The Economy

Floor Speech

THE ECONOMY -- (Senate - September 26, 2008)

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, earlier this week I placed on my Web site-- sanders.senate.gov--a letter to Secretary Paulson, and I asked people who shared the sentiments of that letter to sign a petition. Essentially, kind of boiling it down, what the petition says is that at a time when the middle class is shrinking, and millions of working people are struggling to keep their heads above water; at a time when Bush's economic policies have done so much harm to so many people--6 million people have left the middle class and gone into poverty; over 6 million people have lost their health insurance, millions have lost their pensions--it does not make a lot of sense for the middle-class and working families, who had nothing to do with causing this financial meltdown, to be asked to go substantially more in debt--to the tune of $2,200 per person or $9,000 for a family of four. It is not fair; and that, in fact, if a bailout is necessary, it should be the people who have caused the bailout, the people who have benefitted from Bush's economic policies, who should put their money at risk and not the middle class.

As you well know, since President Bush has been in office, there has been a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the top 1 percent. We have a situation where the top 400 individuals in America today, since Bush has been in office, have seen an increase in their wealth of $670 billion at a time when the middle class is shrinking.

What the petition says in so many words is those are the people, not working families, who should pay the costs of the bailout.

I was amazed at the kind of response we received. As of now, we have over 37,000 signatures on a petition to Secretary Paulson and President Bush which says: Your friends, the people who have made out like bandits under your reckless economic policies, should pay for this bailout, not working families.

What I would like to do now is--in addition to these 37,000 signatures on the petition, my office has received thousands of e-mails and phone calls, mostly from Vermont but sometimes from other States as well. What I think would be appropriate and refreshing here in the Senate is, rather than people hearing my point of view, I think it would be a good idea just to read a few of the e-mails I have been receiving from the State of Vermont as to how ordinary people are responding to President Bush's bailout proposal.

Let me start with an e-mail I received from a small town in northern Vermont, Fairfield, VT:

Dear Senator Sanders, this e-mail and words themselves cannot express the dismay and disbelief I feel about the current Wall Street crisis and proposed bailout. After pulling down 6, 7, and 8-figure bonuses for flying their respective companies into the ground, these Wall Street geniuses then pulled their golden parachutes and leave it up to the taxpayers to clean up the mess and pay their bills. Unbelievable, just unbelievable.

And to make a bad situation tragic, due to the ever-escalating Federal deficit, the bill will be paid by my children and grandchildren.

I wish I had a solution to offer you but I don't. All my life I have strived to live within my means and pay my debts. I guess the joke is on me--except I feel more like crying, than laughing. Unbelievable.

This is from Springfield, VT, a town in southern Vermont:

Hold fast, Bernie. It took a long time for the banking crisis to develop; don't be pressured into capitulating to a half-baked solution. I'm among the Americans outraged at the undisciplined, arrogant, reckless nature of the markets. Many of us have been quietly toiling away on our workaday jobs and now our wages--our fiscal support of the Federal Government--are all that's between Wall Street and economic free fall. Keep reminding them of who is finally paying the price for that avarice.

This is from Chester, VT:

I may not always agree with you on every topic, but I most certainly agree with you on opposing the current (or any future) bailout for private corporations.

If I could ask you to share a message with your peers, it would be this: You do not have my permission to take any--any--not so much as a single near worthless penny--of my hard-earned money to reward the people who have mismanaged their businesses.

Senator Sanders, thank you for opposing this bailout package.

From Rupert, VT:

We are absolutely sickened by the prospect that honest, hard-working, fiscally responsible middle class Americans will have to foot the bill for the Wall Street bailout. While we realize that something must be done to prevent further damage, we have a problem knowing that the very people who caused the problem will literally sail off into the sunset on their yachts. Some type of strictly defined framework must be established to protect our tax dollars from being further pilfered by the greedy denizens that are at the center of this crisis. Also, what about some accountability for what has already been done? What about being forced to pay back the obscene bonuses and salaries earned in the course of this unprecedented example of unscrupulous pillaging.

So many Vermonters are struggling to provide their families with the basics right now. It's hard to imagine how something as far-reaching as this crisis could have happened. Yeah, let's hand over the Social Security next.

Please do what you can to insist that the bailout be done with strict oversight.

Waterbury, VT:

Senator Sanders, you and I may seem to be very different. You are the only one who calls himself a socialist in the Senate. I am in favor of free markets and capitalism. However, we can agree on one thing. The privatization of profits and the socialization of losses is immoral and wrong. To bail out the well-connected on Wall Street, those who thrive on government regulations and monetary policy, is unconscionable. I urge you to reject the bailout of Wall Street that Bush, Paulson and Bernanke propose.

From Richmond, VT:

Dear Bernie, my wife and I are both 65 years of age. We both retired this past January. For the past 8 years we have lived under one of the worst administrations in U.S. history. This administration is now asking Congress, just a few weeks shy of one of our most important national elections, to approve a massive financial bailout without strong protections for the American people.

As two people who have worked hard all of our lives and who have saved for our retirement, we strongly urge you not to get caught up in this panic attack and to ensure that you give taxpayers strong protections before approving Henry Paulson's bailout.

As always, we appreciate your support.

Newport, VT, right near, on the Canadian border:

Dear Bernie, thanks for all you do for Vermonters and the Nation. I am sure that you know that if this bailout plan is rushed through, it will make it that much more difficult for the next administration to address our already dire problems, such as education and health care.

Brattleboro, VT, which is the other end of the State, down in the south:

Please vote against any bailout of these investment concerns that have made risky, unwise actions and now expect us to cover their mistakes. The Bush administration began with the Enron debacle and it now seems that scheme to deprive hard-working Americans of their money is being applied to the country as a whole.

Congress has already given away sizable authority to the executive branch via the PATRIOT Act in the wake of 9/11. It has no right to give the White House and its Secretary of the Treasury the power to transfer the people's money to the richest bankers in the country. Vote no on the bailout legislation.

Burlington, VT, the largest city in the State, where I live:

We know that you are a leader in this and are very appreciative. We are very concerned about the Bush administration's proposed bailout legislation. We don't believe that extremely wealthy investment bankers who engaged in irresponsible, risky behavior deserve to be bailed out. We would like to see you craft the support legislation that provides relief to homeowners facing foreclosure and middle class people about to retire, for example. Please do not force middle class folks in general to pay for the efforts of the wealthiest people among us to further enrich themselves.

We hope Congress will not rush to pass legislation that it and the American people will regret for a generation.

St. Albans, VT, in the northern part of the State:

Senator Sanders, I know you are busy, but I just wanted to express my opposition to the latest bailout of the mortgage industry. While I don't want to see the economy crash and burn, I also don't want to see the banks and bankers responsible just be able to wash their hands and walk away while leaving generations of Americans paying for their mess. I feel if we need to purchase these bad debts, we should do so in true venture capitalist fashion and offer pennies on the dollar, just enough so that the banks don't fail but not enough for them to show any type of profit. In addition, there should be a proviso denying any officer of any of the banks that accept this bailout any sort of bonus.

Mr. President, these are just a handful of the e-mails my office has received. I know my office is not alone. I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of these e-mails have come to Capitol Hill, but the number is enormous. I think what most of them are saying--what the vast majority of them are saying--is that after 8 years of Bush's economic policies which have benefited the wealthy and the powerful at the expense of the middle class, it would be immoral, it would be absurd to ask the middle class to have to pay for this bailout.

I hope Members of the Congress will be listening to their constituents, will show the courage to stand up to the wealthy financial campaign contributors who have so much influence over what we do here and to say to the upper 1 percent: You are the people who have benefited from Bush's policies. You are the people who are going to have to pay for this bailout, not the middle class.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

BREAK IN TRANSCIRPT

Source