I support Gina McCarthy to be the next Environmental Protection Agency administrator. When her Senate confirmation hearing was held on Thursday, the debate among senators on the Environment and Public Works Committee wasn’t really about her qualifications. It was about global warming. It was about whether or not we are going to listen to the leading scientists of this country who tell us we’re facing a planetary crisis.

It was clear at the hearing that Senator John Barrasso, from coal-producing Wyoming, does not want the EPA to address the global warming crisis. What he wants is for us to continue doing as little as possible as we see extreme weather disturbances: super storms, floods and heat waves all over the world.

It was clear at the hearing that Senator Jim Inhofe, from oil-producing Oklahoma, does not want the EPA to curb climate change. What Senator Inhofe has written and talked about is his belief that global warming is one of the major hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people. He blames Al Gore, the United Nations, and the Hollywood elite. He didn’t dispute that at the hearing. In fact, when I asked him about it, his conspiracy theory thickened. “I would add to that list MoveOn.org, George Soros, Michael Moore, and a few others,” he said.

So that is the issue. Do we agree with Senator Inhofe that global warming is a “hoax” and that we do not want the EPA, the Department of Energy or any other agency of the federal government to address that issue? Or do we agree with the overwhelming majority of scientists who tell us that that we must act boldly and aggressively to protect the future of this planet?

That’s the real issue at stake in this debate and that’s the reason I’m supporting Gina McCarthy. That is why I want the EPA to be vigorous in protecting our children and future generations from the horrendous crisis that we face from global warming. That is why I have introduced legislation to tax carbon and methane greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.

According to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, 2012 was the warmest year ever recorded for the continental United States. More than 24,000 new record highs were set in the U.S. alone. It was the hottest year in recorded history in New York; Washington, DC; Louisville, Kentucky; even my home city of Burlington, Vt., and other cities across the country.

Last year’s drought – affecting two-thirds of the United States – was the worst in half a century, contributing to extraordinary wildfires burning more than 9 million acres of land, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

Heat waves and droughts are not limited to the U.S. Australia, for instance, experienced a four-month heat wave with severe wildfires, record temperatures, and torrential rains and floods causing $2.4 billion in damages, according to The New York Times.

Global warming is also resulting in extreme weather disturbances of all kinds. NOAA’s Climate Extremes Index tracks extreme temperatures, drought, precipitation and tropical storms. It reported that 2012 set yet another distressing record for the most extreme climate conditions recorded.

Ronald Prinn, director of MIT’s Center for Global Change Science, concluded that what we have heard recently from scientists is that their earlier projections regarding global warming were wrong. That in fact they underestimated the problem and that the conditions that they were worried about will likely be worse than what they had originally thought. “There is significantly more risk than we previously estimated … [which] increases the urgency for significant policy action.”

Global warming is real. It is not a hoax. It is a planetary crisis but one that we have the knowledge and technology to address.

Watch video here: http://youtu.be/E13uELuWQi0

We are supposed to be a country of laws. The laws should apply to Wall Street as well as everybody else. So I was stunned when our country’s top law enforcement official recently suggested it might be difficult to prosecute financial institutions that commit crimes because it may destabilize the financial system of our country and the world.

“I am concerned,” Attorney General Eric Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee, “that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if we do prosecute — if we do bring a criminal charge — it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.”

The attorney general was talking about some of the same financial institutions that received billions, and in some cases trillions, of dollars in taxpayer bailouts after their greed, recklessness and illegal behavior plunged the country into a terrible recession. Over my opposition, Congress approved a $700 billion taxpayer bailout of financial institutions that were on the brink of collapse which some in Congress considered “too big to fail.”

In addition, the Federal Reserve provided over $16 trillion in total financial assistance to these same institutions during the financial crisis (which only became public after an amendment I inserted into the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act requiring the Fed to disclose this information).

The attorney general’s view seems to be that if you are just a regular person and you commit a crime, you go to jail. But if you are the head of a Wall Street company, your power is so great that a prosecution could have destabilizing consequences with national or even worldwide implications.

In other words, we have a situation now where Wall Street banks are not only too big to fail, they are too big to jail. That view is unacceptable.

The attorney general’s troubling acknowledgement has revived interest in an idea that is drawing more and more support. It is time to break up too big to fail financial institutions.

The 10 largest banks in the United States are bigger today than they were before a taxpayer bailout following the 2008 financial crisis.

U.S. banks have become so big that the six largest financial institutions in this country (J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley) today have assets of nearly $9.6 trillion, a figure equal to about two-thirds of the nation’s gross domestic product. These six financial institutions issue more than two-thirds of all credit cards, over half of all mortgages, control 95 percent of all derivatives held in financial institutions and hold more than 40 percent of all bank deposits in the United States.

I will soon introduce legislation that would give the Treasury secretary 90 days to compile a list of commercial banks, investment banks, hedge funds and insurance companies that the Treasury Department determines are too big to fail. The affected financial institutions would include “any entity that has grown so large that its failure would have a catastrophic effect on the stability of either the financial system or the United States economy without substantial government assistance.” Within one year after the legislation becomes law, the Treasury Department would be required to break up those banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions identified by the secretary.

Breaking up the too big to fail financial institutions is a notion that has drawn support from some leading figures in the financial community. Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, wrote this: “The safer the individual banks, the safer the financial system. The ultimate destination — an economy relatively free from financial crises — won’t be reached until we have the fortitude to break up the giant banks.” James Bullard, the head of the St. Louis Fed, also weighed in. “I do kind of agree that ‘too big to fail’ is ‘too big to exist.'” Thomas Hoenig, the former Kansas City Fed president, was an early supporter of the idea of breaking up big U.S. banks. “I think [too big to fail banks] should be broken up. And in doing so, I think you’ll make the financial system itself more stable. I think you will make it more competitive, and I think you will have long-run benefits over our current system, which leads to bailouts when crises occur.”

In my view, 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 wellbeing. No single financial institution should have holdings so extensive that its failure could send the world economy into crisis. And, perhaps most importantly, no institution in America should be above the law. We need to break up these institutions because of the tremendous damage they have done to our economy.

If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.

Despite such terminology as “fiscal cliff” and “debt ceiling,” the great debate taking place in Washington now has relatively little to do with financial issues.  It is all about ideology.  It is all about economic winners and losers in American society.  It is all about the power of Big Money.  It is all about the soul of America.

In America today, we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth, and more inequality than at any time period since 1928.  The top 1 percent owns 42 percent of the financial wealth of the nation, while, incredibly, the bottom 60 percent own only 2.3 percent.  One family, the Walton family of Wal-Mart, owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of Americans.  In terms of income distribution in 2010, the last study done on this issue, the top 1 percent earned 93 percent of all new income while the bottom 99 percent shared the remaining 7 percent.  

Despite the reality that the rich are becoming much richer while the middle class collapses and the number of Americans living in poverty is at an all-time high, the Republicans and their billionaire backers want more, more, and more.  The class warfare continues.    

My Republican colleagues say that the deficits are a spending problem, not a revenue problem.  What these deficit-hawk hypocrites won’t talk about is their spending. They won’t discuss what they did to dig the country into this $1 trillion deep deficit hole. They waged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq without paying for them. They gave away huge tax breaks for the rich. They squandered taxpayer dollars on the pharmaceutical industry by making it illegal to let Medicare bargain for lower drug prices. They also rescinded financial regulations that enabled Wall Street to operate like a gambling casino, leading to a severe recession that eroded tax revenue and left more than 14 percent of American workers unemployed or underemployed.

Now, despite the deficits their policies helped to create and despite the enormous suffering which exists in our society, the Republicans want to cut Social Security, veterans’ programs, Medicare, Medicaid, education, nutrition programs, and virtually every program which benefits low- and moderate-income Americans. They choose to turn their backs on the economic reality facing a significant part of our population: high unemployment, reduced wages, 50 million without health insurance, college graduates saddled with enormous student debt and elderly people living in desperation. And they have tried to slam the door on any further discussion about how to raise revenue by ending tax loopholes and unfair tax breaks.

Republicans like Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who say the revenue debate is over don’t want you to consider these facts:

•  Federal revenue today, at 15.8 percent of GDP, is lower today than it was  60 years ago.  During the last year of the Clinton administration, when we had a significant federal surplus, federal revenue was 20.6 percent of GDP.  

•  Today corporate profits are at an all-time high, while corporate income tax revenue as a percentage of GDP is near a record low.

•  In 2011, corporate revenue as a percentage of GDP was just 1.2 percent – lower than any other major country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, including Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Norway, Australia, South Korea, Switzerland, Norway, Italy, Ireland, Poland, and Iceland.

•  In 2011, corporations paid just 12 percent of their profits in taxes, the lowest since 1972.

•  In 2005, one out of four large corporations paid no income taxes at all while they collected $1.1 trillion in revenue over that one-year period.

We know where the Republicans are coming from.  What about the Democrats?  Will President Obama fulfill his campaign pledge to “protect the middle class” or will he surrender to right-wing blackmail?  Will Democrats in the House and Senate stand with the vast majority of our citizens and such organizations as AARP, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, the AFL-CIO, the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and every other veterans’ organization in the fight against cuts to Social Security and veterans’ programs, or will they agree to a disastrous corporate-backed “chained CPI” concept which makes major benefit cuts to those programs and raises taxes on low-income workers?

The simple truth is there are relatively easy ways to deal with the deficit crisis – without attacking the elderly, the children the sick or the poor.

For example, we have got to eliminate loopholes in the tax code that allow large corporations and the wealthy to avoid more than $100 billion in taxes every year by setting up offshore tax shelters in places like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the Bahamas.  This situation has become so absurd that one five-story office building in the Cayman Islands is now the “home” to more than 18,000 corporations.  

Further, we must also end tax breaks for companies shipping American jobs overseas.  Today, the United State government continues to reward companies that move American manufacturing jobs abroad, despite the fact that millions of American jobs have been outsourced to China, Mexico, and other low wage countries over the past decade.  The Joint Committee on Taxation (the official revenue scorekeeper in Congress) has estimated that we could raise more than $582 billion in revenue over the next decade by eliminating these offshore tax loopholes.

We must also recognize that Wall Street recklessness caused the economic crisis, and it has a responsibility to reduce the deficit.  Establishing a 0.03 percent Wall Street speculation fee, similar to what we had from 1914-1966, would dampen the dangerous level of speculation and gambling on Wall Street, encourage the financial sector to invest in the productive economy and reduce the deficit by more than $350 billion over 10 years.

We are entering a pivotal moment in the modern history of our country. Do the elected officials in Washington stand with ordinary Americans – working families, children, the elderly, the poor – or will the extraordinary power of billionaire campaign contributors and Big Money prevail?  The American people, by the millions, must send Congress the answer to that question.

The Democrats won a major victory on Election Day.

Despite dozens of billionaires spending huge amounts of money to defeat President Barack Obama, he won a crushing victory in the Electoral College and received 3 million more votes than former Gov. Mitt Romney did nationally. Democrats won 25 of 33 seats contested in the Senate and, to everyone’s surprise, expanded their majority there by two. They also gained seats in the House.

Now, with this victory behind them, the president and congressional Democrats must make it very clear that they will stand with the middle class and working families of our country. These are the people who, because of the Wall Street-caused recession, have seen a significant decline in their family income. These are the people who worry about whether they can afford health care and whether their kids will be able to attend college. The Democrats in the House and Senate must stand with these people — not the millionaires and billionaires who are doing just fine.

Most important, in the coming weeks and months, the Democrats must demand that deficit reduction is done in a way that is fair — and not on the backs of the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor. At a time when real unemployment remains close to 15 percent, we must also focus on creating the millions of jobs that our people need.

In America today, we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on Earth. Incredibly, the top 1 percent owns 42 percent of the nation’s wealth while the bottom 60 percent owns just 2.3 percent. In the last study done on income distribution, we learned that 93 percent of all new income generated between 2009 and 2010 went to the top 1 percent while the bottom 99 percent split the remaining 7 percent. This extraordinary unfairness is not only morally reprehensible, it is bad economics. It will be very difficult to create the jobs that our people need when so many Americans have little or no money to spend.

Congress must pass legislation to create a major jobs program to put millions of people back to work rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. Throughout our country, we need a massive effort to improve our roads, bridges, water and wastewater systems, airports, rail, broadband and cellphone service. Rebuilding our infrastructure makes us more productive and internationally competitive — and creates millions of new jobs.

In terms of deficit reduction, let us not forget that in 2001, when Bill Clinton left office, this country had a $236 billion surplus. As a result of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that were unpaid for, huge tax breaks for the rich, a Medicare prescription drug program put on the credit card and a significant decline in federal revenues because of the recession, we now have a $1 trillion deficit and a $16 trillion national debt.

Congress must address the deficit situation and the fiscal cliff, but we must do it in a way that is fair. At a time when the wealthiest people in this country are doing extremely well and their effective tax rates are low (think Romney), the people on top must pay their fair share of taxes to help us deal with the deficit. We must also end the outrageous loopholes that allow one out of four large profitable corporations to pay nothing in federal corporate income taxes. Further, it is absurd that current tax policy allows the wealthy and large corporations to avoid paying over $100 billion a year in federal taxes because they stash their money in tax havens in the Cayman Islands and elsewhere.

We must also take a hard look at wasteful spending in the Defense Department, where we now spend almost as much money as the rest of the world combined. Significant savings can be found at other federal agencies, too.

What we must not do, however, is move toward a balanced budget on the backs of the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor. Sadly, that is the approach that virtually all Republicans and some Democrats are advocating. As the founder of the Defending Social Security Caucus, I look forward to working with other members of Congress, the AFL-CIO, senior and disability groups and the vast majority of people in our country who want to prevent cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education and other programs vitally important to the working families of America.

In my view, if the Republicans continue to play an obstructionist role, the president should get out of the Oval Office and travel the country. If he does that, I believe that he will find that there is no state in the country, including those that are very red, where people believe that it makes sense to continue giving huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires while cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. I have a strong feeling that when large numbers of constituents all across this country start calling and emailing their senators and members of Congress about this issue, the American people will win this fight.

The good news is that we are already beginning to see some Republicans make thoughtful comments showing they understand that elections have consequences. Bill Kristol, the conservative commentator and Weekly Standard editor, said Sunday that the Republican Party should accept new ideas, including the much criticized suggestion by Democrats that taxes be allowed to go up on the wealthy. “It won’t kill the country if we raise taxes a little bit on millionaires,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” “It really won’t, I don’t think. I don’t really understand why Republicans don’t take Obama’s offer.”

Kristol is right. At a time when the gap between the very rich and everybody else is growing wider, common sense and justice require the people who are doing extremely well financially to help us in a significant way to reduce deficits.

There are two major economic and budgetary issues which Congress must address in the lame-duck session or soon afterward. First, how do we reverse the decline of the middle class and create the jobs that unemployed and underemployed workers desperately need? Second, how do we address the $1 trillion deficit and $16 trillion national debt in a way that is fair and not on the backs of the elderly, the children, the sick or the poor?

Both of these issues must be addressed in the context of understanding that in America today we have the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major country on earth and that the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider. Today, the top 1 percent earns more income than the bottom 50 percent of Americans. In 2010, 93 percent of all new income went to just the top 1 percent. In terms of wealth, the top 1 percent owns 42 percent of the wealth in America while the bottom 60 percent owns just 2.3 percent.

In my view, we will not make progress in addressing either the jobs or deficit crisis unless we are prepared to take on the greed of Wall Street and big-money interests who want more and more for themselves at the expense of all Americans. Let’s be clear. Class warfare is being waged in this country. It is being waged by the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adeslon, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and all the others who want to decimate working families in order to make the wealthiest people even wealthier. In this class war that we didn’t start, let’s make sure it is the middle class and working families who win, not the millionaires and billionaires.

In terms of deficit reduction, let us remember that when Bill Clinton left office in January of 2001, this country enjoyed a healthy $236 billion SURPLUS and we were on track to eliminate the entire national debt by the year 2010.

What happened? How did we go from significant federal budget surpluses to massive deficits? Frankly, it is not that complicated.

President George W. Bush and the so-called “deficit hawks” chose to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, but “forgot” to pay for those wars — which will add more than $3 trillion to our national debt.

President Bush and the “deficit hawks” provided huge tax breaks to the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans — which will increase our national debt by about $1 trillion over a 10-year period.

President Bush and the “deficit hawks” established a Medicare prescription drug program written by the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, but they “forgot” to pay for it — which will add about $400 billion to our national debt over a 10-year period.

Further, as a result of the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street, this country was driven into the worst recession since the Great Depression which resulted in a massive reduction in federal revenue.

And now, as we approach the election and a lame-duck session of Congress, these very same Republican “deficit hawks” want to fix the mess they created by cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and education, while lowering income tax rates for the wealthy and large corporations. Sadly, they have been joined by some Democrats.

The fiscal crisis is a serious problem, but it must be addressed in a way that will not further punish people who are already suffering economically. In addition, it is absolutely imperative that we address the needs of 23 million Americans who are unemployed or underemployed.

What should working families of this country demand of Congress in response to these crises? Let me be specific:

First, at a time when the effective tax rate for the rich is the lowest in decades, we must repeal the Bush tax breaks for the top 2 percent which will reduce the deficit by $1 trillion over the next 10 years.

Second, we must recognize that Wall Street caused the economic crisis, and that it has a responsibility to reduce the deficit. Establishing a 0.03 percent Wall Street speculation fee, similar to what we had from 1914-1966, would dampen the dangerous level of speculation and gambling on Wall Street, encourage the financial sector to invest in the productive economy and reduce the deficit by $350 billion over 10 years. Importantly, this fee, like similar levies in many other countries, would not apply to ordinary investors, retirees or parents saving to send their kids to college. Rather, it would apply to Wall Street investment houses, hedge funds and speculators who sell credit default swaps, derivatives and operate other risky financial schemes that nearly brought down the entire economy.

Third, we have got to prohibit offshore tax shelters. Each and every year, the United States loses an estimated $100 billion in tax revenues due to offshore tax abuses by the wealthy and large corporations. The situation has become so absurd that one five-story office building in the Cayman Islands is now the “home” to more than 18,000 corporations. According to a recent report by James Henry, a former chief economist at McKinsey, the wealthiest people in the world are hiding between $21 trillion to $32 trillion in offshore tax havens to avoid paying taxes. About a third of this amount, according to one estimate, is from wealthy Americans. The wealthy and large corporations should not be allowed to avoid paying taxes by setting up tax shelters in Panama, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the Bahamas or other tax haven countries. Cracking down on these tax evaders could reduce the deficit by about $1 trillion over the next decade.

Fourth, at a time when we have almost tripled military spending since 1997 and spend nearly as much on the military as the rest of the world combined, we must reduce unnecessary and wasteful spending at the Pentagon. According to a number of experts, the Pentagon today cannot account for hundreds of billions of dollars in its budget. Even Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), perhaps the most conservative senator in this country, believes that we could reduce defense spending by $1 trillion over a 10-year period while ensuring that the United States continues to have the strongest and most powerful military in the world.

Fifth, we have got to eliminate tax breaks for companies shipping American jobs overseas. Today, the United State government, despite our losing over 55,000 factories in the last 10 years, continues to reward companies that move U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas through loopholes in the tax code. Eliminating these loopholes would raise more than $582 billion in revenue over the next ten years and bring jobs back home to America.

What else? Ending corporate welfare for big oil, gas and coal companies; requiring Medicare to negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices; taxing capital gains and dividends the same as work; establishing a progressive estate tax; and eliminating waste, fraud and abuse at every agency in the federal government would reduce spending by more than $350 billion and raise a significant amount of revenue without harming the middle class.

Taking these steps would reduce the deficit by more than $5 trillion.

Finally, and importantly, with these kinds of savings we could invest aggressively in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels and restoring our manufacturing base. That investment could create millions of decent paying jobs, make our country more productive and help us lead the world in addressing the crisis of global warming.

Despite what virtually all Republicans and some Democrats want, we must not balance the budget on the backs of a collapsing middle class or the poorest people in our society.

Despite what virtually all Republicans and some Democrats want us to ignore, we must create the millions of jobs working families still desperately need.

The American people have been very clear, in poll after poll, that they do not want to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ needs, education and other vitally important programs. They also have been clear that they do want the wealthy and large corporations to start paying their fair share of taxes. This agenda, the agenda of the American people, is what I will be taking into the lame-duck session. I ask for your support.

In the 77 years since President Franklin Roosevelt signed Social Security into law on August 14, 1935, the retirement program has been one of the nation’s most successful anti-poverty programs. Before Social Security existed, about half of America’s senior citizens lived in poverty. Today, less than 10 percent live in poverty.

Today, Social Security not only provides retirement security but also enables millions of people with disabilities and widows, widowers and children to live in dignity and security.  

In these highly-volatile economic times, when millions of Americans lost their life savings in the 2008 Wall Street crash, it is important to remember that since its inception, through good economic times and bad, Social Security has paid every penny owed to every eligible beneficiary.

Despite Wall Street and right-wing misinformation Social Security, which is funded by the payroll tax, does not contribute to the deficit. In fact, the Social Security Trust Fund today, according to the Social Security Administration, has a $2.7 trillion surplus and can pay 100 percent of all benefits owed to every eligible American for the next 21 years. Further, unlike the huge commissions paid out to Wall Street firms, Social Security is run with very modest administrative costs.

Despite Social Security’s popularity and overwhelming success, we are now in the midst of a fierce and well-financed attack against Social Security. Pete Peterson, the Wall Street billionaire, has pledged $1 billion of his resources to cut Social Security and other programs of enormous importance to the American people. Other billionaires and Wall Street representatives are also working hard to weaken or destroy Social Security and endanger the well-being of millions of Americans. We must not allow their effort to succeed.

Let us never forget that the current deficit of $1 trillion was primarily caused by two unpaid-for wars and tax breaks for the rich. These policies were strongly supported by “deficit hawks.” The deficit is also related to a major decline in revenue as a result of the Wall Street-created recession. The deficit is a serious issue, but we must not move toward deficit reduction on the backs of the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor. This would not only be immoral, it is bad economic policy. At a time when the wealthiest people in this country are doing phenomenally well and their effective tax rate is the lowest in decades, the top 1 percent must begin paying their fair share of taxes. At a time when large corporations are enjoying record-breaking profits, we have got to eliminate the huge corporate loopholes which result in a massive loss of federal revenue. At a time when we have tripled military spending since 1997, we must take a hard look at a bloated and wasteful Defense Department.  

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan has been a proponent of privatizing the retirement program by putting seniors’ savings into risky Wall Street investments. Even before tapping Ryan as his running mate, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said he wants to begin the process of privatizing Social Security. He also would gradually increase the retirement age to 68 or 69. And he favors slowing the growth of benefits for persons with “higher incomes.” Under a plan floated by Romney’s allies on Capitol Hill – Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) – someone making about $45,000 a year today who retires in 2050 would receive 32 percent less in annual Social Security benefits than under the current formula. By that definition, the top 60 percent of all wage earners would be considered “higher income.”

President Barack Obama, meanwhile, was a staunch defender of Social Security in his 2008 campaign. So far this year, however, Obama has refused to stand behind his four-year-old opposition to cuts. In fact, the president has signaled that he may be open to lowering benefits by changing how they are calculated. In my view, it is long past time that the president told the American people in no uncertain terms, as he did in 2008, that he will not cut Social Security on his watch.

To keep Social Security’s finances sound in the future I have introduced legislation – identical to a proposal that Obama advocated in 2008 – to apply the payroll tax on incomes above $250,000 a year. Under current law, only earnings up to $110,100 are taxed. The Center for Economic Policy and Research has estimated that applying the Social Security payroll tax on income above $250,000 would only impact the wealthiest 1.4 percent of wage earners.  

Those who want to cut Social Security benefits are looking at a number of proposals. One of the most talked ideas is moving toward a so-called “chained-CPI,” which would not only impact seniors, but also military retirees and those who receive benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs.  The “chained-CPI” approach changes how the Consumer Price Index is calculated, so that a person 65 years old today would earn $560 a year less in Social Security benefits once they turn 75. Benefits would be cut by nearly $1,000 a year once they turn 85.  Instead, I have proposed legislation to base Social Security cost-of-living adjustments on a Consumer Price Index for the Elderly, a measure that would increase benefits because it would take into account the real-life impact of rising health care costs and prescription drug expenses paid by seniors.

While we often take Social Security for granted, we must not forget that Social Security today is providing dignity and security to tens of millions of Americans. It is a program that is working and working well. We must stand up today on the 77th anniversary of this enormously important program.  We must pledge to continue the fight against the right-wing Republicans, some Democrats and their wealthy backers who want to destroy the program.  

The Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights held a hearing Tuesday on “Taking Back Our Democracy: Responding to Citizens United and the Rise of Super PACs” Here is Sen. Bernie Sanders’ testimony:

(sub folda -k9k)

“Mr. Chairman, thank you for convening a hearing on the monumentally important issue of “Taking Back Our Democracy.” Unfortunately, that title exactly describes the challenge facing us today.

    The history of this country has been the drive toward a more and more inclusive democracy-a democracy which would fulfill Abraham Lincoln’s beautiful phraseology at Gettysburg in which he described America as a nation “of the people by the people for the people.”

    We all know American democracy has not always lived up to this ideal. When this country was founded, only white male property owners over age 21 could vote. But people fought to change that and we became a more inclusive democracy.  After the Civil War, we amended the Constitution to allow non-white men to vote. We became a more inclusive democracy.  In 1920, after years of struggle and against enormous opposition, we finally ratified the 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote. We became a more inclusive democracy.

    In 1965, under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr. and others, the great civil rights movement finally succeeded in outlawing racism at the ballot box and LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act. We became a more inclusive democracy.  

   One year after that, the Supreme Court ruled that the poll tax was unconstitutional, that people could not be denied the right to vote because they were low-income. We became a more inclusive democracy. In 1971, young people throughout the country said; “we are being drafted to go to Vietnam and get killed, but we don’t even have the right to vote.”  The voting age was lowered to 18.  We became a more inclusive democracy.

        The democratic foundations of our country and this movement toward a more inclusive democracy are now facing the most severe attacks, both economically and politically, that we have seen in the modern history of our country.  Tragically, as I say this advisedly, we are well on our way to seeing our great country  move toward an oligarchic form of government – where virtually all economic and political power rest with a handful of very wealthy families. This is a trend we must reverse.

Economically, the United States today has, by far, the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth and that inequality is worse today in America than at any time since the late 1920s.  

         Today, the wealthiest 400 individuals own more wealth than the bottom half of America – 150 million people.  

Today, one family, the Walton family of Wal-Mart fame, with  $89 billion, own more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of America.  One family owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent.    

Today, the top one percent own 40 percent of all wealth, while the bottom sixty percent owns less than 2 percent.  Incredibly, the bottom 40 percent of all Americans own just 3/10 of one percent of the wealth of the country.

         That is what is going on economically in this country. A handful of billionaires own a significant part of the wealth of America and have enormous control over our economy. What the Supreme Court did in Citizens United is to say to these same billionaires: “You own and control the economy, you own Wall Street, you own the coal companies, you own the oil companies. Now, for a very small percentage of your wealth, we’re going to give you the opportunity to own the United States government.” That is the essence of what Citizens United is all about – and that’s why it must be overturned.

         Let’s be clear. Why should we be surprised that one family, worth $50 billion, is prepared to spend $400 million in this election to protect their interests? That’s a small investment for them and a good investment. But it is not only the Koch brothers.

        There are at least 23 billionaire families who have contributed a minimum of $250,000 each into the political process up to now during this campaign; my guess is that number is really much greater because many of these contributions are made in secret.  In other words, not content to own our economy, the one percent want to own our government as well.

The constitutional amendment that Congressman Ted Deutch and I have introduced states the following:

• For-profit corporations are not people, and are not entitled to any rights under the Constitution.

• For-profit corporations are entities of the states, and are subject to regulation by the legislatures of the states, so long as the regulations do not limit the freedom of the press.

• For-profit corporations are prohibited from making contributions or expenditures in political campaigns.

• Congress and the states have the right to regulate and limit all political expenditures and contributions, including those made by a candidate.

I’m proud to say the American people are making their voices heard on this issue-they are telling us loud and clear it is time to reverse the trend. Six states, including my home state of Vermont, have passed resolutions asking us to pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. More than 200 local governments have done the same, including many in Vermont. I’m proud to sponsor one such amendment.  My colleagues here, Mr. Baucus, Mr. Udall, and Ms. Edwards, all have good amendments, and I thank them for their hard work on this issue.

To read the list of billionaire families donating at least $250,000 to campaigns, click here: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/…

To read more about Sanders’ Saving American Democracy Amendment, click here: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/…

The American people are angry.  They are angry that they are being forced to live through the worst recession in our lifetimes – with sky-high unemployment, with millions of people losing their homes and their life savings.  They are angry that they will not have a decent retirement, that they can’t afford to send their children to college, that they can’t afford health insurance and that, in some cases, they can’t even buy the food they need to adequately feed their families.  

They are angry because they know that this recession was not caused by the middle class and working families of this country. It was not caused by the teachers, firefighters and police officers and their unions who are under attack all over the country. It was not caused by construction workers, factory workers, nurses or childcare workers.  

This recession was caused by the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street.  And, what makes people furious is that Wall Street still has not learned its lessons.  Instead of investing in the job-creating productive economy providing affordable loans to small and medium-size businesses, the CEOs of the largest financial institutions in this country have created the largest gambling casino in the history of the world.

Four years ago, after spending billions of dollars to successfully fight for the deregulation of Wall Street, the CEOs of the big banks – JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and the others – went on a losing streak.  The enormous bets they made on worthless, complex, and exotic financial instruments went bad, and they stuck the American people with the bill.

Wall Street received the largest taxpayer bailout in the history of the world.  But it was not just the $700 billion that Congress approved through the TARP program.  As a result of an independent audit that I requested in the Dodd-Frank bill by the non-partisan Government Accountability Office, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided a jaw-dropping $16 trillion in virtually zero-interest loans to every major financial institution in this country, large corporations, foreign central banks throughout the world, and some of the wealthiest people in this country.

And, instead of using this money to provide affordable loans to small businesses, instead of putting this money back into the job-creating productive economy, what have they done?  They have gone back to their days of running the largest gambling casino in the world.  In other words, they have learned nothing.

The American people are angry because they see the great middle class of this country collapsing, poverty increasing and the gap between the very rich and everyone else grow wider.  They are angry because they see this great country, which so many of our veterans fought for and died for, becoming an oligarchy – a nation where our economic and political life are controlled by a handful of billionaire families.  

In the United States today, we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income since the 1920s.  Today, the wealthiest 400 individuals own more wealth than the bottom half of America – 150 million people.  

Today, the six heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune own more wealth than the bottom 30 percent.

Today, the top 1 percent own 40 percent of all wealth, while the bottom 60 percent owns less than 2 percent.  Incredibly, the bottom 40 percent of all Americans own just 0.3 percent of the wealth of the country.

According to a new study from the Federal Reserve, median net worth for middle class families dropped by nearly 40 percent from 2007 to 2010.  That’s the equivalent of wiping out 18 years of savings for the average middle class family.

The distribution of income is even worse.  If you can believe it, the last study on this subject showed that in 2010, 93 percent of all new income created from the previous year went to the top one percent, while the bottom 99 percent of people had the privilege of enjoying the remaining 7 percent. In other words, the rich are getting much richer while almost everyone else is falling behind.

Not only is this inequality of wealth and income morally grotesque, it is bad economic policy.  If working families are deeply in debt, and have little or no income to spend on goods and services, how can we expand the economy and create the millions of jobs we desperately need?  There is a limit as to how many yachts, mansions, limos and fancy jewelry the super-rich can buy.  We need to put income into the hands of working families.    

A lot of my friends in the Senate talk a whole lot about our $15.8 trillion national debt and our $1.3 trillion deficit.  In fact, deficit reduction is a very serious issue and will be one of the major issues of this campaign.  Unfortunately, many of my colleagues forget to discuss how we got into this deficit situation in the first place, and how we went from a healthy surplus under President Clinton to record-breaking deficits under Bush.  

When we talk about the national debt and the deficit, let us never forget that the current deficit was primarily caused by Bush’s unpaid-for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.   Imagine that!  President Bush and his deficit hawks forgot to pay for two wars which will end up costing us trillions of dollars.  It just plain slipped their minds.  On top of that, for the first time in American history Bush and his Republican friends decided, during a war, to give out huge tax breaks – including massive benefits for millionaires and billionaires.  Even more importantly, the deficit is the result of a major decline in federal tax revenue because of the high unemployment and business losses that we are experiencing as a result of this recession – caused by the greed and recklessness of Wall Street.  Revenue as a percentage of GDP, at 15.2%, is the lowest in more than 60 years.

Despite the causes of the deficit, our Republican (and some Democratic) friends have decided that the best way forward toward deficit reduction is to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, food stamps and virtually every other programs of importance to low and moderate income families.  We must not allow that to happen.  

If we are serious about dealing with the deficit and creating jobs in America, the wealthy are going to have to start paying their fair share of taxes.  We also have to end the massive tax loopholes and subsidies that exist for major corporations.  (In that regard, Rep. Keith Ellison from Minnesota and I recently introduced legislation that would end all tax breaks and subsidies for the fossil fuel industry).  At a time when the United States now spends more money on defense than the rest of the world combined, we also have to cut back on military spending.  

Yes, we should deal with the deficit.  But not on the backs of the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor!  

Most importantly, when we talk about what’s happening in America, we have to address the unemployment crisis in this country which now finds 23 million Americans without jobs or who are under-employed.  And we know how to do that.  

We know that the fastest way to create decent-paying jobs is rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure (roads, bridges, rail, airports, water systems, wastewater plants, deteriorating schools, etc.)  We also know that we can create a great deal of employment by transforming our energy system away from foreign oil and coal and into energy efficiency and such sustainable energies as wind, solar, geo-thermal, bio-mass and other clean technologies.  We also know that, as our country fights fierce global competition, it is absurd to be laying-off educators and making college unaffordable.

While we continue to do everything we can during the next six months to defeat Republican right-wing extremism, it is also important that we never lose sight of the progressive vision that we are fighting for. If we don’t know where we want to go, it will be impossible to get there. Some of the issues that I intend to raise are the following:

Not only must we resist cuts in Social Security, we must lift the cap on taxing higher incomes so that Social Security will be strong for the next 75 years.

Not only must we oppose cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, we must see health care as a right of all and continue the fight for a Medicare for All Single Payer health care system.

Not only must we oppose placing the burden of deficit reduction on the backs of working families, we must demand a progressive tax system in which the wealthy and large corporations start paying their fair share of taxes.

Not only must we oppose cuts in unemployment compensation, we must fight for a jobs program that creates the many millions of jobs our country desperately needs.

Not only must we fight to end disastrous unfettered free trade agreements with China, Mexico, and other low wage countries, we must fight to fundamentally re-write our trade agreements so that American products, not jobs, are our number one export.

And, not only must we vigorously oppose the war against women, we must fight to end all forms of discrimination and prejudice in this country.

The struggle we are engaged in right now is of pivotal importance for this country. Whether we win or lose will determine the future of America. That struggle is not just for our lives, but more importantly it is for our children and our grandchildren.

Despair is not an option. I know people get angry, I know they get frustrated, I know they get disgusted. But we don’t have the right to give up and turn our backs on our children and grandchildren.

Our job is to simply bring to fruition what the overwhelming majority of the American people want. They want an economy that works for the middle class and working families and not just for the rich. They want everybody in this country to have health care as a right. They want to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. They want to move away from these gross inequalities in income and wealth.

We have the people behind us. They have the money. And at the end of the day, the people will be stronger than the money.

The Senate today rejected an amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to let states require clear labels on any food or beverage containing genetically engineered ingredients.

The vote on the amendment to the farm bill was 26 to 73.

“This is the very first time a bill on labeling genetically engineered food has been brought before the Senate. It was opposed by virtually every major food corporation in the country. While we wish we could have gotten more votes, this is a good step forward and something we are going to continue to work on. The people of Vermont and the people of America have a right to know what’s in the food that they eat.”

In the past year, 36 bills dealing with the labeling of genetically engineered foods have been introduced in Vermont, Alaska, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia.

The Vermont Legislature considered a bill that would have required labels on genetically engineered food products. Despite House Agriculture Committee support, however, the measure was stymied after the chemical giant Monsanto threatened to sue the state.

Read the complete text of the update here.

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In 49 countries around the world, including all of Europe, people have the opportunity of knowing whether or not they are eating food which contains genetically engineered ingredients. In the United States, we don’t.  That is why I have introduced, along with Sen. Barbara Boxer, an amendment to the agriculture bill which will give states the right to require labels on good products which are genetically engineered.

All over this country people are becoming more conscious about the foods they eat and serve their kids.  When a mother goes to the store and purchases food for her child, she has the right to know what she is feeding her family.  

Poll after poll during the past decade showed that nine out of 10 Americans agree that food with genetically engineered ingredients should say so on the label.

Almost 1 million Californians signed a petition to get labeling of genetically engineered food on this November’s ballot.  They want the right to know what is in their foods.  

Vermont state legislators this year tried to pass a bill that would have required foods that contain genetically engineered ingredients to disclose that information on the label. There was a huge public response.  The Vermont House Agriculture Committee heard from 111 witnesses in favor of the bill. Hundreds more showed up at the Statehouse to show their support.

Of course, there are those who disagree. Monsanto, one of the world’s leading producers of genetically engineered foods, doesn’t like the idea.  It is also the world’s largest producer of the herbicide Roundup as well as so-called “Roundup-ready” seeds that have been genetically engineered to resist the pesticide.  So, once it seemed like the bill was headed for passage, Monsanto threatened to sue.  The strong-arm tactic worked. Despite passing out of the House Agriculture Committee by a vote of 9 to 1, the bill went nowhere.

This week in The United States Senate we have an opportunity to affirm the right of California and Vermont and all states to label food that contains genetically engineered ingredients.  Simply put, this amendment gives people the right to know.  It says that a state, if its Legislature so chooses, may require that any food or beverage containing a genetically engineered ingredient offered for sale in that state have a label that says so.

The amendment also requires that the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and secretary of U.S. Department of Agriculture to report to Congress within two years on the percentage of food and beverages in the United States that contain genetically engineered ingredients.

There are strong precedents for labeling. The FDA already requires the labeling of over 3,000 ingredients, additives, and processes. If you want to know if your food contains gluten, aspartame, high fructose corn syrup, trans-fats or MSG, you simply read the ingredients listed on the label.  The FDA also requires labeling for major food allergens such as peanuts, wheat, shellfish and others.  

Unlike people in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Ireland, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Brazil, China, Russia, New Zealand and other countries where labels are required, Americans don’t know if the food they eat has been genetically altered.  

There was concern among scientists at the FDA in the 1990s that genetically engineered foods could have new and different risks such as hidden allergens, increased plant-toxin levels and the potential to hasten the spread of antibiotic-resistant disease. Those concerns were largely brushed aside. Today, unanswered questions remain. In the United States, resolutions calling for labeling of genetically engineered foods were passed by the American Public Health Association and the American Nurses Association.  In Canada, a landmark independent study by Canadian doctors published in the peer-reviewed journal Reproductive Toxicology found that toxin from soil bacterium engineered into corn to kill pests was present in the bloodstream of 93 percent of pregnant women. There is a great need for additional research because there have never been mandatory human clinical trials of genetically engineered crops, no tests for carcinogenicity or harm to fetuses, no long-term testing for human health risks, no requirement for long-term testing on animals, and only limited allergy testing. What this means is that, for all intents and purposes, the long-term health study of genetically engineered food is being done on all of the American people.

The Consumers Right to Know about Genetically Engineered Food Amendment is about allowing states to honor the wishes of their residents and allowing consumers to know what they’re eating.  Americans want this information.  It is time that Congress affirms the right of states to give it to them.  

( – promoted by kestrel9000)

At a time when we have a more than $15 trillion national debt, American taxpayers are set to give away over $110 billion dollars to the oil, gas, and coal industries over the next decade. Clearly, we cannot afford it. When the five largest oil companies made over $1 trillion in profits in the last decade, with some paying no federal income taxes for part of that time, they certainly do not need it.  

It is time we end this corporate welfare in the form of massive subsidies and tax breaks to hugely profitable fossil fuel corporations. It is time for Congress to support the interests of the taxpayer instead of powerful special interests like the oil and coal industries. That is I joined with Congressman Keith Ellison to introduce legislation in the Senate and the House called the End Polluter Welfare Act. Our proposal is backed by grassroots and public-interest organizations including 350.org, Friends of the Earth, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and many others.

It is immoral that some in Congress advocate savage cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security while those same people vote to preserve billions in tax breaks for Exxon Mobil which is the most profitable corporation in America. It is equally obscene that as those members of Congress fight to continue never-ending fossil fuel subsidies worth tens of billions, they are working overtime to deny a one year extension for key sustainable energy incentives for the emerging wind and solar industries. Instead of passing strong legislation to help reverse global warming, Congress continues the giveaways to the 200 year-old fossil fuel industry even as that industry’s carbon pollution wreaks devastation on our planet. Enough is enough.        

While there have been attempts to remove some of these fossil-fuel subsidies in the past, our legislation is the most comprehensive ever put together in that it would end all of the tax breaks, special financing arrangements, and federal research support for fossil fuels. Our bill would make sure the fossil fuel industry pays its fair share by reforming royalties for drilling or mining on public lands or in federal waters. We end the loopholes that allow tar sands pipeline operators to avoid paying the oil spill clean-up tax.  

It is important that the American people understand just how egregious these fossil fuel handouts are:

•        A Tax Deduction for an Oil Spill? – We all remember the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst oil spill in U.S. history. What is less well known is that BP is claiming a $9.9 billion tax deduction on the money they had to spend cleaning up their own mess and paying for damages they caused. That is absurd.

•        They Manufacture What? – Coal and oil lobbyists added fossil fuels to a bill aimed at helping American manufacturers, so they too could claim ‘manufacturing’ tax deductions. The added cost for taxpayers: $12 billion over the next ten years.

•        Good Enough for Big Oil, but not Clean Energy – Most of us have not heard about Master Limited Partnerships. These special financing arrangements allow oil and gas investors to avoid paying certain corporate income taxes, but are not available to clean energy businesses. Ending this fossil fuel loophole not only starts to level the playing field for clean energy investment, it saves the government an estimated $2.4 billion over the next decade.

•        Free Federal Oil and Gas Leases? – Fossil fuel corporations are supposed to pay the government fair market royalties in exchange for the right to drill on public lands or in federal waters. But thanks to a loophole in federal law, some oil and gas corporations drilling in the Gulf of Mexico pay zero in royalties. The non-partisan Government Accountability Office estimated this could cost taxpayers up to $53 billion over the life of these loophole leases.

These are just some examples of the obscene subsidies that the oil, gas, and coal industries reap from the government year after year. We know that with the enormous sums these industries spend on lobbying and campaign contributions – no doubt made worse by the new era of unlimited corporate campaign spending ushered in by Citizens United – passing a bill like our End Polluter Welfare Act will not be easy. But we know too that all across our country, and across the political spectrum, the American people are angry and frustrated with a government beholden to the big money interests. They want their elected officials to stand up for the needs of working families and our environment, not the powerful special interests.

While it is true that the fossil fuel industry has a virtually unlimited supply of money and lobbyists in Washington, D.C., they still can be defeated. If the American people stand up and demand a budget which is fair and which finally requires the fossil fuel industry and other corporations to pay their fair share in taxes, we can defeat them. If the American people demand that we transform our energy system away from polluting fossil fuels, and to energy efficiency and sustainable energy, we can defeat them. With your help, we can defeat them. Join this fight by signing up as a Citizen Cosponsor of this legislation. http://www.sanders.senate.gov/…