http://www.sanders.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=303188[................]
This country can no longer afford companies that are too big to fail. If a company is so large that its failure would cause systemic harm to our economy, if it is too big to fail, then it is too big to exist. If it is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. We need, as a Congress, to assess which companies fall in this category. Bank of America is certainly one of them. Those companies need to be broken apart. We cannot have companies so huge that if they go under they take the world economy with them.
Then once we break them up, if a company wants to act in a risky manner, if they want to take risks in order to make some quick bucks, that is OK. If they want to take the risk and they want to lose money, that is OK. The American people should not have to, and would not be under those circumstances, be left to pick up the pieces.
Finally, in terms of dealing with this unfolding disaster, we need to make sure working Americans, the middle class, do not foot the bill. If the economic calamity requires a Federal bailout, it should be paid for by those people who actually benefited from the reckless behavior of people empowered by the extreme economic views of Senator Gramm, President Bush, Senator McCain, and many others.
In other words, the point I am making is that in the last 10 years, many of these people have made billions and billions of dollars. It is unfair to simply ask the middle-class working families who are trying to figure out how they are going to pay their fuel bills, how they are going to send their kids to college, to bail out these large institutions from which many people made huge amounts of profits.
We don't talk about this too often, but today the wealthiest one-tenth of 1 percent earns more income than the bottom 50 percent. The top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. And the wealthiest 400 Americans in this country have not only seen their incomes double, their net worth has increased by $640 billion since George W. Bush has been in office.
Can you believe that? Four hundred families, four hundred people, less than the Congress, have seen a $640 billion increase in their wealth since President Bush has been in office. And, amazingly, these 400 families are now worth over $1.5 trillion--400 families. On average, they earn over $214 million a year.
As a result of President Bush's policies, amazingly enough, their tax rates have been cut almost in half to only 18 percent on average. Amazingly, the wealthiest 400 Americans pay a lower tax rate than most police officers, teachers, firefighters, and nurses. So if you are one of the very wealthiest people in this country, if you are earning $214 million a year on average, you pay a lower tax rate than somebody who is a police officer, a teacher, a firefighter, or a nurse.
That may make sense to somebody; it does not make sense to me. What does it say about us as a nation when the middle class pays a greater percentage of their income in taxes than the wealthiest 400 Americans?
It is this very small segment of our population that has made out like bandits--frankly, some of them are bandits--during the Bush administration. We have to recognize that when we talk about who is going to pay for the bailouts.
In my view, we need an emergency surtax on those at the very top in order to pay for any losses the Federal Government suffers as a result of efforts to shore up the economy. It should not be hard-working people who are trying to figure out how they are going to keep their families economically above water, people who are working longer hours for lower wages, people who have lost their health care, people who cannot afford to pay their fuel bills this winter. Those are not the people who should be asked to pay for this bailout. If there is a bailout that has to be paid for, it should be the people, the segment of society that has benefited from Bush's economic and tax policies over the last 8 years.
