Making Continuing Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. SANDERS. Let me begin by saying I think a debate over ObamaCare, a debate over health care, is good for the Nation. As I think many Americans understand, the United States is the only country in the industrialized world that does not guarantee health care as a right to all of our people.

Today, before the initiation of ObamaCare, we have 48 million people who have no health insurance. I would tell my good friend from Texas that the State of Texas, I think, ranked first in the country in the percentage of their people under 65 who have no health insurance, one out of four.

George W. Bush was President for 8 years. Where were the ideas about how we provide health care to all of our people. It is not only 48 million people today who have no health insurance; there are many more who have huge deductibles which prevent them from going to the doctor. They have high copayments. At the end of the day, in this dysfunctional health care system we have, we are spending almost twice as much per capita on health care as do the people of any other nation, many of which have better health care outcomes than we do in terms of life expectancy, infant mortality, and the treatment of a number of diseases.

In my view, ObamaCare is a step forward, but we have to make significant improvements. That is a good discussion and debate to have.

One thing that is absolutely certain is you do not hold the American people hostage by threatening to shut down the government or, for the first time in the history of our country, not pay our bills, bringing this country and perhaps the entire world into a major financial crisis. That is what you don't do.

ObamaCare was passed with 60 votes in the Senate, it was passed in the House, and it was signed by the President. ObamaCare was challenged in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled it constitutional.

There was an election 1 year ago on this very issue, one of the major issues in the campaign. The Republican candidate said: Let's defund ObamaCare. He lost the election. Republicans lost seats in the Senate. They lost seats in the House.

This is what democracy is all about. What democracy is not about is a handful of the Members of the House of Representatives, extreme rightwing Republicans, saying if we do not get our way, we are prepared to punish tens of millions of Americans. Yes, we lost the election; yes, we lost seats in the House and the Senate, but we are prepared to bring this government down; we are prepared to cause, perhaps, a major global financial crisis unless we get our way.

That is not what the American system is about. That is not what democracy is about. If we want to debate about how we improve ObamaCare, that is a good debate. Let's have it. Let's not tell men and women in the U.S. Armed Forces, who today are putting their lives on the line to defend us, that they are not going to get paid. Let us not tell police officers here in Washington and elsewhere they may not get paid. Let's not tell working families who take their little kids to Head Start so they can then go out to work that program may be killed. Let's not tell senior citizens, who are on the Meals on Wheels Program who can't leave their homes and depend upon a meal, let's not punish them because we have a small number of extreme rightwingers who want to get their way at the expense of millions and millions of people.

Let's have a debate, continue the debate. ObamaCare will provide health insurance to 20 million more Americans, a good step forward, but 28 million more remain uninsured.

Many of the trade unions are concerned about some provisions, and I share those views. Let's change that, let's improve it. Let us not shut down the U.S. Government and make us look like fools throughout the entire world because a handful of rightwing extremists are so determined to try to destroy this President.

Senator Cruz was on the floor the other day. I appreciate anyone--I was on the floor a couple of years ago for 8 1/2 hours, and he was on the floor for 21 hours. That is tough. I respect anyone who can do that. I disagreed with most of what he did say, but he did say one thing which I think was right; that is, we need a serious debate about fundamental issues.

What I believe very strongly is that this debate about ObamaCare is kind of small change, nickel and dime, compared to where many of our rightwing Republicans wish to go. It is important we have that debate because I think the American people are not understanding the role of multibillionaires, such as the Koch brothers, worth some $70 billion, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the tea party. This is what this debate is about; it is not about ObamaCare. I will give some of the issues we should be debating. Senator Cruz was right.

The Texas Republican Party platform calls for an immediate and orderly transition away from Social Security; in other words, they want to kill Social Security. That is a good debate. Let's have it.

How many of the American people think we should end Social Security and go back to the days of the 1920s, when the elderly people were the poorest people in America.

That is what rightwing Republicans want to do. Let us have that debate.

The Republicans in Texas--again, their view represents a whole lot of folks here in the Senate and in the House--want to privatize veterans' health care. I am the chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and I will tell you very strongly the veterans of America want to improve and expand the VA health care system, not privatize it. But let us have that debate.

Quoting from the Texas platform, the Republican Party in Texas believes--and, again, reflecting the views, I believe, of a strong majority of Republicans here in Washington--``We believe the minimum wage should be repealed.''

The minimum wage today is $7.25 an hour. We have millions and millions of workers who are trying to get by on $8 an hour, $9 an hour. I think the minimum wage should be significantly expanded--raised. Many Republicans say let's abolish the minimum wage. Do you know what that means? It means in Maine, in high unemployment areas; in Detroit, in high unemployment areas; and in Vermont, in high unemployment areas, what the employer will say is: Look, there ain't no jobs around here. You want to work, here is 3 bucks an hour. But we have the government out of your lives. There is no longer a minimum wage.

They consider that freedom. I consider that wage slavery. Let us have the debate about whether we should abolish the minimum wage, abolish Social Security.

The Ryan Republican budget in the House a couple of years ago wanted to end Medicare as we know it and create a voucher system. Here is a check, 8,000 bucks. You got cancer, good luck. Here is your $8,000 check. Go to the doctor, to the hospital, you will get good care--for about 2 days--and then we don't know what happens to you.

We are going to end Medicare as we know it. We are going to make devastating cuts in Medicaid. We are going to give tax breaks to the rich at a time when the rich are doing phenomenally and the middle class is collapsing. Let us have that debate. That is a good debate to have.

It is very interesting; there was a CBS/New York Times poll that came out the other day absolutely consistent with every other poll I have seen. What these polls do is they say to the American people: What do you think are the most important issues facing America? What should Congress be focusing on? You know what. They are not talking about health care. They are not talking about ObamaCare. They are not talking about taxes. What the American people are saying is: We need jobs.

Real unemployment today is close to 14 percent. Youth unemployment is higher. We need to create millions of jobs. Where is the debate? We bring forward ideas about rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, creating jobs, moving to a more energy efficient society, and creating jobs. Where are their ideas on jobs? They do not have any. All they can say is: Let's give more tax breaks to billionaires. One out of four corporations doesn't pay any taxes. Let's give more tax breaks to the rich and to the corporations. Trickle-down economics has not worked.

What the American people also understand is that most of the new jobs that are being created are low-wage jobs. Often they are part-time jobs--a trend, by the way, that has been going on for many, many years, well before ObamaCare. Major employers didn't need to think too hard to figure out if you hire people for 25 or 28 hours a week you don't have to provide them with benefits. Let us discuss about how we create decent wages in this country.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator's yielded time has expired.

Mr. SANDERS. The last point I will make.

Maybe the most important discussion we should have is ending and overturning this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision which gives the billionaires in this country the ability to control what goes on here in the Congress, forcing Members of the House and Senate to raise unbelievable sums of money.

So there is a lot to be debated. But one thing we should not be debating is shutting down the United States Government in order to achieve a narrow political goal.

With that, I yield the floor.

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