds 18:16:45of jobs that this economy desperately needs, and if we want to do that as rapidly and as cost-effectively as we possibly can, the way to do that 18:16:59is not to provide business tax cuts, because right now, right now corporate america is sitting on close to $2 trillion cash on hand. they have a ton of money. the problem is that the products that they are creating are not 18:17:16being bought by the american people because the american people don't have the money to buy those goods and services. so if we are serious, mr. president, in creating the 18:17:29jobs that we need, i think that what we have got to do is start making significant investments in our crumbling infrastructure, and that is -- that is rebuilding our bridges, our 18:17:48roads, our water systems, broadband, cell phone service, public transportation, our rail system, dams in every single one of these areas. we are seeing our infrastructure 18:18:04crumbling, and the point is that 18:18:06if you simply ignore a crumbling infrastructure -- and i say this as a former mayor who dealt with this issue -- if you simply ignore a crumbling infrastructure, you know what? it doesn't get better all by itself. 18:18:21and i know many mayors and governors would very much like to think that they can turn their backs on the infrastructure. it's not a sexy investment. it's not a sexy investment. but the reality is that if you don't pay attention to it today, 18:18:38it only gets worse and it costs you more money. it's like having a cavity. you can get your cavity filled. you neglect it, as i have, and you end up doing root canal, far more painful, far more expensive. that's what it's about. do we maintain our 18:18:57infrastructure? clearly, we are not. according to the american society of civil engineers, we should be spending about about $2.2 trillion in the next five years in order to maintain our infrastructure. 18:19:13i don't know about alaska, i don't know. i spent a very brief time in your beautiful state, but i do know that in vermont, we have bridges all over our state that are in desperate need of repair. it is fair to say the stimulus 18:19:31package has been very, very positive in my state. we spent a lot of money on roads and bridges, but we have a long, long way to go. we're putting money into roads and bridges, we're hiring people to do that work, that's what we should be doing all over the country. 18:19:45but, mr. president, it is not just roads and bridges. it is water systems. i told the story i guess a few hours ago now about a mayor, the mayor of rutland, vermont, which is the second largest city in the state, and i was in his office and he showed me a pipe. 18:20:03and the pipe was in pretty bad shape. he said, you know, this pipe was laid by an engineer, who then after he did this went off to war. he said what war do you think he went off to fight? 18:20:17he said it was the civil war, the civil war. so this was pipe laid in rutland, vermont, which is still being used which was laid i'm guessing in the 1950's, maybe -- 18:20:35in the 1850's, maybe 1860's. we have to spend $50 million, 20 years ago, rebuilding our waste water plant and making sure that a lot of pollution and filthy water didn't get into our 18:20:48beautiful lake, lake champlain. it's an expensive proposition. but right now we are going to have to invest in that. it's our water systems, our dams, our levees, our roads, our bridges. i mentioned earlier -- i mentioned earlier and contrasted 18:21:09what was going on in infrastructure in the united states as opposed to china, and i quote interested a book called third world america written by 18:21:24arianna huffington who tells us, essentially, that if we don't get our act together, that's what we will become, a third world. and she points out that compared to countries like china, our investments in rail is 18:21:43absolutely pathetic and inadequate. in china right now, that country is investing billions and billions of dollars in high-speed rail, building 18:21:57thousands and thousands of miles of high-speed rail. they are buildingver 100 new airports, and what are we doing? so, mr. president, one of my many objections to the proposal struck between the president and the republican leadership is i 18:22:13think we can do better in job creation than in business tax cuts. there is a time and a place for business tax cuts, and i am not against them, but i would say that at this particular moment in american history, in this particular moment, it makes a 18:22:31lot more sense to create over a period of years millions of jobs rebuilding our rail system, our subways, our roads, our bridges and our water systems and many other aspects of our infrastructure. there are places in vermont and throughout this country where 18:22:49people cannot today get decent quality broadband service, can't get cell phone service. in that area, we are behind many other countries, not wealthy countries around the world. 18:23:05when we make those investments in infrastructure, we not only create jobs, but we make our country stronger and more productive, and we enable ourselves to compete effectively in the international economy. mr. president, another one of my 18:23:24objections to this proposal, and why i think we can do a lot better is that i was really quite disturbed to hear that the president and others who would 18:23:40defend this proposal talk about one of the --quote, unquote -- compromises that was struck was to extend unemployment benefits for 13 months. now, to my mind, as i've said earlier, at a time of deep 18:23:55recession, at a time of horribly high unemployment, it would be absolutely wrong and immoral for us to turn our backs on the millions of workers who are about to lose their unemployment benefits. 18:24:10if we do that, it's hard to imagine what happened to those families, for many of whom this is their only source of income. what do they do? do they lose their homes? do they move out onto the streets? do they -- how do they take care of their kids? 18:24:26i don't know. there are parts of this country where it is very, very hard to get a job. extended unemployment is at the highest level we have ever seen. you can't turn your backs on those families. but i get upset when i hear that the republicans' willingness to 18:24:45support an extension of unemployment benefits for 13 months is a major compromise. i would tell you, mr. president, i think a lot of the american people don't know this, that for the past 40 years, 40 years, 18:25:00four decades, under both democratic and republican administrations, whenever the unemployment rate has been above 7.2%, above 7.2% unemployment -- and today we're at 9.8%, always, 18:25:18whether the democrats were in control or the republicans were in control, the president was democrat, the president was republican, what people did is say we have got to extend unemployment benefits. 18:25:31it's kind of common sense, it's not partisan. so when you have a program that has existed for 40 years in a bipartisan effort, it sounds to me that it is not much of a compromise for the republicans to say okay, we will do what democrats and republicans have 18:25:46done for 40 years. what a major compromise. it is not a compromise. it is just continuing existing bipartisan policy which is sensible. it's sensible from a moral perspective. you can't leave fellow american 18:26:02families out high and dry, and it is good economics because what the economists tell us is the people who will spend that money quickest are people who receive unemployment compensation because that's all they have got. they're going to go out and they 18:26:17are going to buy, and when they buy from the neighborhood store, they create jobs. so it's good economics and it is the moral thing to do, but frankly, mr. president, in my view, this is not much of a compromise. 18:26:32this is just continuing four decades of existing policies. mr. president, as i've said 18:26:50earlier, there are very clearly positive parts of this agreement. no question about it. i think almost every american will tell you that it would be totally absurd -- i know there 18:27:04are some who disagree, but i think the vast majority of americans believe that in the time when the middle class is collapsing, when median family income has gone down, when unemployment is high, that it would be a real horror show if we did not extend the bush tax 18:27:24breaks for the middle class who are 98% of the american people. 98%. that's what we want. you know, we could have crafted it much tighter, couldn't we? we could have said nobody above 18:27:39above $100,000, nobody above above $150,000. that's pretty generous. we said a family earning earning $250,000 should get an extension of these tax breaks. that is 98% of the american 18:27:57people. that's not good enough for our republican friends. they are fighting tooth and nail 18:28:04to make sure that the top 2%, the millionaires and billionaires, the c.e.o.'s earn tens of millions a year. they are fighting. it's like they're at war. they are so engaged to make sure 18:28:20that these fabulously wealthy people receive at least a million dollars -- in some cases for people who are making a million a year, they are going to receive on average, on average, $100,000 a year in taxx 18:28:38breaks. for the very, very wealthiest, it could be over a million dollars a year. mr. president, i know you joined me just two days ago in saying that at a time when senior citizens in this country and disabled vets for two years in a row have not received any cola, 18:28:52that maybe it was the right thing to do because we know that health care costs and prescription drug costs are soaring, that maybe we provide a a $250 check to those seniors 18:29:08and disabled veterans one time, one time. i could not get one republican vote in support of that proposition. we won 53-45, but around here it doesn't take 50 votes to win -- 18:29:26it doesn't take a majority to win, it takes 60 votes, we couldn't get one republican vote. so here you have every republican voting against a $250 check for a disabled vet or a senior citizen who is living on on $15,000, $16,000 a year. 18:29:43can't afford it, but we can afford a $1 million a year tax break for somebody who is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. now, somebody may understand that rationale. i don't, i really don't. i can't understand that. 18:29:58i can't understand asking our kids and grandchildren to pay more in taxes as the national debt goes up in order to provide tax breaks for the richest people in this country. so, mr. president, while there 18:30:14are some good provisions in this bill, and certainly extending the tax breaks for 98% of our people, for the broad, very broad middle class, i think if 18:30:31the american people demand it in our democracy, we can do better. now i don't know if you or i alone will be able to convince some of our republican friends 18:30:46or maybe some of our democratic friends to make this into the kind of proposal we need for the working families and for our children, for our next generation. 18:31:00i don't know if we can do it inside this beltway. as i said earlier, i think that the way we win this battle, the way we defeat this proposal and come back with a much better proposal is when millions of americans start writing and e-mailing and calling their 18:31:18senators, their congress people and say, wait a second, are you nuts? do you really think that millionaires and billionaires need a huge tax break at a time when this country has a $13.7 trillion national debt? 18:31:35what are you smoking? how could you for one second think that makes any sense whatsoever. i tell you, mr. president -- i don't know what my phones are doing in my office right now, but in the last three days i'm guessing 5,000 phone calls and 18:31:54e-mails, and about 99% of them are in disagreement with that -- with this proposal. i'm looking at a chart here, and we've got 2,100 calls that just 18:32:13came in, i'm informed today. i don't know what kind of calls other members of the senate are getting, but certainly those are the calls that i am getting. now, also, mr. president, and this point cannot be made 18:32:30strongly enough. what our republican friends want to do -- and they have been pretty honest and upfront, especially the extreme right-wing people who have been running for office and in some 18:32:45cases have won. they have been honest enough to say that they want to bring this country back to where we were in the 1920's, that their ultimate aim is the basic repeal of almost all the provisions that 18:33:00have been passed in the last 70 18:33:03years to protect working people, the elderly and the children. they believe in a darwinan style society in which you have the survival of the fittest, that we 18:33:16are not a society which comes together to take care of all of us. you take care of me in need and i take care of you in need and your family in that we are one people. and their strategy is pretty clear, i think. they want to ultimately destroy 18:33:35social security. and what we are beginning to hear more and more of is why don't we raise the retirement age to 68 or 69. that deficit-reduction commission which i thought the 18:33:49people on that commission were bad appointees by the president. you could have put together some good economists to say how do we in a fair way -- in a fair way -- address the deficit and national debt crisis. that wasn't what that commission 18:34:04did. these folks are talking about major cuts in social security, medicare, medicaid. they want, at a time when it is so hard for young people to afford to go to college, they want to raise the cost by asking 18:34:20our young people while they're in college to be accruing the interest on their loans. so i think that if the president believes that if this agreement is passed, that the republicans 18:34:35are going to come to the table and we're all going to live happily in the future. we're going to all work together in a nonpartisan way. i think he's not understanding the reality. these people are going to come back, and they're going to come 18:34:52back very aggressively for major cuts in social security, medicare, medicaid, education, child care, pell grants, you name it, because their belief is -- i don't quite understand it -- that it is somehow good public policy to give tax breaks 18:35:08for the wealthiest people in this country who in many ways have never had it so good while you cut programs that the middle class and working families of this country desperately depend upon. 18:35:23so i would suggest that this big debate we're having right now on whether or not we should accept the proposal agreed to by the president and the republicans is just the beginning, just the beginning of what's coming down the pike. and if we surrender now on this issue, we can expect next month 18:35:42and the following month another governmental crisis, another threat of a shutdown unless they get their way. so i think rather than asking the working families of this country to have to compromise, instead of asking our kids to 18:35:59pay more taxs to bail out billionaires, maybe -- i know this is a radical idea, but maybe we should ask a handful of our republican friends to join us. 18:36:14maybe a handful of honest conservatives over there who have been telling us for years their great concerns about deficit spending and a huge national debt. maybe they should be prepared to vote against a proposal which raises the national debt and our 18:36:34deficit by giving tax breaks to some of the richest people in the world. now, i, quite frankly, don't think that i'm going to be able to convince them. i don't know that you're going to be able to convince. but you know who i think can 18:36:49convince them? inch their constituents can convince them. i think the american people can convince them. i said earlier that if the american people stand up that we can defeat this proposal and that we can create a much, much 18:37:05better proposal. clearly we must extend tax breaks for the middle class. clearly we must make sure that unemployed workers continue to get the benefits that they 18:37:21desperately need. but equally clearly, we must make sure that we are not raising the national debt, which as shaopb as i'm standing -- as sure as i'm standing here will 18:37:36result in cuts, social security, medicaid, medicare, education, other programs by passing -- if this proposal is passed. mr. president, this is not only an important proposal unto itself -- $900 billion-plus even 18:37:56in washington is nothing to sneeze at -- but it is an 18:38:01important proposal in terms of the direction in which our country goes into the future. if we accept this proposal of a two-year extension for the richest people in america, i believe that will evenly become 18:38:17either a long-term extension or a permanent extension. if we accept the proposal that lowers the rates on the estate tax which benefits only the top .3%, 99% of americans get 18:38:39nothing. but if we give them what they want, i believe that over a period of years it will lead to the complete abolition and ending of the estate tax which will cost us $1 trillion over a ten-year period. 18:38:52so i would hope that this issue is not one that just progresses. i would hope that honest conservatives who in their heart of hearts believe that this country is seriously in danger 18:39:11when we have unsustainable deficits and a huge national debt that they will tell their officials here in washington not to pass a piece of legislation which increases the national debt significantly and in fact 18:39:26will allow for the permanent over years, in my view, extension of these tax breaks. that is what this debate is about. it is about, fundamentally whether we continue the process 18:39:45by which the richest people in this country become richer at a time when we have the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major country on earth. 18:39:58as i said earlier, mr. president, this is not an issue that is discussed. i don't know -- well, i do know why. it is just not an issue that people feel comfortable about because they don't want to give 18:40:15a front to wealthy campaign contributions. contributors will take on the lobbyists that are out there. that is the reality. throughout the entire world the united states has the most unequal distribution of income. top 1% earning 23.5% of all income. 18:40:31that, mr. president, is more than the bottom 50%. and that is not just immoral. it is bad economics. because if the middle-class gets crushed entirely, who is going to be buying the tkpwaopdz and 18:40:50services pro -- the goods and services produced in this economy. this piece of legislation, as important as it is unto itself -- and it is very, very important -- is equally important in terms of what it 18:41:04says about where we are going into the future. are we going to protect the middle class and working families of our country? are we going to make sure that every young native american america, regardless of -- every 18:41:22young person in america regardless of income has the ability to go to college or are we going to allow college to become unaffordable for young people or else force them to leave school deeply in debt? 18:41:35are we going to create a health care system which guarantees health care to all of our people -- high-quality health care -- or are we going to continue a situation where 18:41:5245,000 americans die each year because they don't have access to a doctor? are we going to invest in our energy system so that we break our dependence on foreign oil? we spend about $350 million a year importing oil from saudi 18:42:11arabia and other foreign countries. almost $1 billion a day which should be used to make this country energy independent, which should be used to transform our energy system away 18:42:28from fossil fuel into energy efficiency and technology such as wind solar, geothermal and biomass. mr. president, by the way, none of that has been addressed, as i 18:42:43understand it, in this proposal. so my point here is not just that this proposal is a bad proposal as it stands before us now. but it is going to move us in the future in a direction that i do not believe this country 18:42:59should be going. i mentioned earlier that my own personal family's history is the history of millions and millions of americans. my father, as it happened, came to this country at the age of 17 without a nickel in his pocket, 18:43:16worked hard his whole life, never made very much money. but he and my mom -- my mom graduated high school, she never went to college. but they had the satisfaction, a very significant satisfaction 18:43:33knowing their kids got a college education. my older brother larry went to law school and i graduated from the university of chicago. i think what's going on in this country and why the anxiety level is so high is not just that people are worrying about 18:43:50themselves. parents worry more about their kids than they do about themselves. and what parents are sitting around and worrying about now is they're saying will for the first time in the modern history of this country, my kids have a lower standard of living than 18:44:06their parents? will my kids earn less income? will me kids not have the opportunity to travel and learn and grow as i have done? are the best days of america behind us? that's really what the question is about. 18:44:23and i don't think that has to be the case. but i will tell you as i mentioned earlier, if we were going to change the national priorities in this country, if we're going to start devoting our energy and attention to the 18:44:38needs of working families and the middle class, we've got to defeat this proposal, we've got to defeat similar types of proposals which come down the pike. when this country has a $13.7 trillion national debt, it is 18:44:55insane to be talking about huge tax breaks for people who don't need them. as i mentioned earlier, ironically you've got a lot of these millionaires out there who apparently love their country 18:45:10more than some of the people in this chamber. you have some of the richest people in america -- bill gates and all the charitable work he does; warren buffet, and many others who say you know what? i'm doing fine. i'm a billionaire, i'm a 18:45:24multibillionaire, i don't need your tax break. i'm worried about the high rate of childhood pforts, a.m. worried about the infrastructure crumb manying, i am worried bel americans dying this year without access to health care. 18:45:42i'm about global warming. invest in transforming our energy system. these are patriotic americans. they're rich. they love their country. and now what they are saying to us is we don't even want it. we are giving people money who in some cases don't even want 18:45:57it. and i know -- i do know that there are others out there who do. and i think, mr. president, if there is one issue that we as a congress and as a government have got to address, and that is 18:46:13the administered level of greed in this country. we have got to stand tall and draw a line in the sand and simply say, enough is enough. how much do you want? 18:46:28how much do you need? how many yachts can you own? how many homes can you have? isn't it enough that the top 1% now earns 23.5% of the income in 18:46:45this country? how much more do they want? do they want 30%, 35%? isn't it enough that the top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 90%? 18:46:59how much more do they need? mr. president, i mentioned earlier when i talked about the situation that got us into this horrendous recession, and that is the collapse of wall street, and i talked about what i think 18:47:16most americans understand very well, and that is the incredible greed and recklessness and dishonesty that exists on wall street. we must not allow ourselves to encourage and continue the kinds 18:47:37of greed that we have seen in recent years. it is an abomination that the people who caused this economic crisis, the worst recession since the great depression, that the people who caused it on wall 18:47:53street are now earning more 18:47:57money, more money than they did before we bailed them out. earlier today, i was reading some e-mails that came to my office from vermonters who are 18:48:12struggling to keep their heads above water. and they were just terribly painful and poignant stories about honest and good and decent people who are now choosing about whether or not they should 18:48:26put gas in their car or buy thed into they need or buy the prescription drugs they need, not just a vermont story; it is an american story. and that is the reality out there for tens of millions of americans. so in my view, we can negotiate 18:48:45a much better agreement than the one that president obama and the republican leader did. there are some good parts of that agreement which obviously should be retained and perhaps even strengthened. 18:49:00and those include, of course, making sure that we extend unemployment benefits to those who need it and of course that we extend tax breaks for the middle class. and there are other -- some other very good provision flz 18:49:16there that i think are very worthwhile. but i think if the american people stand up and agree with those of us who say, no more tax breaks for the very wealthiest people in this country, we can defeat this proposal and we can come up with a much better one 18:49:33that is fairer to the middle class of this country and is fairer to our young children. i do not want to see our young kids -- my children, my grandchildren -- have a lower 18:49:48standard of living than their parents. that's not what america is b so, madam president, what i think we've got to do is defeat this proposal. i think we have got to urge our fellow americans to stand up and say "no" to tax breaks for those 18:50:07who don't need it. i think we have got to work in a very serious way about creating the millions and millions of good-paying jobs that this country desperately needs. 18:50:21i personally believe that far more effective approach than giving the variety of business taxes that were in this proposal at a time when corporate america is sitting on $2 million of unused cash -- they've got the money -- i think a much better 18:50:37approach, as i said earlier, is investing in our crumbling infrastructure. i think that makes us healthier and stronger as a nation for the future and in the global economy, and i think it creates jobs quicker and in a more cost-effective way than these 18:50:54tax cuts. i think also, madam president, that it is high time -- high time that the american people move -- they want us to move in 18:51:10an entirely new direction in terms of trade. i am always amazed how republicans and democrats alike -- i speak as the longest-serving independent in congress -- come election time i 18:51:26see these ads on television, oh, we've got to do something about outsourcing, we've got to do something about our trade policy. but somehow the day after that election when corporate america continues to throw american workers out on the street and moves to china, moves to other low-wage countries, somehow that 18:51:45discussion seases to competents -- ceases to exist and that legislation never seems to appear. so it seems to me, madam president, that we have got to defeat this proposal that in defeating this proposal we're 18:52:02going to tell the american people that there are at least some of us here, some of us here, who understand what our jobs and our obligations are, and that is that we are supposed to represent them, the middle 18:52:20class of this country, and not just wealthy campaign contributors or bow to the interests of the lobbyists who are all over this place. madam president, when i talked a 18:52:35moment ago about the need to invest in our infrastructure as a way to create jobs being more cost-effective than some of these business tax breaks, i'm looking right now at a "wall street journal" article, 18:52:52december 9, 2010, and here's 18:52:57what the article says. "companies" -- headlined "companies cling to cash." the headline "companies cling to carchlt" "coffers swell to 51-year high as cautious firms 18:53:12put off investing in growth." a story by justin laheart. here les the story. he makes the point that i have been trying to express her. "corporate america's cash pile 18:53:27has hit its highest level in half a century. rather than pouring their money into building plants or hiring workers, nonfinancial companies in the united states were sitting on $1.93 trillion in 18:53:47cash" -- i said $2 trillion. i stand corrected. $1.93 trillion in cash and other assets at the end of the september, up from $1.8 trillion at the end ever june, the federal reserve said thursday. 18:54:00cash accounted 7.4% of the companies' total assetted, the largest share since 1959. the cash buildup shows the deep caution many companies feel about investing in expansion while the economic recovery 18:54:17remains painfully slow and high unemployment and household finances continue to limit consumers' ability to spend." well what have we been talking about all afternoon? this is the "wall street 18:54:33journal," frankly not my favorite paper. but that's what they are saismg the way you are going to get the economy moving again is to put money in the hand of working people who will then go out and buy the goods and services that these companies produce. 18:54:50i have my doubts about whether or not these tax breaks will in fact have the desired result, but, as i said earlier and will say again, i think the most effective way to create jobs, 18:55:06the most important way to create jobs, is to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. and that is our roads, our bridges, our rail systems, our water systems, our waste water plants, our dams, our leaf vies visas, the need to -- our leaf 18:55:23veerks the need to improve broadband, to make sure every community in america has access to good-quality broadband, has access to cell phone service. unfortunately, as best as i can understand, there has not been one nickel -- one nickel 18:55:44appropriated in this piece of legislation, this proposed legislation, which would go to infrastructure improvements. 18:55:57so, madam president, i think that this proposal should be defeated because it is not a strong proposal for the middle class. it is a proposal which gives much too much to people who 18:56:12don't need it. and it is a proposal which i think sets the stage for similar type proposals down the pike. and i apologize to anyone who has been listening for any 18:56:28length of time -- and i know that i've been, to say the least, a by the repetitious, but the concern here is that when the president and some of my republican colleagues talk about some of these tsm breaks being "temporary," we're just going to 18:56:45extend hem for two years, talking about this payroll tax holiday being just one year, i've been in washington long enough to know that that assertion just doesn't fly. that what is temporary today is long-term tomorrow and is permanent the next day. 18:57:02so i fear very much that this proposal is bad on the surface. i fear very much that this proposal will lead us down a very bad track in terms of more trickle-down economics, which 18:57:18benefits the tricklers and not the ordinary americans. i think that it is a proposal which should be defeated. but, madam president, the point that i want to make is that it is not just my poifnlt i think 18:57:35it should be defeated. i think we can do a lot better. but i've got to tell you that the calls that are coming in to my office are -- hears wha we got today, i guess. 18:57:552k,122 calls oppose the deal. and i think 100 calls are supportive of the deal. so you can do the arithmetic on it. but that is at least 95% of the calls that i got today are 18:58:09saying this is not a good deal. we can do better. i note that in the last three or four days we have gotten probably now 6,000 or 7,000 calls that say this. and this is not just vermont. and some -- many of those calls come from out of state, by the 18:58:24way, not just from vermont. but i think that is true all over this country. so, madam president, let me conclude -- and it has been a long day. let me simply say that i believe 18:58:43the proposal that was developed by the president and the republicans are nowhere near as good as we can achieve. i don't know that we are able ourselves to get the handful of 18:58:56republicans that we need to say "no" to this agreement. but i do believe that if the american people stand uppedz -- and by the way, it may not be just republicans, there may be some democrats as well -- if the american people stand up and say, we can do better than this, 18:59:12that we don't need to drive up the national debt by giving tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires, that if the american people are prepared to stand -- and we're prepared to follow them -- i think we can defeat this proposal, i think we 18:59:27can come up with a better proposal which better reflects the needs of the middle-class and working families of our country and to me, most importantly, the children of our country. and with that, madam president, i would yield the floor. 18:59:55A SENATOR:i suggest the absence of a quorum. 18:59:58THE PRESIDING OFFICER:the clerk will call the roll.