Transcripts For CSPAN2 Today In Washington 20101211

offshore. and we told the kids not to worry. you didn't want to work in a factory any how. we've got these good, information, technology computer-based jobs for you. then you have the heads of companies saying why do i want to get american young people do this? i can have indian young people do it who work for a faction of the wages. we all see this. it's nothing new. you try to get a plane reservation right now and you talk to somebody in india. please do not hear me to be antiindian or anti-chinese. that is the furthest i would want anybody to think. we have to work with people all over the world but you don't have to destroy the people of this country. you don't have to be a corporate c.e.o. to sell out your own people who built your company to run abroad. this senator is not anti-chinese, anti-indian, anti-vietnamese. i guess i'm guilty of being pro-american. former c.e.o. of hewlett-packar , miss fiorina. this is what she said when she was the c.e.o. of hewlett-packard in 2004. she said -- quote -- "there is no job that is america's god-given right anymore." end of quote. i could go on and on and on, but i think you got the point. and the point is that when things get rough for corporate america, as they did recently for general electric, they run to the taxpayers of this country in order to be bailed out. but their overall philosophy is that their goal in life is to make as much money they can in any way they can, and, therefore, you run to those countries where wages are low. and you're seeing it all the time. it is not just blue collar. it is increasingly white collar. you have radiologists who are able to read x-rays in india. you have people, people behind the computer can do work in india as well as here. these corporate folks have taken advantage of that and sold out the young people of this country and the working class of this country. mr. president, as you know, it is virtually impossible to find anything in a wal-mart or other stores like that that is made in america today. this is especially true for clothing. an increasing amount of our clothing comes from bangladesh. today there are 4,000 garment factories in bangladesh making clothes for wal-mart, gap, j.c. penney, levi strauss, tommy hilfiger and many, many others. garment workers in bangladesh, some 3.5 million of them -- and that number is growing -- are among the lowest-paid workers in the world, and they have difficulty buying enough food and shelter for their own needs. as i mentioned earlier today, the good news is the minimum wage in bangladesh was doubled. it went from 11.5 cents an hour to 23 cents an hour. so when you buy your shirt made in bangladesh, you have young women there coming in from the countryside who are paid now, have received a doubling of their minimum wage to 23 cents an hour. is that something our people should be asked to compete against? should we say to the american worker, we can get you jobs, we're prepared to invest in the united states. we're an american company; you helped make us great. thank you for the work you've done over the years. thank you for purchasing our products. thank you for making us strong. if you are prepared to workforce $1 an hour, prepared to work for $1 an hour, $2 an hour, $3 an hour, we'll come back. in the last campaign, what did we begin to hear rumblings about? abolishing the main. abolishing the minimum wage. the minimum wage is now $7.50 an hour. that's what we say, $7.25. that's what we say should be the minimum any american worker gets. there are people who say if i can hire people in china and pay $2 or $3 an hour, you want a job in america and i have to pay you $7.25 an hourbgs why should i do -- an hour, why should i do that? what a wonderful prospect for our young people to think about working for $4 or $5 an hour. so, mr. president, i think if we want to understand why the middle class in this country is collapsing, why unemployment is high, why our manufacturing base has been decimated, why it is hard to purchase a product made in the united states, it has a lot to do with our trade policies which were pushed by people like mr. donahue -- mr. donohue of the chamber of commerce and many, many others. but it is not just a disastrous trade policy that has brought us to where we are today. the immediate cause of this crisis is -- just gets me sick thinking about it, and that is what the crooks on wall street have done to the american people. these people fought for a period of years to deregulate the banking industry. these people said to us, well, you know, if you just will do away with glass-steagall, if you will just allow financial institutions, commercial banks, investors banks, insurance companies, if you allow them to merge, do away with these walls which glass-steagall since the depression had established, my god, it would be just terrific, it would be good for our economy, good for the american people, good for our international competitiveness. and i remember that, those debates, mr. president, because i was at that point in the house of representatives. i was a member of the banking -- the financial institutions committee at that point. i was on the committee that dealt with that. and i remember all of the times that alan greenspan came before the committee and said, you know -- and rubin, you had republicans, you had democrats coming before the committee saying that's what you've got to do. you've got to deregulate. let these guys merge. bigger is better. and against my votes -- somewhere on the internet there is a discussion i had with alan greenspan when he came before our committee, and i made it very clear to the people of vermont, to him and to everybody else that i did not think deregulation was a good idea, that i thought it would lead to disaster. someplace in this world there is a quote of mine which pretty much predicts what was going to happen. but needless to say i was one vote and the majority of the members in the house and senate voted to deregulate. and the rest is unfortunately history. and what we saw is that people on wall street, i think, you know -- i may be wrong on this, but i think operating from a business model based on fraud, based on dishonesty, understanding that the likelihood of them ever getting caught was small, that if things got really bad they would be bailed out by the taxpayers, understanding that they are too powerful to ever be put in jail, to be indicted, understanding in this country when you're a c.e.o. on wall street, you have so much wealth and so much power and have so many lawyers and so many friends in congress that you can do pretty much anything you want and not much is going to happen to you. and they did it. they did it. their greed and their recklessness and their illegal behavior destroyed this economy. and what they did to the american people is so horrible, so horrible -- here you are in the middle class which is already being battered, as we discussed, as a result of trade agreements, loss of manufacturing jobs, health care costs going up, can't afford to send your kid to college, that's going on for years. and then these guys start pushing worthless and complicated financial instruments; the whole thing explodes. the whole thing skpwhroedz, and they -- explodes and they come trying to the taxpayers of america to bail them out. i will never forget, never forget hank paulson coming before the democratic caucus -- i'm an independent and long been serving as an independent in congress, coming before the democratic caucus saying that within a few days he needed $700 billion or the entire world financial system would collapse. in my view, that means if you need the money, why don't you go to your friends and get the money. why don't you go to all your millionaire friends and billionaire friends an get some that have money and don't go to the middle class of this country al-hassan already been harmed. in fact we brought an amendment to the floor of the senate, one of the first amendments that i brought o.a.s. a senator, which suggested, which the amendment was that the top 2% should pay for the bailout, not the american people. it got defeated in a voice vote. so what goes on in wall street is that we have seen a tremendous concentration of ownership there, another issue that we do not talk about. i know senator brown and senator kaufman and i worked on a proposal to try to break up these large financial institutions. i think we ghot 30-some-odd -- i think we got 30-some-odd votes on it. couldn't do it. what the american people should know now is that while we wailed out wall street because they were -- quote, unquote -- "too tboig fail, three oust four financial institutions all that were bailed out are now large today than they were before the bailout. incredibly, since the start of the financial crisis, wells fargo has grown 43% bigger, morgan chase has grown 51% bigger. can you imagine nah that? we bailed these guys out because they were too big to fail, now three out of the four larger ones are much larger than they were. how did that happen? well, in 2008, bank of america, the largest commercial bank in this country, which received a $45 billion taxpayer bailout, purchased country-wide, the largest mortgage lender in this country and merrell lynch, the largest stock brokage firm in the country. that's how bank of america expanded. they were too big to fail. today, much bigger. in 2008, j.p. morgan chase, which received a $25 billion bailout from the bush treasury department and a $29 billion bridge loan from the federal reserve, acquired bear stearns and washington mutual, the largest savings and loan in the country. that's how j.p. morgan chair, a huge bank, became even bigger. in 2008, the treasury department provided an $18 billion tax break to wells fargo to purchase wachovia, allowing that bank to control 11% of all bank deposits in this country. hear this, mr. president, because this is just quite unbelievable. when we try to understand what's going on in the economy today, the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, the middle class collapsing, today, after we bailed out all of these large banks, three out of four of them now much larger than they were before, and today bank of america, j.p. morgan chase, citigroup and wells fargo, the four largest financial institutions in this country, hold about $7.4 trillion in assets, and that is equal to over half of the nation's estimated total output last year. four financial institutions have assets worth more than 52% of our total output last year. and instead of allowing them to -- instead of breaking these large institutions up, we let them get bigger. in fact, mr. president, according to simon chase -- simon johnson, i'm sorry, the former chief economist of the international monetary fund -- quote -- "as a result of the crisis in ver yaws government rescue effort bz, the largest six banks in our economy now have total set as in excess, he claims, of 63% of g.d.p." this is a significant increase from even 2006. when the same banks' assets were around 65% of g.d.p. downed what this is about? four financial institutions owning over half of the assets of america. you talk about economic, you talk about political power. it is what we were talking b simon johnson continues. he said, "this is a complete transformation compared with the situation in the united states just 15 years ago when the largest six banks had combined assets of only about 17% of g.d.p." so today -- 15 years ago 17%. today four banks, he claims 64% of g.d.p. in other words, mr. president, of the last 15 years, the largest banks in this country are more than triple in size. now, mr. president, not only are too big to fail financial institutions bad for companies, the enormous concentration of ownership in the financial sector has led to higher bank fees, usewerry interest rates on credit cards and fewer choices for consumers. what do you think happens when you have a few institutions, a handful of institutions, controlling mortgage lending or the ability of people -- where people get their credit cards? today, mr. president, these huge financial institutions have become so big that according to "the washington post," the four largest banks in america now issue one out of every two mortgages, two out of three credit cards, and hold $4 out of every $10 in bank deposits in the entire country. mr. president, if any of these financial institutions were to get into major trouble again, taxpayers would be on the hook for another substantial bailout, and we cannot allow that to happen. so the whole reason for the bailout is that if any of these financial institutions collapse, it would take down a significant part of the economy and millions of jobs. we had to prop them up. we had to bail them out. and it turns out that since we bailed them out, these handful of financial institutions are now even larger than they were before, and we now know they are enjoying very unusual profits and they are paying their c.e.o.'s even more in compensation than they did before the breakdown. in my view, mr. president, if we are serious about understanding why the middle class is collapsing, if we are serious about really getting this economy moving again long term, we have got have the courage to do exactly what teddy roosevelt did back in the trust-busting days and break these banks up. the point that roosevelt was making is that it is bad for the economy when a handful of entities control industry after industry. they have a stranglehold on the economy. you got to break them up. and yet i have heard very little discussion -- i know there was an amendment from sherrod brown and ted kaufman. i introduced legislation on this issue to start breaking them up. but, frankly, their lobbyists and their money are such that it becomes very difficult to do that. but that is exactly what we should be doing. the legislation that i introduced last year, s. 2746, the too-big-to-fail, too-big-to-exist act, would break up these large financial institutions. that legislation would require the secretary of treasury to identify every single financial institution and insurance company in this country that is too big to fail within 90 days and after one year the secretary of the treasury would be required to break up these institutions so that their failure would not lead to the collapse of the u.s. or global economy. i think that that is pretty obvious. we passed a financial reform bill, which i supported, got a major provision in there asking for disclosure of the fed and an investigation of conflicts of interest at the fed. but overall, i, by no means, think that that legislation went anywhere near far u.n. i think it was a modest piece of legislation. i think that's an interest we've got to revisit. in my view, mr. president -- and i am worried very much about the future because i have the feeling in my stomach that that day is going to come around again when these huge financial institutions are tottering and they're going to go running to washington and they're going to say, hey, you got to bail us out. in my view, if an notion is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. let us break them up. so that we do not have to go through another bailout of wall street. furthermore, i believe that when you have that kind of concentration of ownership, when you have four large financial institutions holding half the mortgages in this country, controlling two-thirds of the credit cards and amassing 40% of all deposits, this is not good for a competitive economy. we're supposed to be living in free market capitalism, real competition. this is not free market competition. this is a huge concentration of ownership where a few people have enormous power over the economy and with their wealth, the political life of this country. no single financial institution should be so large that its failure would cause catastrophic risk to millions of american jobs or to our nation's economic well-being. no single financial institution should have holdings so extensive that its failure could send the world's economy into crisis. we were there two years ago, and in many ways, despite the passage past financial reform bill, we are even more there now. the big, huge financial institutions that we bailed out are bigger, more huge today. and interestingly nurvetion on that issue, mr. president, it is not just progressives like myself that theeld view. there are some pretty conservative folks that are not as conserve:15. his concentration of ownership in a few entities stharks a conservative proposition? not in terms of my understanding. i don't think so. you have at least three federal reserve bank presidents that support breaking up too-big-to-fail banks. james board, president and chief executive of the federal reserve bank of st. louis, kansas city fed president thomas n.honig, and dallas fed president richard w. fish fer. these guys don't have my political views. i am a proud progressive. my guess is they're conservatives. but anybody with an ounce of brains in your head understands that four large financial institutions that have assets that are more than half of the g.d.p. of the united states of america places us, a, in a very dangerous position in terms of too big to fail and, it is -- and, b, it is just bad for a competitive commitment of is it any wonder why people are paying such high interest rates on their credit cards? that's because these guys issue two-thirds of the credit cards in america. is there any reason why they're issuing fraudulent mortgage packages to people, because there is not the kind of competition that should be there. this is not just bernie sandders' point of view. here's what kansas city fed president honig said. i think it was fairly recently -- last year. this is kansas city fed president honig. quote -- "i think they should be broken up. i think there's no reason, why as we've done in other instances of finding the right mechanism to break them into their components. and in doing so, i think you'll make the financial system itself more stable. i think you will make it more competitive. and think you will have long-run benefits over our current system, which mixes it and therefore leaves the bailout in place." this is thomas honig, the head of the fed -- kansas city fed. a very simple statement. he's absolutely rievment he's absolutely right. but, and i'm going to get to the reason why in a little while, we've not been able to do this. we've not been able to do this because wall street sends their lobbyists down here in droves and wall street provides zillions of dollars in campaign contributions and wall street fights like the dickens to make sure that any strong provisions that some of us might bring up is defeated. here is what the president of the dallas fed, mr. fisher, said. quote -- "based on my experience at the fed, the marginal costs of too-big-to-fail financial institutions easily dwarf their purported soarbled and macroecomonic benefits. the risk posed by coddling too-big-to-fail banks is simply too great. winston churchill said that 'in finance, everything that is greebl is unsound and everything that is sound is disagreeable." that's from churchill. and mr. fisher continues, "i think the greebl but sound thing to do regarding institutions that are too big to fail is to dismantle them over time into institutions that can be prudently managed and regulated across borders." "and this should be done before the next financial crisis because we now know it surely cannot be done in the middle of a crisis." end of quote. that's dallas fed president mr. fisher. mr. president, they are already in the process of breaking up big banks in england. according to "the washington post," the british government announced tuesday -- that is, not this tuesday, this is way back last year -- the british government announced awhile back that it will break up parts of major financial institutions bailed out by taxpayers. the british government, spurred on by european regulators, is forcing the royal bank of scotland, lloyds banking group and northern rock to sell off parts of their operations. the europeans are calling for more and smaller banks to increase competition and eliminate the threat posed by banks so large that they must be regulated -- they must be rescued -- they must be rescued by taxpayers no matter how they conducted their business in order to avoid damaging the global financial system. mr. president, very interesting development occurred on october 15 of last year. on october 15 -- and as i mentioned earlier, alan greenspan, who was the chairman of the fed before mr. bernanke, and i had our run-ins. mr. greenspan, along with mr. rubin and others, were the chief proponents, larry summers in there, were the chief proponents of deregulation of financial institutions and mr. greenspan and i had more than a few arguments. but on october 15 of last year, alan greenspan, who admitted that his views on deregulation were wrong -- and i give the man courage for at least admitting that he was wrong. did a heck of a lot of damage but at least he had the courage to admit that he was wrong. he was quoted on bloomberg news as saying -- and i quote -- "if they're too big to fail, they're too big. in 1911, we broke up standard oil. so what happened? the individual parts became more valuable than the whole. maybe that's what we need to d do." alan greenspan. the architect of deregulation, citing the fact that in 1911, we broke up standard oil. so here you have greenspan, who helped cause this crisis, at least having the courage to understand that now is the time to begin breaking up these big financial institutions. heavy enormous power over our economy. they have enormous power over our political power. their lobbyists are all over this place. you can't walk down the hall without bumping into some of their lobbyists. we've got to start breaking them up and the american people have got to be prepared for a major fight to take on these huge financial institutions. mr. president, former fed chairman paul volcker, who has advised the obama administration, supports breaking up big banks so that they no longer pose systemic risk to the entire economy. according to a recent article in "the new york times," volcker said -- and i quote -- "people say i'm old-fashioned and banks can no longer be separated from non-bank activity. that argument brought us to where we are today." end of quote, paul volcker. now, i couldn't agree more. that's what i'm talking about. you've got to start breaking up four financial institutions which led us into the economic disaster we're in right now that remain much too big to fail, that we're going to have to bail out again and again and again and that today have a stranglehold on our economy. "the new york times" said that under volcker's plan -- quote -- "j.p. morgan chase would have to give up the trading operations acquired from bear stearns; bank of america and merrill lynch would go back to being separate companies; goldman sachs can no longer be a bank holding company." that's exactly what needs to be happening. the reality is -- and i come from a small state, we have community banks. here's the irony, mr. president. the banks in vermont, in the midst of all of this financial disaster, they did just fine. they are small, locally-owned banks. they know the people they lend money to. the c.e.o.'s are not making hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. they know their community. they know what loans made sense. now, i may be old-fashioned, like mr. volcker, but i think that's what banking is about, to lend out money to people in the productive economy, the business community that can use the money to expand, create jobs, to homeowners that need that money to buy a home. not to be living in your own world, engaged in a huge gambling i casino, producing and selling worthless products that nobody understands. the function of a bank is to be a middleman between people who need money and are producing real products and helping them get that money and people who are investing in the banks. it is not supposed to be an island unto itself. but in recent years, what we have seen, incredibly -- incredibly -- 40% of all profit in america went to the financial institutions. small number of people working there, relatively small. 40% of the profits. because they live in a world. it is a huge gambling casino. we need financial institutions to go back to the way banking used to be. and the job of banks is to provide affordable loans to the productive economy so that we can produce real products, real goods and we can create real jobs when we do that. robert reich, president clinton's former labor secretary, has said -- quote -- "no important public interest is served by allowing giant banks to grow too big too fail. wall street banks should be split up and soon." we've got a lot of people -- some conservatives, some progressives -- are saying the same thing. if we're going to rebuild the middle class, the way to do that is, among other things, to change our disastrous trade policies, to make it clear to corporate america that they cannot continue to sell out the workers of this country by moving to china, other low-wage countries. and we also have got to have a much more competitive economy, one in which four large financial institutions do not own assets of more than half of the g.d.p. of this country. and on that point, i find it very interesting that it's not just progressives like myself or robert reich, but you have some conservative bankers, people who are heading fed banks around this country who are saying pretty much the same thing. now, also, mr. president, when we talk about banks, i want to get back to a point that i raised earlier. this is an issue really i've been working on for years and years. and that is this issue of usury. and i mentioned earlier that if you read the religious tenets of the major religions throughout history, whether it's christianity, judaism, islam, and others, what you find is almost universal objection and disgust and a feeling of immorality in items of usury. when we talked about usury in the united states, what we usually talked about were thugs, gangsters working on street corners who lent out money at outrageously high interest rates to workers, and when that money was not repaid back at the interest rates asked for, the thugs would beat the workers up. in fact, i'm thinking now about the first movie of "rocky." mr. president, i don't know if you saw the first movie of "rocky" with sylvester stallone. and before rocky became a successful fighter and the heavyweight champ of the world in the movie, that's what he w was -- big, tough guy and he beat up people who did not pay back the gangsters the high interest rates that they were asking. well, the world has changed. and now the people who are committing usury are not the gangsters on street corners all over america, their place has been taken by the c.e.o.'s of wall street financial institutions. who are lending out money to desperate americans at 25% or 30% interest rates. that, my friends, is called usury, according to every religion on earth that is immoral. what you're doing is going up to people who are desperate, people who are hurting and you're saying, you desperately need money; we're going to give you money, but there's a string attached. you're going to be charged an outrageous amount of interest on that money. so here's the irony. peoplthe people who are hurtinge most pay the highest interest ray. the people who need the money the least -- interest rates. the people who need the money the least are paying the lowest interest rates. so the fed lent out billions and billions of dollars to the largest financial institutions often at less than 1%. that's american taxpayer money. large corporations, less than 1%. but if you are a worker today and you're having hard times, maybe you're unemployed, you're going to pay 25% or 30% interest rates on your credit and sometimes more. you have this payday lending where people are paying outrageous sums of money. i think that's immoral. i think we have got to stop that. and it disturbs me very much that especially at a time when we bailed out these large financial institutions, that they are still able to charge our people 25% or 30%. people who bailed them out get hit the second time around by having to pay 25%, 30% interest rates. and right now, it's not even 25% or 30%. as a matter of fact, the 10th largest credit card issuer in this country, an entity called premier bank, is now offering a credit card with a 79.9% interest rate and a $300 credit limit. what do we make of that? tenth largest credit card issuer in this country charging 79% interest rates, and we allow that to go on? these are crooks. these are no different than the gangsters who beat up people on street corners when they didn't get payment back, except now the gangsters are wearing three-piece suits and sitting in some fancy suite on wall street. mr. president, today, over one-quarter of all credit cardholders in this country are now paying interest rates above 20%, as i indicated, as high as 79%. mr. president, let's be clear, when credit card companies charge over 20% interest on credit cards, they are not engaged in the business of making credit available. what they are involved in is extortion and loan sharking, nothing essentially different than gangsters, except they dress a lot better. that's all it is. it's thievery and we tolerate it. and we bail them out. mr. president, it's interesting, in terms of these high interest rates, because for many, many years, we have had states, including the state of vermont, saying that you're not going to charge outrageously high interest rates. for example, between establishing a usury law is not a radical concept, which is what we've got to move in. we've got to put a cap on interest rates. in fact, between 1978 and today, over 20 states in america had laws capping credit card interest rates. in alabama, the legal maximum rate of interest is 8%. in alaska, it's 10.5%. arizona, 10%. idaho, 12%. kansas, 15%. state of vermont, my own state, the legal maximum rate of interest is 12%. but what happened is all of those states interest cap rates disappeared under the 1978 u.s. supreme court decision known as the marquette case, which allows banks to charge whatever interest rates they wanted if they moved to a state without an interest rate, like south dakota or delaware. so all these companies moved to south dakota, they moved to delaware, no interest rates, and they charged the people in vermont or hawaii or any place else 25% or 30% interest rates. so, mr. president, getting back to the original agreement, which i strongly disagree with, that the president and the republican leadership agreed to, if we are going to save the middle class and i think that agreement significantly helps the upper income people by lowering the tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, by lowering the interest rates on estate tax, by providing business loans which are not the best investments to create jobs, one of the best things we can do to protect the middle class today is to have a cap on interest rates because otherwise all the people are doing is getting a paycheck, going into debt and paying 25% or 30% on interest rates, money going to a handful of bankson wall street. now, i have introduced legislation to put a cap on interest rates and it ain't a radical idea. right now credit unions in this country, by law, are not allowed to charge more than 15% except under extraordinary circumstances. and by and large that's worked for about 30 years. so if you get a credit card through a credit union, you're not going to be paying, in almost every case, no more than 15%. and that was developed by federal law. and you know what? i talked to the credit union people in the state of vermont and all over the country, credit unions are doing pretty good. they're doing just fine. they're not the ones who came begging the american taxpayer for a huge bailout. so for 30 years they have survived just fine on a 15% cap. but our friends on wall street who caused this recession, our friends on wall street who needed a welfare check from the american people in order to survive, our friends on wall street today are earning more money than they did before the bailout, we don't have any cap on the interest rates that they can charge. in my view, if the credit unions have survived and survived well with a 15% max interest rate cap, the most they can charge, work -- it worked for credit unions, it can work for provide banks as well and that is what we have got to do. according to a recent article -- this is not so recent, this is a year ago. in the "l.a. times", an analyst for the credit union league said that a rate cap hasn't hurt business for the nearly 400 credit unions represented by his organization. it hasn't been an issue, he said, credit unions are still able to thrive. here's my point, mr. president, middle class is hurting, unemployment outrageously high, poverty increasing, 50 million people, no health insurance, gap between the very rich, everybody else, manufacturing collapsing, jobs going all over the world, china, mexico, india, we have got to start protecting the middle class of this country. a number of things we've got to do. but i think one simple thing that we've got to do is tell the crooks on wall street -- and i use that word advisely -- history will prove they knew what they were doing. their business model was fraudulent. there are occasionally people who make mistakes. it happens all the time. but there are are other businesses which are based on fraud and assume that they are never going to get caught or when they do get caught, the penalty they have to pay is so little that it's worth it. because you end up getting caught one out of 10 times, you make a whole lot of money, you pay a fine, somebody goes to jail, maybe, for a year, and that's what you're seeing on wall street. so i think if it's worked very well for the credit unions, i think it can work for the private banks as well. mr. president, you know, in the financial reform bill, did we address this issue? yeah, we did and no, we didn't. what we said is that we -- the credit card companies have got to be clearer and more honest about their interest rates and how much borrowing money will actually cost. because before what they did is they simply lied. they would say zero interest rates, 2% interest rates, but most people didn't read the small print on page 4 which said they could raise their interest rates at any time and we've made some progress with being honest with the american people about what their credit card costs will be. but that ain't enough. that's not uf. what we've got -- that's not enough. what we've got to do is put a cap on interest rates. it has worked for the credit unions and i believe it can and should work for the -- for the big banks as well. mr. president, what i wanted to do now is just give you some examples about -- you know, sometimes here, and i'm guilty of that as well, we talk in big numbers, you know, a billion here and a trillion there and it adds up. but i think it's also important to look at the flesh and the blood that's out there, the real suffering that people are experiencing. and a while back what i did was i sent an e-mail out to people in the state of vermont and it was a very simple e-mail. it said, you know, tell me, in your own words, what's going on in your family, what's going on -- what's going on in your lives in the midst of this terrible recession? because, again, it's -- it's important to get beyond, yeah, we know that unemployment is 9.8%, we know that real unemployment is 16%. we know that 50 million people don't have any health insurance. we know the median family income has gone down, poverty has gone up, 25% of our kids are on food stamps. we know that stuff and it's important to know all that stuff but behind all those statistics are flesh and blood and good people who are doing everything they can to survive with a shred of dignity in their lives. so what i did in this last year, i sent an e-mail out to my constituents in the state of vermont and i said very simply, write back to me. tell me in your own words what is going on in your lives -- and i promised them -- i can't remember how many we received, but there were just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of responses. it really quite amazed me. and, frankly, mr. president, it was hard to read these letters from decent, good people, about what was happening to their lives. and what i said to them -- if it's okay with you, what we'll do is publish what you have written to me, we won't use your names, of course, i don't want to embarrass anybody, and we will read some of these stories right here on the floor of the senate. that's what i did. i didn't read them all. but i read some of them. because it's important for us sitting here inside the beltway not to forget what's going on in the real world. whether it's hawaii, vermont, california or any place. an here's a letter from two mothers in vermont. the first is from a mother in a rural area and the second is from a single mother in a small city. and in vermont, frankly, we don't have too many big cities. my very, very beautiful state, where i expect weather is very, very cold today, our largest city is all of 40,000 people. that was burlington vermont and i was honored to be the mayor of that city for eight years. we have the vast majority of our people living in towns of less than 1,000. i lived in a town in stanon, vermont, which has about 150 people in it. that's not uncommon in vermont. here are the two letters we received. one from a woman in a rural area. she says, "my husband and i have lived in vermont our whole lives. we have two small children, a baby and a toddler, and felt fortunate to own our own house and land. but due to the increasing fuel prices, we have at times had to choose between baby food and diapers and heating fuel." now, in vermont, i don't know about hawaii, but in vermont heating fuel gets up there when the weather gets below 20 below and you're buying oil. we've run out of heeling fuel so -- heating fuel four times and the baby ended up in the hospital with pneumonia two of the times. we try to keep the kids warm with an electric space heater on those nights, but that doesn't do the trick. my husband does what he can to scrape enough money for car fuel each week and we've gone from two vehicles to one just to try to get by without going further into debt. we were going to sell the house and rent, but the rent around here is higher than what we pay for our mortgage and property taxes combined. please help. that was what she asked of me and her government, "please help." she didn't ask me to lower taxes for billionaires. she is speaking for tens of millions of people in this country who are in desperate need of help. here's another letter that comes from a woman who lives in a larger town. "i'm a single mother with a 9-year-old boy. we lived this past winter without any heat at all. " and that is not a good position to be in in vermont in the winter. "fortunately someone gave me an old wood stove. i had to hook it up to an old, unused chimney we had in the ine kitchen. to stay warm at night my son and i would pull off all the pillos from the couch and pile them on the kitchen floor. i hang a blanket from the kitchen doorway and we sleep right there on the floor. by february we ran out of wood and i burned my mother's dining room furniture. i have no oil for hot water. we boil our water on the stove an pour it into the tub. i'd like to order one of your flags and hang it upside down at the capitol building. we are certainly a country in distress." mr. president, what i will without a doubt assure you is that those stories in different forms, i know it's different in a bigger city than in a rural state like vermont, i know it's different in hawaii where you come from than in boston or massachusetts -- boston, massachusetts, i'm sure that millions of people in one way or another are telling these same stories. these are great americans. people who want to work and do the best they can by their kids and they're simply not making it right now. this is the united states of america, year 2010. people are going cold. people are going cold. people don't have enough food. people are homeless and my friends here are talking about huge tax breaks for billionaires. my friends here are talking about lowering rates on the estate tax for the top .3% of 1% of the american people. what are we talking about? what kind of priorities are those? here's another letter -- here's another letter that comes to me from vermont. "as a couple -- and this is not a woman who is in desperation. those folks i just read are in desperation. she says, as a couple, a married couple with one child, earning about $55,000 a year, which in vermont is fairly decent wages, we have been able to eat out a bit, contribute to our retirement funds and live a relatively comfortable life financially. we've never accumulated a lot of savings, but our bills were always paid on time and we never had any interest on our credit card. over the last year, even though we've tightened our belts, not eating out much, watching purchases at the grocery store, not buying extras, like repairing the tv, doing all those things, we find ourselves with over $7,000 of credit card debt and trying to figure out how to pay for braces for our son. i work 50 hours per week to help earn extra money to catch up. but that also takes a toll on the family life. not spending those 10 hours at home with my husband and son makes a big difference for all of us. my husband hasn't had a raise in three years and his employer is looking to cut out any extra benefits they can to lower their expenses. expenses, which will increase ours. how many millions of americans do you think are saying exactly the same thing? let me read another story that comes from vermont. my 90-year-old father in connecticut has recently become ill and asked me to visit him. i want to drop everything i am doing rap go visit him, -- doing and go visit him, however i am finding it difficult to save enough money to get the extra gas i need to get there. i'm self-employed with my only commercial cleaning business and money is tight. i make more than i did a year ago and i don't have enough to pay my property taxes this quarter for the first time in years. they're due tomorrow. here's another letter i think deserves to be read. and, frankly, you know, mr. president, i think it wouldn't hurt this body if every member of the senate -- and i know we all get letters like this -- if every member of the senate came down here and we spent a couple of days talking about what's really going on for working families in this country. sprouting spouting statistics is good. dealing with tax deals with with $900 billion is fine, but i think we should reacquaint ourselves with the reality of life in america today. this is what another constituent of mine writes. "my husband and i are retired at 65 years of age. we would have liked to work longer, but because of injuries caused at work and the closing of our factory to go to canada, we chose to retire early. now with oil prices the way they are, we cannot afford to heat our home unless my husband cuts and splits wood, which is a real hardship as he had had his back fused and should not be working most of the day to keep up with the wood. not only that, he has to get up two or three times each night to keep the fire going." so, yerdz, what she is talking about in vermont, a lot of people heat with woods, increasingly with pellets. it's an important source of fuel in the state of vermont. what she is talking about is her husband, who is 65, with a bad back, has to go out and cut wood, and in their cases, being old, has to get up two or three times in the middle of the night, stoke the furnace and keep the house warm. again, i would remind people that in vermont it occasionally gets 20 or 30 below zero. she continues -- "we also have a 2003 car that we only get to drive to get groceries or go to the doctor or to visit my mother in the nursing home three miles away. it now costs us $80 a month to go nowhere. we have 42,000 miles on a five-year-old car. they can't afford to even use the car. i don't know what the price of gas is in hawaii, mr. president. in vermont, it is now over $3 a gallon. a lot of the people in my state have to travel long distances to get to work. their car needs repairs. cars break down. cars require vermont insurance, compulsory insurance. you have got to spend a whole lot of money just getting to work. i think we forget about that here. we don't need tax breaks for billionaires. we need to pay attention to these people. and she continues and concludes -- "i have medicare, but i can't afford prescription drug -- prescription coverage unless i take my money out of an annuity, which is supposed to cover the house payment when my husband's pension is gone. we only eat two meals a day to conserve." this is not some third-world country. this is the united states of vermont -- the united states of america, this is my state of vermont. vermont is better off today than a number of states around this country. you have these stories and multiply them by ten in every area of this country. here's another story. "yesterday, i paid for our latest home heating fuel delivery." i'm focusing now on the cost of fuel in vermont. where i come from, it is a big deal. "yesterday i paid for our home heating fuel delivery $1,100. i also paid my $2,000-plus credit card balance, much of which bought gas and grocery for the month." the point here, then i will continue her letter, is a lot of people use their credit cards, not isn't it nice and convenient, i don't have to use cash when i go shopping, i will use my credit card, i will pay it off at the end of the month. what a nice thing. people are using their credit cards to buy food, to buy gas, to buy the basic necessities of life. it is their only line of credit open. and then, as i mentioned earlier, they are charged 25% to 30% interest rates on what they owe. she continues -- "my husband and i are very nervous about what will happen to us when we are old. although we have three jobs between us and participate in 403-b retirement plans, we have not saved enough for realistic post work life if we survive to our life expectancy. as we approach the traditional retirement age, we are slowly paying off our daughter's college tuition loan and trying to keep our heads above water. we have always lived frugally. we buy used cars and store brand groceries, recycle everything, walk or car-pool when possible, and plastic our windows each fall." what that means is in vermont, if you don't have good storm windows, you put plastic up there. it's a way of keeping the wind out, keeping your home warm. i know that because that's what i used to do." even so, if and when our son decides to attend college, we will be in deep debt at age 65. here she ends this. p.s., please don't use my name. i live in a small town, and this is so embarrassing, so embarrassing. we should be embarrassed, mr. president, not her. we should be embarrassed that we are for one second talking about a proposal which gives tax breaks to billionaires while we are ignoring the needs of working families, low-income people and the middle class. we should be embarrassed that we are not investing in our infrastructure, that we're not breaking up these large financial institutions, that we're not putting a cap on interest rates, that we are the only country in the world that does not have health care for all of their people in the country. we should be embarrassed, not this wonderful woman who is trying to maintain her dignity. another level from the state of vermont." i, too, have been struggling to overcome the increasing costs of gas, heating oil, food, taxes, et cetera. i have to say that this is the toughest year financially that i have ever experienced in my 41 years on this earth. i have what used to be considered a decent job. i work hard, pinch my pennies, but the pennies have all but dried up. i am thankful that my employer understands that many of us cannot afford to drive to work five days a week. instead, i work three 15-hour days. i have taken odd jobs to try to make ends meet." that was last winter, not this winter. "after keeping the heat just high enough to keep my pipes from bursting --" one of the problems you have when you live in a rural state and it gets cold is your pipes can burst, and then you have got to spend a fortune getting them repaired. "this winter, after keeping the heat just high enough to keep my pipes from bursting, the bedrooms are not heated and never go above 30 degrees." what happens in vermont, if you have a home in the wintertime you don't have a whole lot of money, you kind of close off rooms in the house. you can't afford to feed the -- to heat the whole house so people live in a smaller area. she said -- this is what she said. she continues -- "i began selling off my woodworking tools , snowblower, pennies on the dollar, and furniture that had been handed down in my family from the early 1800's just to keep the heat on. today i am sad, broken, and very discouraged. i am thankful that the winter cold is behind us for a while, but now gas prices are rising yet again. i just can't keep up." now, that's the story of -- from one person in vermont, but, mr. president, that is a story for millions and millions of americans. another story -- and the reason i'm reading these stories -- and i appreciate my staff bringing this booklet down here -- is this puts flesh and blood and real life into statistics. the statistics are frightening enough, but this tells us what happens when the middle class of this country collapses, it tells us what happens when people lose decent-paying jobs, it tells us what happens when the government is not providing the kind of basic support system that it should for people in need. here's another letter. "as a single parent, i am struggling every day to put food on the table. "it's the united states of america, and people are talking in my state of vermont and all over this country about struggling to put food on the table. you know, mr. president, what comes to my mind, there have been -- i don't know if you saw them, some articles in the paper that because of the bailing out of wall street and the fact that wall street is now again profitable and the fact that the executives there are now making more money than they made before the bailout, these guys are going to restaurants, they pay thousands of dollars for a bolt of wine, pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars for some fancy dinner, and in my state and all over this country, there are people who are wondering where their next meal is coming from. then she continues, she says "our clothes, our clothing all comes from thrift stores. i have a 5-year-old car that needs work. my son is gifted and talented. i tried to sell my house to enroll him in a school that had curriculum for his special needs. after two years on the market, my house never sold. the property taxes have nearly doubled in ten years." and by the way, let me pick up on that point. you know, mr. president, we don't deal with property taxes here. i did when i was a mayor. but if we are not adequately funding education, if we do not adequately help cities and towns all over this country in terms of fire protection, in terms of police protection, in terms of housing, a lot of that burden falls on the very, very regressive property tax, which in my state of vermont is very high. and you find it referred to time and time again, property taxes are going up. property taxes have nearly doubled in ten years, she writes, and the oil to heat is prohibitive. to meet the needs of my son, i have left the house sit and moved into an apartment near his high school. i don't go to church many sundays because the gasoline is too expensive to drive there. she writes i don't go to church many sundays because the gasoline is too expensive for me to drive there. every thought of an activity is dependent on the cost. i can only purchase food from dented canned stores. does anybody in congress know what a dented canned store is? do you know that many, many people buy their groceries and they get them cheaper because the cans are dented? most members of the senate and the house, most governors do not get their meals from dented cans, but huge numbers of americans do. and then she concludes, "i am stretched to the breaking point with no help in sight." and by the way, the letters that i received when i asked for letters came not just from the state. most of them came from vermont. some came from other areas. i will read one from vermont and one from rural pennsylvania. from vermont, due to illness, my ability to work has been severely limited. i am making $10 an hour, and if i am lucky, i get 35 hours a week of work. let me just pull away from the letter. that is not an unusual wage in the state of vermont. that is not an unusual wage all over america. that's what people earn, $10 an hour times 40 hours. he doesn't get 40 hours. he makes $350 a week. ten times $400, times 50, 50, $21,000 a year. shock of all shocks, that's reality. that's what people are trying to live on. those are the people that we should be helping, not the c.e.o.'s on wall street who will get a million a year in a tax break if this deal goes through, not the people -- the top .3% that our republican friends want to help by repealing the estate tax which will cost us us $1 trillion in ten years. maybe we should concentrate on helping people who are trying to get by, eating food from dented cans or people who can't afford to drive to church on sunday because they can't afford the price of a gallon of gas. maybe we should remember who sent us here and who made this country. she writes, "i am making $10 an hour, and if i'm lucky, i get 35 hours a week of work. at this time, i am only getting 20 hours as it is off season in stowe." stowe, vermont, is a beautiful, beautiful town, i hope everybody comes to visit us up there, great skiing, but it's a resort town. big time in the winter, we're doing better in the summer there. but it's a resort town. resorts get more business in the winter than summer, less time elsewhere. what she is talking about is it's off season up there and she is only getting 20 hours a week of work at ten bucks an hour." it does not take a mathematician to do the figures." i'm sorry. this is a man, not a woman. "how are my wife and i supposed to live on a monthly take-home income of less than $800 a month? we do it by spending our hard-earned retirement savings. i am 50 and my wife is 49. at the rate we are going, we will be destitute in just a few years. the situation is so dire, it is all that i can think about. soon -- this is from a 50-year-old gentleman -- soon i will have to start walking to work, an eight-mile round trip because the price of energy is so high that it's either that or going without heat." a 50-year-old guy, ten bucks an hour, 20 or 30 hours a week. his choice is either walking eight miles to and from his job in stowe or else not heating his home. then he concludes, and this happens in vermont all the time. quite unbelievable. he says "as bad as our situation is, i know many in worse shape. we tried to donate food when we do our weekly shopping, but now we are not able to even afford to help our neighbors eat. what has this country come to?" i don't know about other parts of the country. in vermont if you go to a grocery store, there's often a bin out front where people buy food and drop a can of peas or corn into it. here is a family, here is a guy who is now faced with the reality of having to walk eight miles to and from work, and he's upset at himself that he doesn't have the money to buy food for his neighbors whoepbgz are even worse -- who he thinks are even worse off than he is. that's the good people of vermont and america. they're all over this country, good and decent people who do worry about their neighbors. then you've got the lobbyists here representing the largest corporations in the world where the c.e.o.'s make tens of millions of dollars a year, and their job is to squeeze the middle class and these families harder and harder, cut back on their benefits in order to give tax breaks to the richest people in this country. what a difference in attitude. a poor man, a poor man faced with the choice of either walking eight miles to and from his job or losing his heat, worried about his neighbors, and you've got the lobbyists here worrying about the richest people in the world. and winning. and winning. i got one, a letter that comes not from vermont. it comes from rural pennsylvania. "i am 5 years old and worse off than -- i am 55 years old and worse off than my adult children. i have worked since age 16. i don't live from paycheck to paycheck. i live day to day. i can only afford to fill my gas tank on my payday. thereafter i put $5, $10, whatever i can. i cannot afford to buy the food items that i would. i am riding around daily to and from work with a quarter of a tank of gas. this is very scary. i can see myself working until the day that i die." and trust me, the gentleman is talking about getting older, worried about working until the day that he dies. we're already seeing this. you go to grocery stores in vermont, you see old people who should be sitting home with their grandchildren. you know what they're doing? they're packing groceries. then we have geniuses on this deficit-reduction commission, people who made their money on wall street, they got a brilliant idea. let's raise the social security age to 68, *69 years old so that people like this will have to work in fact until the day they die. he continues -- this is not from vermont. this is from pennsylvania. "i do not have a savings, no credit cards, and my only resources are through my employment. i have to drive to work as there are no buses for my r.e.s. -- from my residence to work. i don't know how much longer i can do this. i am concerned as gas prices climb daily. i am just tired. the harder that i work, the harder it gets. i work 12 to 14 hours daily, and it just doesn't help." i'm not saying, mr. president, that every person in america is experiencing these stories. they're not. a lot of people are doing fine. they have good jobs. their kids are doing well. they're taking care of their parents. a lot of people are doing just fine. but we would be fools and dishonest not to understand the reality of what is going on in this country. and it breaks my heart, and i know that it breaks the hearts of millions of people in this country to see what is going on in this great nation of ours. that so many people are hurting, that so many parents -- i don't know if i have that letter here or if it's in another book let, but i'll never forget one letter that i received, and that is these people -- you know, my parents never went to college. my father never graduated high school. and they wanted their kids to get an education, and we did. and it was very important, and how proud my mother was of that. and we get letters from people who say, you know, i dreamed that my kid, my daughter would go to college. she's not going to go college now. not going to go to college. and, you know, it's just -- it's just painful to even talk about and to think about what this country, the direction in which this country is moving. so, mr. president, i want to now take a break from reading these letters. actually the truth is that when these letters came in a year ago, i couldn't read more than half a dozen at a time. they really just took too much out of me. they really take something out of you to hear people that you know; good people, honest people. i hear some of my colleagues here that these people are lazy. my god, people work so hard in the state of vermont. we have i don't know how many thousands of people who are not working two jobs, three jobs, but are working four jobs. it is not just vermont, it is all over this country. whatever you say about the united states of america, the people of our country are not lazy. that is one thing you can say about it. in fact, according to all the bloodless statistics, our people today work more hours than do the people of any other major country on earth. i don't know that a lot of americans know that. it used to be japan. the japanese are hardworking people. now it turns out our people work harder, longer hours than the people of any other industrialized country in the world. when you think about that, when i think about the books that i read when i was in elementary school. mr. president, i don't know if you remember these pictures. there were pictures up there where working were demonstrating and they said, we want a 40-hour workweek. you remember seeing those pick censures we want a 40-hour workweek. that was back in the early 1900's. today, 100 years later, people still want a 40-hour workweek because they're forced to work 50, 60 hours a week, they're working two jobs, they're working three jobs. so, mr. president, what i want to do now before i get back to why i'm on the floor today and why i've been here for a few hours, which is to say that the agreement negotiated by the president and the republican leadership is not a good agreement. it's an agreement that we can improve upon. it's an agreement that the american people can improve upon. and what i'm asking the american people is to stand up, let your senators, let your congressmen know how you feel. do you really believe that millionaires and billionaires who have done phenomenally well in recent years need an extended tax cut at a time when their taxes have been lowered substantially in recent years? do we really need to give tax breaks to the rich in order to drive up the national debt so that our kids and grandchildren will pay higher taxes in order to pay off that national debt caused by tax breaks for the rich? if you don't believe that, you don't think that's right, let the president of the united states know about it. let your senator know about it. let your congressman know about it. we need a handful, seven or eight members of the united states senate to hear from their people to say wait a minute, don't hold my kids hostage. don't force them to pay higher taxes in order to give tax breaks to the very, very rich. if the american people stand up and by the millions let their senators and congressmen and the president know, we can win this thing. we can win this battle. it's not too late yet. and that's what i hope will happen. mr. president, you know, when we talk about why things go on the way they are here in washington and why so many people back home whr-rbgs they're -- whether they're democrats, republicans, whether they're conservatives, moderates, whatever they are, there is a huge feeling of anger and frustration, in fact disgust at what goes on in washington. i just read some letters from people and you can multiply those letters by a million, and people are saying don't you hear us? don't you know what's going on in our stphraoeufs don't you know the worries we have for our kids, our parents? aren't you listening to us? in many ways i'm afraid the united states senate is not listening to them, nor is the house, nor is the government. one of the reasons why and what worries me so much about this growing concentration of wealth and income in this country is that when the rich get richer, they don't simply put their money under the mattress, they don't go out and buy yachts and planes and all the things rich people do. they do that, but they do something else. what they say is "i'm not rich enough. i need to be richer." what motivates some of these people is greed and greed and more greed. there is no end to this. so what they do is they do things like higher-up lobbyists, who are all -- is like hire up lobbyists, who are all over capitol hill, former leaders of the republican party, former leaders of the democratic party, bright people, and their job is to make sure the legislation we passed such as this major tax bill, that this legislation benefits not ordinary americans, not the people whose letters i have just read; not those people, but the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations. i want to mention something, a very good friend of mine, and i do a radio show with him every friday afternoon -- i'm afraid i missed it today, and that's tom hartman. he is the author of wonderful books. his latest book which is called rebooting the american dream: 11 ways to rebuild our country. tom writes, he talks about lobbying, which is an issue we've got to deal with in this country. he says, page 104, "given how lucrative lobbying is as an investment, it's become a huge business." in other words, what he is talking about is if you got a good lobbyist and that lobbyist changes a few words in a bill, your company or you as an individual can end up with huge amounts of money, just changing a few words. in this case, language we're working on now is whether or not we extend the bush tax breaks for the top 2% for many millionaires and billionaires. some lobbyists representing the rich and the powerful are determined to keep that language in there. so it's an investment. so you spend a few millions, an organization spends a few million dollars on a lobbyist. but if you end up getting back hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks and corporate loopholes or other benefits, it's a very good investment. that's what tom heartman is writing about. he said given how lucrative lobbying is as an investment, it's become a huge business. in february 2010, the center for responsive politics laid out which industries had invested how much in congress the previous year. overall, overall he found that in 2009 the number of registered lobbyists who actively lobby congress was 13,694, and the total lobbying spending -- get this -- total lobbying spending in 2009 was $3.47 billion. a 240% increase since 1999, ten years more than tripling, i guess. in 2009, companies spent $3.47 billion in lobbying. mr. president, we have 100 members of the united states senate. you have 435 members of the house. and listeners or viewers can get out their calculating machine and figure out how much money the big investors are spending trying to influence senator inouye or myself or the other 98 members of the senate or 435 members of the house. they are flooding this institution with money. let me give you just a breakdown of where that money is coming from. what they call miscellaneous business -- that's retail and manufacturing, et cetera, $558 million in one year -- 2009. health care, $543 million. now, by the way, that was before health care reform. my strong guess -- i will be very surprised if that number did not double. if you are a health care lobbyist, this year, trust me, you are doing very, very well. they are all over this place making sure that we did not pass a really strong health care bill; for example, a medicare for all single-payer program which i support. on top of that, you've got the finance shaourpbs and -- finance insurance and real estate industries combine. i suppose, mr. president, the recent legislation we dealt with, health care reform and financial reform was a real boom to the lobbyists around here, because they really could go out and earn their money. but that was before that. finance, insurance and real estate only spent $465 million in one year, influence 100 members of the senate and 435 members of the house. energy and natural resources, as i mentioned earlier today, exxonmobil last year made $19 billion, paid nothing in taxes, got $156 million refund. exxonmobil and other companies are putting all kinds of money into phony organizations telling us that global warming isn't real and we don't have to transform our energy system. it costs a lot of known do that. the energy and natural resources companies spend $408 million in 2009 alone. this is one year, folks, one year. communications electron iraq, right now i'm work on an issue which deals with the merger of comcast and nbc. i think it is a bad idea. comcast is the largest provider of cable services in america, a huge role in the internet. nbc is one of the largest media conglomerates in america, and what they're trying to do right now is to merge these two huge companies. i think the problem in america is we have too few companies controlling what goes on. we have too much of a concentration of ownership, and that merger is bad. well, i can assure you, know for a fact, that you got all these lobbyists from the media industry, from communications. they're right here rallying, trying to do their best to make sure this merger, other type mergers take place. $360 million from the communications electronics industry. then we have other types of organizations as well. bottom line: in the year 2009, we spent -- they spent $3.47 billion, almost $3.5 billion, on lobbying. and you know what? you get what you pay for. and that's just lobbying. we're not talking about campaign contributions. we're not talking about the huge sums of money it now takes to run for office in the united states. and we're not talking about where that money comes from. and we're not talking about the citizens united horrendous decision reached by the supreme court, which allows billionaires and all of these companies and their executives to put money into campaigns and not even have to be identified. we're not even talking about it. this is just lobbying, just lobbying. so if you wonder why we are having a serious discussion about whether or not we should give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires while the middle class is collapsing and tens of millions of people have no health insurance, and we have the highest rate of childhood poverty, and we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any country, if you wonder how we were consider for one minute talking about more tax breaks for the rich, then you don't know much about what goes on here in washington? and you don't know about campaign contributions and the degree to which big money buys and sells politicians. mr. president, while i want to review again -- because the reason i'm down here today -- i have a been here -- and i have been here for a few hours, is to voice my very strong opposition to the agreement that was reached between the republican leadership and president obama. i think that the american people don't like this agreement. all i can tell you, and i don't know what's going on in your office coming from alaska, mr. president, but i can tell you that in the last three days between phone calls and e-mails, we've probably gotten 5,000 -- we've heard from about 5,000 people, many from vermont and some from out of state as well. the opposition to this agreement is probably 99%. people cannot understand why in a million years, with a $1.7 trillion national debt and a $1.4 trillion yearly deficit, we would be thinking for one second , for one second, about giving tax breaks to the richest people in this country who are already doing fap us willly well. so, mr. president, i'm down here today and have been for a few hours to urge my colleagues, and more importantly, the american people to say "no" to this agreement. if we stand together, if the american people write or e-mail or call their senators and can their congress people, i think we can turn this thing around. i think we can come up with an agreement that makes us all proud rather than one that we have to be ashamed of. i know there was an editorial back in the state of vermont that i saw -- i don't remember the exact title -- but something to the effect, "this agreement stinks, it's odious, but it's better than nothing." well, i don't think that has to be the choice. i think the choice can actually be a good agreement. i think if the american people stand with those who are opposing this agreement, we can pull this off. we can defeat this agreement and come up with a much better one, one that does not force our kids and grandchildren to pay higher taxes in order to provide huge tax breaks for the richest people in this country. so, mr. president, in talking about the reasons that i am opposed to this agreement, one of the other reasons is that while the president and the republican leadership say, well, you know, this is just a temporary extension, just going to be for two years, just temporary, you know and i know that when you talk about temporary here, it becomes long term and then perhaps becomes permanent. if we extend these tax breaks for the top 2% now, my strongest -- and i hope i'm wrong, and i certainly hope that this proposal is dwelt defeated -- but if we extend them for two years, my strong guess is they will be two years from now extended again. depending on the politics of what goes on here, they could be extended permanently. our republican colleagues, as you well know, wanted to extend them for ten years, at a cost of $700 billion. increase in our national debt. our republican friends are fighting hard to completely repeal the estate tax, which would cost us $1 trillion -- $1 trillion in ten years in increased national debt. so the point that i've got to make -- i want to emphasize this point -- is that when people talk about these things being short-term, being temporary, take those thoughts with a grain of salt. maybe -- maybe that's the case. i don't think it is. once you move over the cliff and make that decision to extend these tax breaks, they're going to be extended long term. and here's the reason why: i mean, you have right now the dynamic here is the president campaigned against these tax breaks. the president does not believe in extending these tax breaks to the rich. but he felt he had to make the compromise. i thought he made a bad compromise. what our republican friends are saying over and over again is that if you rescind, end these tax breaks to the rich, you are raising taxes. two years from now in the midst of a presidential campaign, when president obama, if he is the democratic candidate, says, don't workers i'm going to extend these extensions of tax breaks for the rich, his credibility has been severely damaged. and the american people know it. can they trust him? that's what he told them then and that's what he'll tell them in two years. is he going to be believed? i don't think so. so these tax breaks, while ostensibly for two years, are -- may in fact be for a lot longer than that. mr. president, i would also say that while we have talked about primarily the discussion has centered around extending tax breaks, personal income tax breaks for the very rich, there are other tac tax breaks in this proposal equally odious. what this proposal, this agreement between the president and the republican leadership does, it is is it tend -- it extends the push-era 15% tax rates 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 firemen, teachers, and nurses. so think about that. you are a big-time investor. you make most of your income off of capital gains or dividends. and you're paying 15% tax rate. but if you are a worker doing something with your hands, or you are a teacher, or you you aa fire man or a cop, doctor, you're paying tax rates that are higher than that. we are extending those 15% tax rates on capital gains and dividends. and then on top of that, mr. president, this agreement includes an horrendous proposal regarding the estate tax, and the estate tax was initiated, neablghted in 1916. and it was a proposal strongly supported by teddy roosevelt, who believed very strongly that it was not healthy for america to have an ongoing and evolving concentration of ownership. and here's whatted itly roosevelt said in 1910, 100 years. "the absence of executive state and especially national restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power." how's that? 100 years ago, that's what he said. i would say that he got it right, that when he said then is even more true today. then he says, "no man should receive a dollar unless that dollar's worth of service -- unless that dollar represents a dollar's worth of service rendered, not gambling in stocks, but service rendered. the really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is passed by men of relatively small means. therefore, i believe in ... a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against the evasion and increasingly rapidly in amount with the size of the estate." end of quote, hence the estate tasm tax. unfortunately, under the agreement -- unfortunately, under the agreement reached by the president and the republicans, the estate tax rate, which was 55% under president clinton, when the economy, by the way, was a health care -- was a heck of a lot stronger than it is today -- will dlien to 35% with an exemption on the first $5 million of an individual's estate, $10 million for couples. now, mr. president, i made this point earlier. but i think it has got to be made over and over again. our republican friends have renamed the estate tax into "the death tax." and the implication of what they are saying -- and what many americans believe -- is that if i have $100,000 in the bank or $50,000 in the bank and i die, that my kids are going to have to pay a hefty estate tax on what i left them. but that is absolutely and categorically not the case. the estate tax applies only to the top .3%. this is not a tax on the rich. this is a tax on the very, very, very rich. and under this proposal, which benefits only the top .3%, the president and the republicans agreed to lower the tax rate on the estate tax to 35% with an exemption on the first $5 million. that is just wrong. and, mr. president, let me give you an example. let me give you an example of who the folks are who will benefit from this -- from doing this. many of my republican colleagues have been poring very hard, not just to lower -- have been pushing very harksd not just to lower the estate tax. by the way, this 35% is lower than they ever dreamed they would get with a $5 million exemption. but they really want and you wouldly 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. salt walton's family -- and the waltons, of course, are the heirs to the wal-mart fortune. they are worth -- and this may be 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. does 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 is 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? so 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. our 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 lowering 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 republican colleagues are successful in their desire -- and they're moving down the pa 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 remove 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 raising the exemption is clearly an onerous -- clearly an onerous provision. and it is not just the walton family of wal-mart who benefits. according to "forbes" magazine, there 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. anyone 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 wealth 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 wexler, 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 united 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 and 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 wealth 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 in 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 another 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, people 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. 4.2%. people are going to have more money in their pocket, which certainly 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. that'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 difficult 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 more 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 conservative 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 sanders' 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. and the headline on their press release is, "cutting contributions to social security signals the beginning of the e end: payroll tax holiday is anything but." and what the national committee to preserve social security and medicare, which is one of the largest senior groups in ameri 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 they don't get there. now, what the president and others 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 difference. so the social security trust fund is not going to lose funding. here's the problem. the problem is that historical 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 it 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 this 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. and 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. but 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 preserve 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 a 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 but 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 signals 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. going forward with a payroll tax holiday is a backdoor method to end up breaking social security, and it's not anything that we should 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. he 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 wrote: "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 and 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. if 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 holiday 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 former 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 suspended payroll tax to be imposed. 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 it 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 inception 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, mr. bartlett, thinks, and i suspect he is quite right, tha 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, mr. 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 there 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 owe owed to every eligible american, if we don't start 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 suggestion 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 contribute 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 is 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 reason 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. and 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 that 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 of 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 is 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 being 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 jobs 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 roads, 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 crumbling, and the point is that if 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. and 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, it 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 infrastructure? 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. i 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 package 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. but, 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. and 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? he 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 -- in 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 beautiful 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 what 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 arianna 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 absolutely pathetic and inadequate. in china right now, that country is investing billions and billions of dollars in high-speed rail, building thousands and thousands of miles of high-speed rail. they are building over 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 think 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 lot 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 people 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. when 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 objections 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 defend 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 recession, 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. if 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? i 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 support 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, four 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, whether 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. it'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 done 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 families 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 are 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. this is just continuing four decades of existing policies. mr. president, as i've said earlier, 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 are 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 breaks 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 above $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 people. that's not good enough for our republican friends. they are fighting tooth and nail to 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 that 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 breaks. 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, that 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 and 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 -- it 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. can'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. i 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 are 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 the 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 or 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. i 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 senators, 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? what 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 e-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 came 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 strongly 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 cases 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 have been passed in the last 70 years 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 are 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 social 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 people 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 did. 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 our 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 are 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 back 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 for 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. so 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 and 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 pay 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. maybe 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 deficit 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 convince 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 better 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 desperately 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 result 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 in washington is nothing to sneeze at -- but it is an important 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 either 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 nothing. 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. so 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 when 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 will 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 by 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. as 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 a 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. that, 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 services 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 says 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 young 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? are 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 45,000 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 arabia 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 from 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 understand 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 should 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, worked 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 knowing 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 themselves. 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 their 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. and 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 needs 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 insane 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 more 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 multibillionaire, 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. i'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 it. 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 the 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? how 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 this 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%? how 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 most 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 of 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 street are now earning more money, 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 struggling 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 put 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 a 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. and 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 there 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 that 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 standard 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 who 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. i 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 approach, 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 tax cuts. i think also, madam president, that it is high time -- high time that the american people move -- they want us to move in an 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 see 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 discussion 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 going 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 class of this country, and not just wealthy campaign contributors or bow to the interests of the lobbyistists wo are all over this place. madam president, when i talked a moment 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, december 9, 2010, and here's what the article says. "companies" -- headlined: "companies cling to cash." the headline: "companies cling to carchlt" "coffers swell to 51-year high as cautious firms put 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 has 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 cash" -- 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. cash accounted fo 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 remains 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 journal," 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. i 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, the 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 veerks 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 appropriated in this piece of legislation, this proposed legislation, which would go to infrastructure improvements. so, 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 don'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 length 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 extend 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. so 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 benefits 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 it 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. 2k,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 saying 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 way, 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 the 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 republicans 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, that 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 can 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, our former surgeon general's with us this morning.eneral's welcome. we appreciate all of you joining us here today. i am really pleased to be here with two of our departments leaders. assistant secretary for help and our wonderful surgeon general. we are here to release the 38th surgeon general's report on tobacco. is want to pause for a moment and say that this efforts to on reducing tobacco use in america that is one of the great legacy pieces of surgeon general's. it was brought to light by a surgeon general in 1964 and it has continued to be a great effort. this year, when we are realizing this effort to reduce and eliminate smoking in america, i am pleased to tell you that it's regina benjamin will be a wonderful leader in this effort along with our other health care leaders in continue that legacy. we have known the dangers of tobacco smoke for years. the reports that we are releasing today compile some new information. inhaling the poisons in tobacco smoke causes an immediate damage and leads to a deadly disease. the message from this report for americans is simple. there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke. there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke. if you are a smoker, the best time to quit is right now. we are getting this data in an importance moment in our campaign against tobacco use. the first report on smoking was released on 1964. more than two of five americans were spoken. by 2004, that number had fallen to about one at a five. about 20%. the bad is is that in recent years, the decline in adults and youths smoking has stalled at 20%. we are in a situation more every day, 4000 young americans under the age of 18 try their first cigarette. 1000 of those young americans under 18 become daily smokers. the ultimate result is that 1200 americans die every day as a result of tobacco related causes. our attitude is that if these numbers are not changing fast enough, our actions need to change. over the last two years, we have looked at every tool that we have for reducing tobacco use. the first step was historic legislation signed by president obama last june. for the first time, it gave the fda the power to regulate tobacco products. that law includes a whole series of new reforms, but some of the most important to deal with marketing practices to america's children. in the past, tobacco companies had been very clever in finding ways to market their products to use. whether it is sponsoring concerts' or sporting events or giving out free samples and promotional items targeted specifically at kids. under the new law, we are bringing these practices to an end, making sure that your child will not come home with flavored lip balm court cell phone jewelry with an identifiable cigarette's brand logo. or recognizable pattern of colors, something that we were sitting over and over again. the fda has also banned the tobacco industry from using terms like light and lo and miles on its packs. we think those terms mislead people into thinking that some cigarettes are actually safe. the report be are releasing today makes it clear that there is no such thing as a safe cigarette. as the food and drug administration recently announced, the most significant of state to cigarette warning labels and 25 years. instead of the old text, there will be graphic new labels that will illustrate the harms of smoking much more effectively. plasters tobacco legislation was just a start. -- last year's tobacco legislation was just a start. we will provide support to some of the most promising local tobacco control programs. altogether, we are investing $200 million in programs like the one in boston. it is working to decrease tobacco use by engaging students to advocate against tobacco in schools and signing of developers to promote smoke-free housing. eventually, we hope those successful programs will become models for the rest of the country. we're also taking steps to give americans who use tobacco the support they need to quit. as part of the new insurance reform laws, the affordable care act, americans will get access to evidence based smoking cessation interventions at no additional cost. medicare will now conversation counseling for all beneficiaries. previously, if you were a medicare beneficiary, you had to wait and report for the disease in order to have access to smoking cessation help. we think it might make a little more sense to put before you get the disease. that is now available to all beneficiaries as part of the medicare benefits package. it is those -- we are making use of all the tools at our disposal, from stopping misleading and exploited marketing practices to in power in local communities to make sure americans who want to quit smoking can get the kinds of counseling and treatment that are proven to help. to insure that these efforts are coordinated, last month are department unveiled our first ever comprehensive tobacco control plan. in the tobacco academic -- 10 -- ending the tobacco epidemic. it is a critical economical since a cost our health care system nearly $200 billion a year. today's report shows that every additional cigarettes in america is making us less help the country. we have made some significant progress in the last two years, but we need to keep pushing aggressively forward. i would like to turn over the floor to the assistant secretary of health and a longtime champion of public health who has spearheaded our department's efforts on tobacco control. >> >> let me set -- let me thank the secretary for her words and her presence today. on this very important topic. i want to congratulate and thank the tremendous scientific community that contributed to the creation and release of this report today. let me sing aloud the centers for disease control and prevention. they were absolutely vital in creating and releasing this report. we're also very pleased to have -- he will be joining us on the stage in a couple of minutes. every family in this nation has lost 1112 tobacco. every person in this room has lost a friend or a family member to tobacco. as a physician and a clinician for over 30 years, i've personally cared for so many patients who have suffered preventable suffering and died preventable deaths caused by tobacco. that is why it is critical to hear about today's surgeon general report describing the latest understanding of how tobacco smoke causes disease. today's report emphasizes that every cigarettes can cause damage. the message is, while good help is a precious and fragile gift, in the cigarettes threatens to take away that gift at any time. with over 15 billion packs of cigarettes consumed each year in our country, that the threat remains omnipresent, but acceptable, and intolerable. it is our hope that today's report motivate us as a nation to declare that we will no longer accept the unacceptable and tolerate the intolerable. we cannot allow the past suffering disease and death caused by tobacco to be an inevitable part of america's future. we have a science to understand this epidemic. that is what today's report was all about. we know what works. we know that most smokers want to quit. cessation services can help users receive the support they need and deserve. we know that the more it states spend on tobacco control programs and the longer they invest, the greater the public health impact. we note that comprehensive smoke-free policies in states and communities reduce exposure to secondhand smoke, prevent heart attacks, and improve lung health. we know that aggressive media campaign to prevent you from starting to smoke, help smokers quit, and change the social norm back to one that is healthy and smoke-free. to turn this knowledge into action, the secretary sibelius charge the department to create its first ever comprehensive strategic action plan for tobacco control. as assistant secretary, i was honored to chair that a working group and created the comprehensive plan which was publicly released several weeks ago. we have been so gratified by the response of so many in this room and around the country who care deeply about help and want to make this plan, live. the surgeon general report today only strengthens the scientific foundations of this plan. together, we can make it real for the american people. the goal is to reduce the current adult smoking rate of around 20% to 12% by the year 2020. the plant is organized around four pillars of action. the first pillar is the support implementation of evidence based tobacco control interventions and policies in states and communities. the secretary has already mentioned pout recovery act funds will support those interventions in communities across this nation. also of note, just this year, the implementation of state wide comprehensive smoke-free laws, and workplaces, restaurants, bars, have taken place in kansas, michigan, wisconsin, south dakota. while this means that 25 states and the district of columbia now have implemented comprehensive smoke-free laws, it also means that half the country remained unprotected. we especially need to reduce disparities in secondhand smoke protections for young children, loren, americans, blue-collar and service workers who are more heavily exposed. every american deserves a healthy environment. the second pillar of the plan is to engage the public to change social norms around tobacco use. currently, the u.s. cigarette manufacturers spend $12.5 billion a year. that is $34 million a day on marketing cigarettes to retain and recruit users, increased consumption, and generate favorable attitudes toward tobacco use. in this context, we neediest efforts that accurately convey the negative health effects to the public. in the most recent example, the fda has just proposed a series of new help warnings to appear on the cigarette packages and in advertising. these will be the first new warnings in 25 years. warnings will cover at the 50% of the front and back of every pack. a couple of graphic images depicting the negative consequences of smoking. nine images are will be coupled with a warning statements and will be required on all cigarette packs in the u.s. starting september 2012. once that happens, every pack of cigarettes in our country will become a hand held billboard that conveys the truth about smoking. the third pillar of the plan calls for the department to lead by example by leveraging its resources. we want to enhance the medicare and medicaid services to provide comprehensive treatments to the fullest extent possible. we want to insure all departments supported health care delivery sites are implementing proven interventions and enhancing health care professionals knowledge of cessation treatments through appropriate provider training programs. we need to reduce tobacco related disparities through intervention with high-risk populations. we need to do everything we can so that it is as easy to quit as it is to buy a pack of cigarettes. the fourth and last pillar is to advance our knowledge by accelerating research and that is where today's report and the release of the findings is so important. in closing, we hope that this first ever comprehensive strategic action plan, today's report, and many more advances in the future will renew and accelerate national momentum toward addressing the leading cause of preventable death and suffering in our time. we are at a critical crossroads and record to working with you to end the epidemic and leave a legacy of a healthier nation for future generations. thank you very much. it is my great pleasure to welcome my colleague dr. regina benjamin. >> good morning. i am having microphone issues. thank you for sharing with us the department's tremendous commitment to tobacco control. she really has been out there pushing us into leadership from the top makes a wonderful difference. i would also like to thank dr. elders. all the former surgeon general's for their work on tobacco both nationally and internationally over the years. the 2010 surgeon general's report is a result of the contribution of 54 experts. i would like to recognize three of the editors were with us today. vice-president of research at kenny and associates -- pitney and associates, dr. patricia richter, ph.d., and dr. jonathan sinnett, director of institute for global help and chairman of the department of preventive medicine. university of southern california. i would like to thank you and all of your colleagues for all the hard work that you have done. being here today to release this report is very special to me. i have been working publicly on various -- with various partners toward a tobacco free society since i was a medical student. it was a very important part of my tenure. the new today is very special to me -- the new today is special to be in a personal way. when i accepted this position, my mother died of lung cancer from smoking. she started smoking because she was a girl and she was not allowed to smoke and her twin brother did. as an issue was able to, she started to smoke. it took her life. i now watch my uncle, a world war ii veteran and survivor, said tied to an oxygen tank struggling for every breath. prevention is a foundation and prevention is a foundation of my work as surgeon general. i want to prevent families from suffering the effects of tobacco use, either personally or for their loved ones. this to does intend reports -- this 2010 report is the 30th report since 1964. previous reports have emphasized which diseases are caused by tobacco. this report focuses on how tobacco smoke causes damage to almost every organ in your body. tobacco smoke is a toxic mix of more than 7000 chemicals and chemical compounds. inulin these compounds -- inulin these compounds cause immediate damage and long-term damage. this report concludes that the damage from tobacco smoke is immediate. the chemicals in the tobacco smoke reach your lungs a very quickly everytime you inhale. your blood then carries the these toxicant to every organ in your body. exposure to the tobacco smoke quickly damages the blood vessels throughout the body and make sure blood more likely to clot. the chemicals and the tobacco smoke damage is the delicate lining of your lungs and causes permanent damage. that reduces your lungs ability to exchange care efficiently. that is what causes the chronic obstructive lung disease. many americans have some degree of coronary artery disease and they do not even know it. they have not experienced any of the symptoms. people with heart disease are at risk from second-hand smoke exposure. even a brief amount of tobacco smoke leads to changes in the blood vessel function and the blood clotting which could lead to heart attack. chemicals in the tobacco smoke causes inflammation and cell damage. bacon also weaken the immune system. your body makes white blood cells to respond to injuries and cancers. the white blood cells count tend to rise and stay high when you continue to smoke. your body is constantly trying to fight is the damage that is being caused by smoking. in the chemical -- the chemicals in the toxicant in tobacco smoke damage to dna. it can lead to cancer, and smoking can weaken your body's ability to fight cancer. with the cancer, even those not related to tobacco smoke, the smoking can decrease the benefits of chemotherapy and other treatments. exposure to tobacco can allow tumors to grow. smoking makes it harder for diabetics to regulate their blood sugar. that is why smokers and diabetics have a higher risk of kidney disease, peripheral artery disease, and even nerve damage. another area -- another fighting within this report is that tobacco smoke is addicting. cigarettes are designed for addiction. nicotine is the key chemical compound that causes the powerful addictive effects in cigarettes. other -- product design, such as the filtered, flavoring agents, and added chemical ingredients, make nicotine easier to absorb a debt to be delivered more quickly to the brain. this increases the additive kick and the pleasure that smokers feel great many ingredients are added to reduce the harshness and improve the taste and the consumer appeal. chemical ingredients convert nicotine to a free nicotine. it more quickly crosses the blood-brain barrier. they also have these the adoration holes in the filter. it makes smoke easier to inhale more deeply into your lungs. converting the nicotine to free nicotine that makes it easier to cross the blood-brain barrier. all of these design features work together to enhance the addictive pleasure affect. today's cigarettes deliver nicotine and chemicals much more quickly to the brain. evidence also suggest that the psychosocial biological genetic factors play a role and nicotine addiction. in adolescence, their bodies are much more sensitive to nicotine. they are more easily addicted that adults. this helps us explain why every day, lest people smoke today than in the past. our efforts have produced tobacco use since the first surgeon general's report. since 2003 our progress has stalled. one in five adults continues to smoke. one in five adolescents smoke. tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable death in the united states. it is responsible for more than 440,000 premature deaths each year. the first thing we should do is get everyone to stop smoking. we know that new cigarette is safe. we now have eight national preventive strategy. the evidence shows that as smoking rates decline, the smoking control programs are implemented. for example, california is the home of the longest running state tobacco control program in the country. as a result of that program, long cancer incidents have been declining for times faster in that state than any other in the nation. california has the potential to be the first day in which lung cancer is no longer the leading cause of cancer death. we know it works. we know that when we increase the price of tobacco, smoking declines. we note that when we enact smoke-free policies, we restrict exposure to second-hand smoke, prompt smokers to quit, and promote healthy decisions. we also know that when we educate the public we inform them of the risks. it encourages tobacco users to uit and prevents uyouth from starting. it is important to talk to your doctor. this is important because we know that patients are advised to quit smoking by their doctors. they have a 66% higher rate of success. i tell my patients, which are now 300 million americans, to quit smoking. quitting smoking gives or body a chance to heal from the damage caused by smoking -- quitting smoking gives your body a chance to heal from damage caused by smoking. when a smoker quits, the risk of a heart attack drops sharply after one year. the stroke risk false after two to five years. the risk of cancer in the mouth, throat, or esophagus is cut in half after five years. the risk of dying from lung cancer drops to about half in 10 years. it is never too late to quit. the sooner you quit, the better. it often takes several attempts before a smoker is able to quit. we have strategies for cessation including prescription medication that can make it easier. again, talk to your doctor and we ask you to call 1-800-quit- now for help. the full-report is 700 pages long. it was written for a scientific audience. but it is really important for americans to understand how tobacco can affect every cell in your body. it is written in plain leverage -- in plain language. we have some available copies here for you. you can also download them from our website at surgeon general.gov. will somebody run the public service announcement? >> the latest research shows that cigarette smoke contains 7000 chemicals that spread through your blood vessels causing inflammation and restricting oxygen. it doubles the risk of heart attack and death. i am the surgeon general. with each cigarette you have to ask yourself, is this the one that will cause a heart attack? call 1-800-quit-now. >> i would like to ask the doctor to join us on the podium. it will open it up for questions or comments from the audience. yes, sir? >> [unintelligible] i work for bluebird radio. smokers act like they had been living in a cave for 45 years. why do you think what is essentially a chemistry lesson at the heart of this report will make that much of a difference? i would also like to ask the secretary, while the federal government has been putting money into the states, how come a number of states are taking money out of smoking programs to fill holes in the budget? is that frustrating? >> i will start with the first. we know smoking causes a lot of problems, diseases, and cancer. it may be the scientist in us, but i believe it is very important that every american understands what is happening in their body, particularly people who are trying to stop smoking. i have people not trying -- i had people not understanding why they are trying to quit and cannot. there is a biological reason why it is harder for it but to quit -- for them to quit. they need to know what is happening to them being exposed to second-hand smoke. they do not have to go into that bar or smoky place. it can cause a heart attack right away. just out of curiosity, as an individual i want to know what is happening to my body when i am exposed to these chemicals. >> there is no question states have been cash-strapped and are moving money from one priority to another try to stretch what are limited dollars. we see different kinds of momentum. my home state of kansas, after working for years to pass eight snow-free all -- smoke-free --l, that will have an enormous impact on second-hand smoke on every citizen in the state. americans are familiar with this information, but in the information age, unless we catch people's attention and make it absolutely clear that smoking is related to dying, we are losing something. the new law that was signed, the ability to regulate tobacco, and the graphics that would be enormously difficult to miss -- if you look at a pack of cigarettes, there are a whole series of endeavors. i think we need to keep after this until we make a bigger dent in smoking. that is what this campaign is all about. we just talked about 20% in seven years. that is not a good place to be. it is certainly not a good place to be when kids are becoming smokers every day. we have also been some significant money into state quick-lines and to committee projects which, hopefully, will show us the best possible strategies that we can take. hopefully those resources will continue this effort at a time when a lot of states do not have additional money in their budgets and need help finding this lifesaving effort. it is an effort related to our prosperity. each and every day smokers make us a less prosperous nation. >> we talked about what we know about cancer and lung disease and that sort of thing. we did not know as much about the heart disease -- cardiovascular disease. if you and help one cigarette it affects the lining of the blood vessels. it affects every organ in your body. your blood is more easily clotted. if you have an underlying heart disease and do not know it, when cigarette or exposure to second- hand smoke can cause a heart attack. yes? >> thank you. i represent a city in minnesota that administrates tobacco- settlement dollars. we report to the judicial branch, not the legislative branch. there has been talk this morning about cigarette use and smoking, but what about other tobacco products and devices? are there programs that address those issues? >> i think this report we are announcing today is specifically focused on cigarettes and their medical impact, but the new center for tobacco regulation is going to look at a whole range of products that involve smoked. we can talk a little bit about -- the timetable will start at cigarettes, but there is an effort to look at the comprehensive overview. >> we are concerned about tobacco in any way shape or form. there are a number of smokeless products on the market. the role of the fda is very important. we need to protect children against possible addiction. >> do you have a question? >> dr. benjamin, you touched on what doctors should say to their patients that go beyond what they already know. what specifically do you tell your patients to smoke that they do not know? what should doctors be telling their patients? >> we have developed a one-pager for that reason to talk about things they can discuss. first of all, telling the patient what it does to their body. talking to the patient about the fact that this could cause death. that the smoke itself causes immediate damage. most people do not understand that. we try to educate them on what they can do with the families and with themselves, particularly make their homes smoke-free. they can take control of themselves and their family. depending on the patient's issues, we talk about the changes that are occurring at the cellular and dna level. there are reproductive problems that are caused by the dna structure and the changes that happen at the cellular culpable -- at the cellular level. children can die of sids that is related to tobacco smoke. kids can have asthma attacks when they are exposed. dear infections and upper respiratory -- ear infections and upper respiratory infections arethere are more cen services available to smokers than ever before. there are provisions for new health plans to cover cessation and counseling. there'll be new announcements for medicaid. if smokers want to quit, if they want to be smoke-free and do not know where to go, there is now tremendous support for smokers. >> one of the things we have been successful in doing as part of a comprehensive strategy is making sure that the federal employee benefit plan includes smoking cessation for all federal employees. we want to lead by example. that was an important feature to include in the programs. expansion -- it is one thing to say we should quit smoking, but a lot of people did not have access to the tools they needed, so we made a big step forward in that area. >> patients who smoke, several of them said they want to quit. counseling, cessation programs, medication. >> american lung association -- i am also the father of a 14- year-old and a 15-year-old girl. >> kids are really smart now. to give them information that they can go after, i would not underestimate how bright kids are. when they are given false information -- make sure they understand the dangers and how quickly they can become addicted, how quickly they can become addicted to this just like any other drug. we suggest they just say a note to cigarettes as well. the fda is starting to make tobacco products less attractive to teenagers. we actually have another surgeon general's report that is coming out sent on how it affects adolescence and teenagers. we will be addressing a number of those things. they understand that this is a drug, it is not just something that the marketing people have made to be attractive and sexy. it is not. will be showing them pictures of serious consequences. teen-agers in my practice is used to respond to ugly pictures. they do not like to think they will look like that some day. >> for adolescent girls, some of the information about the impact on reproduction, the impact on your potential children in the future -- it is critical to tell them that they start as a 13- year-old, what kind of tragedy that may cause your child in the future. not only your ability to have a child or ability to have a healthy child, but the kind of harm you may do to that potential baby. a lot of them think they can handle this. smoking is kind of cool. i would just met periodically. as long as they understand the addictive nature, but also the impact that it will have on their body in the future is something they should think about. >> no smokers today started as teenagers. -- most smokers today started as teenagers. >> i am it thrilled about this report. it is amazing. i am as a pediatrician. i would like to know how pediatricians can work with you in this area. >> pediatricians have long been the carrier of this bucket of water. in your offices, pediatricians have the ability to talk to the kids and their parents. they trust you. they just what you say. your word, when you say it, carries a lot more weight than a media campaign or somebody saying, you should not do this. you have the time to go to it with them and talk about the things that the secretary just mentioned about what will happen in the future. what happens now? what happens when you inhale that tobacco smoke? i think the role of the pediatrician is tremendous. you carry a lot of weight and a lot of trust. thank you for all the work you have done on working with getting rid of tobacco smoke in teenagers and adolescents. we appreciate that. do we need a microphone? >> i am 8 resident physician. my question is about the consumer list. can you tell me what level of health literacy developed that? what goals were put towards it? why will it be destroyed did to besides the internet portal? >> it is right here. it is pretty plain speech and it is targeted towards the average consumer. lots of pictures, lots of graphics. just to try to explain the scientific information. it tries to put it in plain, everyday language. it starts with information in languages you can understand. it talks about each one of the things we mentioned. for example, within five years of quitting your chances of cancer in the mouth, esophagus, and bladder or reduced. it is available. as far as development, the dog was want to mention it? >> i take it goes back to the 2004 report. i think the challenge was taking 700 pages and turning it into something that everyone can understand. i think that has been done. dr. benjamin and her team contributed very affectively to getting the word out. there is something in this book for every point on the life span. there is something here that everybody needs to know and pay attention to. >> dr. benjamin, in light of this report, what advice has he given or would you give to the president says he has admitted to having trouble kicking the habit completely? >> i give them the same advice i give any patient, to try their best to quit smoking. the president has been trying very hard. just like every other american, this is a disease and a product that is addicting. when we talk about the addictive behavior, now we understand why it is hard to quit. i tell patients not to give up or be discouraged. it could take a number of times to try to quit. do not get discouraged when you do not quit the first time. just keep going. there are a number of products out there. there are medications. there is counseling. there are a number of nicotine products -- nicotine replacement products that are really helpful. we now have a medication that has been approved by the fda to treat it. >> we have time for one more question. >> hello, dr. benjamin. i am with nbc news. can you tell me what this report shows about the science of menthol and what it does to the body? >> this report did not addressed and fall. that is one of the things we did not go into. the additives were not addressed in this particular report. the fda and other places will start to look at it. my mother smoked menthol cigarettes. the want to mention anything? -- do you want to mention any think? >> i am with the national alliance for hispanic health. will the consumer report be available for -- in spanish or other languages? will there be a fact sheet available? >> this is going to be ongoing. we are possibly going to be giving out more and more information. 700 pages is a lot of information to get out. we will certainly put these in spanish and other languages that consumers can access to make it easier. we are open to your suggestions if you have suggestions on how we can get the message out to everyone. do you want to comment on the menthol? any other comments from either of you before we call this to a close? thank you for coming and for helping us get the information out about tobacco smoke and encouraging everyone to stop smoking. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] the total level of job losses far exceeded that of downturns in recent memory. as a result, the ranks of the unemployed exploded over a short number of years. even more people are involuntarily working less than full time or are too discouraged to be counted among those looking for work today. another alarming piece of evidence is that the share of the unemployed who have been out of work for six months or more is at an all-time high. most experts and expected economic recovery to be slow and for job growth to be anemic for years to come. this is a disturbing forecast because persistently high unemployment rates combined with the problem of long-lasting on the planet for many poses serious -- long-lasting unemployment for many pose serious threats. the unemployment programs to address these problems were designed in different times. they are not up to become a challenge. the urban institute has launched a program of rigorous research to inform the policy debate and to inform policy development on this set up unemployment challenges. are thediscussions first in a series of forums on unemployment and what to do about it that we will be holding as part of this initiative. deprave you a couple of upcoming fall when -- upcoming forums, on january 5, we will be looking at the challenges and concerns of to particular groups facing unemployment challenges, and people trying to it did the job market and older people -- tried to enter the job market and older people who had hoped they work at getting the job market. on february 23, our focus will be on how the safety net should be retooled to operate more effectively in times of high unemployment. today, what we will be discussing is why job creation has been so tepid in the current recovery. what we know about cost effective strategies for expanding jobs and what public policy can and should be doing to jump-start job creation and demand for workers. we had a terrific panel to tackle these questions. i am hoping that the conversation is more on what we now or think we know about tackling these problems rather that on how discouraging the problems are. our panel in alphabetical order is a senior economist at the upjohn institute for employment research. he focuses on local labor markets. he is the author of "jobs for -- "jobs for theo poor." bob is the economic education director for the federal reserve bank of richmond. cliff johnson is the executive director for the institute of youth education and families at the national league of cities. that institute's core concern includes education, youth development, child safety, and family economic security. he is the co-author of two books on labor and social policy. bob lehrman is an economics professor at american university. he is an expert on how education, employment, and family structure which together to effect economic well-being. our moderator is an economic institute fellow. previously, she was vice president for governance at the center for political and economic studies. i would like to thank everybody for joining us today. i invite you to come back on january 2010 and february 23 for the next two sessions in this series. i will hand the program over to margaret. >> thank you. as was indicated, this is not exactly an unprecedented economic situation. it is highly unusual. three years to the month after the recession started and 18 months after the nber says that it ended, we find little acceleration in job growth. we are also at the end of the federal fiscal stimulus package with just a few more months for many of the funds to be utilized. the question is, what do we do now in order to jump-start job growth? we have had less -- we have panelists who will present ideas. >> thank you, margaret. thank you to the urban institute for hosting this forum on this important topic on the job creation. my focus is going to be on how the u.s. can immediately create jobs on a large scale in a cost- effective way to a job creation tax credit. we need more cost-effective got creation policy because we are short 10 million jobs. if we want to get that the employment population that we had at the beginning of the recession -- if we have an unusually rapid job growth, it will take at least five years to close this job gap. this job that has significant long run economic costs, not just social costs. 1/5 of the involuntary unemployment becomes chronic, which aren't -- which probably lowers the capacity of our economy. stimulus is important for job creation. only indirectly increases jobs by increasing output. that created fiscal stimulus is at least $100,000 per job created because that is the average ratio to output to jobs. the most recent tax cut deal between the president and congressional republicans had an estimated cost of a hundred $58 billion. according to the center for american progress, the job creation will be 3.1 million jobs over the next two years. if you look at that and do the math, because per job here is about to let the $75,000. job creation estimates are conservative. i should also note that the recent tax cut deal has benefited those in job creation. still, the cost is high. more cost effective job creation strategy is required that we target job creation. what is public service jobs, which cliff johnson is going to talk about. there was a proposal that i wrote in a paper. the obama administration proposed a similar tax credit in early 2010. this proposal was not enacted. instead, congress adopted a proposal by senator schumer called the hire act, which is less effective. that act provided tax credits for hiring the long-term unemployed. we should start over and adapt a true job creation tax credit. if enacted today, our proposed job creation tax credit could work as follows. the credit would provide any employer, whether for-profit or nonprofit, with a 15% tax credit for net real peril expansion in 2011 and 10% in 20 -- in net real payroll expansion in 2011 and 20% in 2012. using payroll expenses means the credit would not be received if they simply hired to fill a vacancy created by someone quiting or firing. the employer has to expand payroll. the fact that the payroll -- that the credit is not paid on all payroll, reduces the costs enormously compared to a payroll holiday. the fact that the credit is not paid on any job vacancy, all the new jobs, reduce its costs or hiring. it helps business cash flow, which is important for small businesses. the credit is refundable. it does not require the business to be profitable or to be a for- profit business. that make credit more relevant for more employers. the credit could be claimed as businesses filed their normal withholding or income taxes. it has little additional administrative burdens. the credit goes to any employment expansion. it does not require hiring any particular employee group. in recent hire act requires hiring people unemployed for a certain amount of time. it will lower the take up rate and reduced effectiveness. we estimate that the credit would at 2.8 million jobs to be taught in the first year and $2.3 million in the second year -- tops to the economy in the first year and 2.3 million jobs in the second year. you are boosting unemployment and boosting gdp and increasing gdp and increasing safety expenditures. let me address some common questions that we received about the job creation tax credit. what is the evidence that this credit will work? there are several studies up a similar new job tax credit from the 1970's. they suggest a -- you get a similar number of cost per job created. and a similar cost effectiveness. why would anyone expect a modest 15% credit would cost employers to expand? no one is arguing that a 15% tax credit is going to cause an employer who is not thinking of expanding to expand. the employers who are thinking about expanding in the next three or four years will speed up their plans. the surveys we have done with employees -- which employers suggests that will happen. what about the dead weight and the fact that the tax credit will go to employers who would expanded anyway. this tax credit is about $7,000 with the average job. the only need one in four to subsidized jobs to be induced out with the cost per induced got to be -- he did not need a high hit rate -- you do not need a high rate for it to be cost effective. dead weight loss is much greater from tax credits to cover all hiring. why aren't all businesses more enthusiastic about this proposal? my experience is that businesses do not like tax credits that are targeted on particular behavior? they prefer a tax credits that go to all businesses without conditions. the reality is that the credit does not have to be popular with every business for it to be effected. i found that most employers did not like this proposal. they made some quite a bit too out comments about the proposal. -- some quite vitriolic comments about the proposal. in sum, a job creation tax credit could create 2 million or $3 million per year. that would go a long way to restoring the employer recovery. thank you. >> cliff? >> thank you. the mayors and other leaders are accustomed to anticipating and planning for likely stress to their community. this is probably most of it in the emergency preparedness area where mayors have no idea when the next hurricane is going to strike or the next flood will come through their streets or when the next swine flu epidemic is going to be on their doorstep. they know that that is what to happen at some point. they had an infrastructure in place for thinking about it and a strategy for responding when it happens. a prudent approach to recessions with parallel that. you have no idea in the course of the business cycle when the next recession is going to hit. we have almost 100% certainty that there will be a time when we will see the big spike in unemployment. we have been through this door rises in the jobless next over the -- historic increases in joblessness over the last few years. in the '60s and '70s, we had something that came closer to an infrastructure that would allow us to be prepared for that eventuality. we made considerable progress culminating in the public service employment program of the late 1970's which provided jobs for more than 700,000 disadvantaged adults in 1978. between 80% and 90% of those expenditures could be traced to a net job creation. in 1981, we completely dismantled that infrastructure for a public job creation. in some sense, it represented an of unilateral disarmament in the face of the uncertainty of business cycles. public service employment was eliminated in 1981. we put a complete prohibition against public job creation into our work force development programs that persisted there for decades. i do not want to dwell on this history. the key point i want to make is that this was not the product of deep social science research, thoughtful science and policy evaluation, careful examination of the effectiveness of public service employment in the 1970's. the evaluations that were done, and there were many, were pretty good and encouraging enough to suggest that we should continue down that path. it also was not an obvious case of the inability to administer what is clearly a large and complex social enterprise. the record was good on that front. public's august employment reached an oppressive scale -- reached an impressive -- public service employment reached an impressive scale. what happened was quite different. public job creation is caught in the political crossfire up one of many periodic flights we have in this nation about the role of government, the size of government. in the light -- in the late 1970's, the culmination of kennedy crises, a sharp spike in inflation, caused -- the culmination of the energy crisis, a sharp spike in inflation, they became the victim of bad backlash. the conventional wisdom now is that public job creation is politically unsupportable. there were discussions earlier in this administration and earlier in this recession about it. i think the administration reached that conclusion. we have some reason to question whether that is the case, particularly now as the recession has persisted with such severity and that -- severity and depth. there was a bottom up effort through the emergency contingency fund. trinity's, counties, states, have -- communities, counties, states, have created at a senate in scale, public jobs creation projects that have been interesting. some of them have been quite innovative and a perigee. we have seen little public concern or \ critz it is perceived as a humanitarian response -- it is seen at a humanitarian response. we can provide resources to city, county, states, and get out of the way in the short term to allow that continuation of a bottom-up grass-roots approach. the extension, expansion, building upon what was going on in the emergency contingency fund would allow local and state initiatives to continue along those lines. one step beyond that, we could focus on providing additional federal dollars to local communities is to be added under an existing federal formula, probably something like a modified version of a community development block grant to get dollars out quickly. it would be pretty straightforward to establish what i think up as a fast-track mechanism that would allow local communities to immediately proceed with public job creation projects that were focused on a pretty narrow list of pre- approved activities or projects. my own thoughts about what might be on that fast track list are projects like repairing schools, community centers, and libraries, cleaning up the vacant properties to relieve or closure-affected neighborhoods, and enhance that the levels to reduce hunger and promote family stability, augmenting staffing and headstart and early education programs to promote readiness and early literacy, and enhancing maintenance of parks, playgrounds, and public spaces. it does not matter what is on that list. the point is to think up things with the great majority of the american people would say, that is a good thing to do. that is a worthwhile thing to do and a good way to give jobless americans who need work and opportunity to be engaged. -- to be re-engaged. we need a larger vision around public job creation. this will not be our last recession. we need a longer-term view and a longer term strategy for recessions and widea

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