The deficit-reduction package is grotesquely unfair. It also is bad economic policy.
The wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally well. In a recent 25-year period, 80 percent of all new income created in America went to the top 1 percent, who now earn more income than the bottom 50 percent.
In terms of wealth, the United States has the most unequal distribution of wealth of any major country on earth, with the top 400 people owning more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans.
When we talk about this deficit-reduction package, with the richest people becoming richer and huge corporations making billions of dollars in profits - and, in some cases, paying nothing in taxes - how much are those people, the wealthy and the powerful, asked to contribute toward deficit reduction and shared sacrifice?
How much are the rich and the powerful going to contribute into this deficit-reduction package?
The answer is zero. Not one cent.
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Meanwhile, as everybody in America knows, we are in the midst of a horrendous recession. Real unemployment is over 16 percent. People have lost their homes, their life savings. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, yet this deficit-reduction package comes down on those people - the working families, the low-income people, the sick, the elderly, the children.
Rich pay nothing; large corporations pay nothing. Yet, working families and the most vulnerable people in this country are going to be shouldering the burden of deficit reduction.
That is immoral. That is wrong. That is bad economic policy.
This is a complicated package, and nobody can predict with any certainty exactly what programs will be cut and how much they will be cut, because the process will kick into the appropriations committees all over the House of Representatives and the Senate, and they will go to a super committee, which will make very significant decisions.
But what we can say is that virtually every program that working families depend upon, that our children depend upon, that the sick depend upon, is on the line.
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In Vermont, we have a beautiful state and we love our winters, but it gets cold: 10 degrees below zero, 20 degrees below zero.
Many people, including senior citizens, desperately need a program called LIHEAP, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. It provides help to many people, including a lot of seniors, in staying warm when it gets as cold as 20 below zero. I fear very much that there will be major cuts in that program.
In our state, we have done very well in expanding community health centers. We've got more than 110,000 people now accessing new community health centers, finally being able to get a doctor and a dentist when they need it. I'm going to do everything I can to prevent those cuts; I fear that those programs can be cut.
In Vermont and all over this country, we have a major crisis in child care. Families want to get into the Head Start program. They want affordable child care. Those programs will be cut.
In Vermont, we have a program that helps struggling dairy farmers, a program called the MILC program. It helps them stay in business. I fear that that program will be cut. I'm going to fight against this.
We have young people today from working-class families, hoping against hope that maybe they will be able to afford to go to college. Well, we can expect major cuts in Pell grants and other programs that make college affordable for our young people.
In this country, we have people who are going hungry. We did a study recently that showed more hunger among seniors. Some of the programs that help these seniors will be cut.
Affordable housing programs will be cut.
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So let us not kid ourselves: in the midst of a terrible recession, when so many people are hurting, so many people are struggling just to keep their heads above water economically, this deficit-reduction package is going to slap them at the side of the head and make life much more difficult.
This a two-part deficit-reduction program. The first part calls for approximately $900 billion in cuts, and the second part calls for about $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion in cuts.
Here's where it gets a little complicated, because a super committee made up of six Democrats and six Republicans will have the opportunity to look at everything. Everything is on the table.
What does that mean? If everything is on the table, Social Security is on the table. What we have heard from our Republican friends, what we've heard from some Democratic friends, what we've heard from the president of the United States, is that maybe we should adopt a so-called “chained consumer price index.” That would result in very significant cuts in Social Security benefits.
If you're 65 now and that program is implemented, when you are 75 you're going to lose $560 a year. Twenty years from now, when you're 85, you are a going to lose $1,000 a year.
Am I saying that definitely will happen? No, I'm not. But Social Security will be on the table.
Medicare will be on the table. Medicaid will be on the table. Everything will be on the table.
If that committee ends up not coming to a decision, if the committee's members end up deadlocked, then we go to a sequestration program and more cuts are being made.
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Poll after poll after poll suggests very strongly that the American people want shared sacrifice.
In a poll just last week in The Washington Post, 72 percent said that they believe that folks making more than $250,000 a year should pay more in taxes to help us with deficit reduction.
Poll after poll says that it is absurd that large corporations get incredible loopholes, which enable them to make billions in profits and not pay one nickel in taxes.
I do not intend to vote for a deficit-reduction package where the sacrifices are being made by people in the middle class and working class who are already hurting.
It is time for the big money interests to start remembering they are also Americans. They should contribute to deficit reduction.
This is a bad proposal. This is an unfair proposal.
We can do better.
We must do better.