 Good evening everyone. Thank you for joining us. Please put your hands together for Senator Bernie Sanders. Thank you. Let me begin by thanking all of you here in D.C. for coming out this evening. Much appreciated. Let me thank C-SPAN for covering this event. Let me also thank everyone who is watching via live stream. As we enter the New Year, as Congress begins its legislative session next week, and as we have just finished celebrating the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the great fighters for justice in our nation's history, it is appropriate, it seems to me, that we ask ourselves two very simple questions, questions which are not asked very often. Question one, what is everyday life like today for the vast majority of our people? And that is the working class of this country, the middle class of this country, and lower income Americans. What are the pains? What are the struggles and the hopes that these millions and millions of people are striving for? That's question one. Question two, what is Congress going to do to improve life for working families? In the year 2023, amidst an explosion of technology, massive wealth creation and transformational economic change, how can we make certain that all Americans have the decent standard of living to which they are entitled? Is that a utopian question? Is that pie in the sky? Or is that something that we can actually accomplish if we put our minds to it? And I think we can. Now, you might think that these very basic and simple questions are discussed often on the floor of the Senate or the House of Representatives or in the corporate medium. Well, if you thought that, you would be wrong. For a wide variety of reasons, significantly having to do with money in politics and corporate ownership of the media, these are topics that are far too rarely discussed. We almost never really hear serious discussion about them. And that's the purpose of my remarks tonight and the kind of discussion I hope these remarks stimulate. Members of Congress and Americans can disagree politically and philosophically as to where we may want to go in the years to come. But it is imperative that we acknowledge the reality of today, where we are as a country today and not run away from that reality. And to my mind, the most important economic and political realities now facing this country are the following. A, capital A, the long-term decline of the American middle class. This decline is not a new occurrence. It didn't start certainly in President Biden's administration or in the years of Donald Trump. This decline has been going on for 50 years and we have got to ask why and we've got to end that decline. Second point that we don't discuss enough is the unprecedented and obscene level of income and wealth inequality that currently exists. And here is the sad reality and that is that never before in our history have we seen so few own so much as we see today. We've got to put that issue on the table and end that reality. Third point that we don't discuss and that is the rapidly growing concentration of ownership within our economy. In sector after sector, a handful of giant corporations control what is produced and how much we pay for their products. And by the way, when you talk about inflation, that has a hell of a lot to do with this concentration of ownership. Fourth point and that is the incredible and dangerous power that billionaires have over our political system. We can hardly be called a vibrant democracy when a handful of the wealthiest people in this country can spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to elect the candidates they like. That is not democracy. And fifth point putting it all together and something we certainly don't discuss in Congress and certainly not in the corporate media. And that is that what we are witnessing now in this country is the rapid evolution of our society into an oligarchy in which the billionaire class has enormous and growing control over the economic and political life of this country. That is the reality and that's the reality we must confront. Now it is very easy for politicians to look at Vladimir Putin's Russia and talk about the oligarchy over there. That's certainly true. But the time is long overdue for us to start paying attention to the oligarchy in the United States of America. When we talk about what's going on in our country, let us start off by taking a hard look at the state of our economy. And what you will find is that the economy is doing extraordinarily well. It's doing fantastically for the people on top for the billionaire class. Unfortunately the economy is not doing so well for the working class of our country when we have tens of millions of families falling further and further behind as they struggle to pay their bills, take care of their kids, and put food on the table. The gross unfairness and the ugliness and the cruelness of our current economy can be seen in stock terms when we look at how the working class and the billionaire class have made out during the horrible pandemic we have experienced. On one hand, tens of thousands of American workers died going to their jobs during the worst public health crisis in modern American history. These extraordinarily brave people got up and they went to work. They did their jobs. And they were nurses. We've lost thousands and thousands of nurses treating us during the pandemic. They are bus drivers. They're meatpacking workers. They are EMT staff. They're cops. They're firemen. They're teachers. They're grocery store workers. And there are many, many others who went out and did what they had to do. And many of them lost their lives and others became seriously ill. And that's what happened to working families. On the other hand, sitting home safely in their offices and in their homes, the billionaire class during this period became $2 trillion richer, often jacking up prices during the pandemic for the products we needed. Desperate workers forced to go to work in unhealthy and unsafe environments. And thousands of them died because they did their essential jobs and because they had to feed their families. Meanwhile, billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson were out taking joy rides to outer space out buying $500 million yachts and living in huge mansions with dozens of bathrooms. Today, while more and more working class Americans are unable to afford the health care that they need, three people, one, two, three people own more wealth than the bottom half of American society, 165 million people. Let me repeat that because you're not going to hear it on TV very often. We're here at disgust in Congress. We are living in a moment when three people now own more wealth than the bottom 165 million Americans. We now have more income and wealth inequality than just about any other period in American history. Today, while nearly 18 million American families are paying more than 50% of their limited incomes on housing, and nearly 600,000 Americans are homeless, the top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 90% of the American people. Today, while millions of ordinary workers are working longer hours for low wages, the CEOs of the largest corporations in our country now make almost 400 times as much as the average worker, the highest CEO worker differential in American history. In the 1950s, CEOs made about 20 times more than the average worker in the 1980s. They made 59 times more than the average worker. In 2009, they made about 180 times more than the average worker. And today, according to the latest figures, CEOs now make 399 times what the average worker makes. But this long-term trend of growing inequality in America is more than the outrageous compensation gap between CEOs and workers. It is much, much more than that. Since 1975, almost 50 years ago, there has been a massive redistribution of wealth in our country. The problem is that that redistribution has gone in precisely the wrong direction. Over the past 48 years, according to a study done by Rand Corporation, more than $50 trillion in wealth has been redistributed from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. $50 trillion. That took place because of a growing percentage of corporate profits have been flowing into the stock portfolios of the very wealthy. $50 trillion going from the bottom to the top. And it's not just income and wealth inequality that is plaguing our nation. It is the maldistribution of economic and political power. Today, we have more concentration of ownership than at any time in the modern history of this country. In sector after sector, whether it is financial services, energy, food, transportation, a handful of giant corporations control what is produced and how much we pay for those products. Unbelievably, and this truly is unbelievable, just three Wall Street firms, BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street, control assets of nearly $20 trillion and are the major shareholders in 96% of S&P 500 corporations. Three Wall Street firms. And I should add, if you wonder why you don't hear this issue discussed very much in the corporate media, maybe just maybe it has something to do with the fact that some six multinational media conglomerates own and control some 90% of what the American people see, hear and read. You can't turn on TV without hearing a whole lot of stuff about everything under the sun. But somehow or another, these major issues having to do with wealth and power, somehow they don't quite make it to our TV screens. Now some of you may recall that in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's FDR's second inaugural dress in 1937, after he had won a second term in office, he famously said, and I quote, I see one third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad and ill-nourished, end of quote. Well, I am not here this evening to tell you that the state of the American economy today is as bad as it was during the Great Depression. It certainly is not, thank God. But as the incoming chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, when I look out across this country in the year 2023, let me tell you what I see. I see a nation where 63% of workers live paycheck to paycheck, paycheck to paycheck. And I know something about that because I grew up in a family that lived paycheck to paycheck. And what does that mean? What does it mean living paycheck to paycheck? It means that every day you are living under incredible stress. You're a mom, you're a dad. You are scared to death that if your car breaks down, if your kids get sick, if your landlord raises the rent, if you get divorced or separated, if you become pregnant, if for whatever reason you lose your job, when you are living paycheck to paycheck, you will find that if any of these things happen, you will find yourself in the midst of a financial catastrophe. And we don't talk about that kind of stress at what it means to millions of our people. Living paycheck to paycheck leaves you with no sense of security. You can't breathe, you can't relax, no cushion to fall back on, and no quality time to spend with your family in a relaxed environment. And that, in my view, is one of the reasons why the life expectancy of working people in this country is much lower than those who are upper income. Stress kills. And having to work to survive and worry about your day-to-day existence for yourself and your kids, that kind of stress makes people sick and eventually kills them. Today, I see a nation where nearly one-third of our workforce, one-third of our workforce, almost 52 million workers earn less than $15 an hour. And let's do the economic math on that. If you are a full-time worker making $15 an hour, you will receive an income of about $31,000 plus before federal, state, and local taxes. $31,000. Well, today, and now this is for people making $15 an hour, and there are millions of people making $11, $12, $9 an hour. Some people still making $7.25 an hour. Well, today it happens that the average landlord in America is asking new tenants to pay, on average, $1,900 a month for rent. $22,800 a year. The average household in America spends over $5,200 a year on groceries. And then, of course, there are the costs of childcare and education, healthcare, medicine, transportation, clothing, cell phone, computer, all things that you need. So you tell me, my friends, tell me how is anyone able to survive when your basic needs cost more than your income? And that is the reality that millions of working-class Americans experience every single day. These are people who go out to work. They work hard, they work in dangerous environments, and yet they fall further and further behind while the people on top get richer and richer. So let us also be very clear that what we are seeing today is not some kind of radical economic transformation that suddenly hit our country. That's not the case. The shrinking of the American middle class has been going on for decades. In America today, I see a nation where the average worker makes $54 a week less than he or she did 50 years ago after adjusting for inflation. You got that? Think about that for a moment. Just think about it and understand why people, working people all over this country, white and black, Latino are just angry. Think about all the incredible advancements in technology that has been made over the past 50 years. You all know what they are. Computers, robotics, artificial intelligence, you name it. And as a result of that exploding technology, we have seen a huge increase in worker productivity that is unparalleled in history. And yet when all is said and done, real weekly wages for the average American worker are lower today than they were in 1973. That's really quite extraordinary. How is that possible? Well, the answer is that virtually all of the economic gains created by modern technology, they have not benefited ordinary working people. Almost all of those gains have gone to the people who own the society, the people on top. Now is it any wonder, given all of that, that today it takes two breadwinners in most households to pay the bills when 50 years ago, in most American homes, it took one breadwinner to do that. When we talk about the conditions facing the American working class, it is not just wages and income, as obviously important as those are. It is also about whether people can access the basic necessities of life. And there is nothing more basic than health care. And in terms of health care, something which the Health Education Labor Committee will obviously be dealing with, I see a nation where over 85 million of our people are either uninsured or underinsured. And as all of you know, we are the only major country on earth, not to guarantee health care to all people. I see a nation where unbelievably over 500,000 people go bankrupt each year because of medically related debt. You got that? You were sick. You had a cancer operation. And you know what you get? You go bankrupt as a result. Does that make any sense to anybody? I see a nation and we don't talk about this at all. Virtually nobody talks about this. Where over 68,000 people die each year because they can't afford their health care. I have talked to doctor after doctor in Vermont and around the country, telling me about patients who walked in the door terribly ill. And the doctor says, why didn't you come when you first felt your symptoms? He said, I don't have any insurance. I can't afford to pay it. And thousands and thousands of people finally crawl into the doctor's office. And it's too late and they die in the United States. I see a nation that spends over twice as much per capita for health care. We don't talk about it very much. We are spending twice as much for health care than other major nations, all of whom by the way guarantee health care to all people. And what we are spending today is unbelievable. Think about it, $13,000 for every man, woman and child. That's $52,000 for a family of four. And yet despite that huge expenditure, our country has worse health care outcomes than most other countries and our life expectancy, how long we live, is shorter than most developed nations. That's the bad news, but the good news is the insurance companies make billions of dollars every single year. And that dynamic for others and sisters has got to change. This broken and dysfunctional health care system cannot even, despite all of the money we spend, produce the number of doctors, nurses, dentists and mental health specialists we desperately need. Can you believe that? We spend $13,000 a person. Insurance companies make billions every year in profit and we can't even produce the doctors and the nurses and the mental health people that we need. I see a nation today that pays by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, while the pharmaceutical industry makes record-breaking profits and more than a few drug executives become billionaires. Not uncommon that these guys become billionaires. Meanwhile, despite billions in government investing, we are spending as a nation and we should. Tens of billions of dollars trying to develop life-saving drugs, despite that huge expenditure, nearly one out of four Americans are unable to afford the medicine their doctors prescribed. It is time for the pharmaceutical industry to pay attention to the needs of the people of this country, not just their stockholders. In this country, the wealthiest nation in the history of the world because Medicare doesn't cover dental care, doesn't cover hearing, doesn't cover vision, there are millions of lower-income seniors who don't have teeth in their mouths. They can't chew their food properly because the cost of dental care is something they cannot afford. And many other seniors literally can't talk to their grandkids because their hearing is gone and they can't afford hearing aids and they can't afford eyeglasses to watch TV. And that's what we're doing on healthcare. And it's time to have a serious discussion about a dysfunctional healthcare system and start doing whatever the major country on Earth does. And that is move toward a system which guarantees healthcare to all as a human right, not a privilege. In terms of education, and education obviously is for so many reasons a basic human need. And in terms of how we treat our young people in general, we don't talk about this much either. I see a nation where disgracefully, we now have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any nation on Earth and millions of children disproportionately black and brown face food insecurity. Now we made some progress, as you will recall, by bringing forth a child tax credit that expired. We've got to bring that child tax credit back again. In terms of education, I see a nation where somehow, somehow we can afford to provide over a trillion dollars on the Trump in tax breaks to the top 1% and large corporations. But our teachers and our children, they get broken chairs and flooded classrooms and inadequate staff support. And where many thousands, many, many thousands of our teachers and teaching staff are inadequately paid. It is not too much to ask in the wealthiest country on Earth that we have the best public educational system in the world. Today I see a nation where hundreds, and this is just unbelievable, given the work shortages, given our needs, giving the competitive global economy. I see a nation where hundreds of thousands of bright young people who have the desire and the ability to get a higher education, they're unable to do so because their families lack the money. And at the same time, I see a nation in which 45 million Americans are drowning in student debt. You shouldn't have to go broke because you got an education. But it's not just higher education. Psychologists have told us for years that the first four years of human life are the most important in terms of intellectual and emotional development. First four years. And yet despite that, I see a nation which has a totally dysfunctional child care system which costs on average over $15,000 a year for a child. You tell me if you're a middle-class working-class person making $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 a year, how do you afford $15,000 a year for your child? And on top of that, there are not enough slots in many parts of the country. People can't even find slots to put their kids in and above and beyond all of that. Despite the important work that child care workers do, they are paid abysmally low wages, averaging about $13.30 an hour. And that is less than a parking attendant or a doggie daycare worker. This is how we treat the workers who take care of the most vulnerable people in our country, the little kids. Meanwhile, on top of all of that, we remain the only major country on Earth not to guarantee paid family and medical leave. So yes, we must work toward creating the best educated workforce in the world, one that prepares our children to succeed in a highly competitive global economy, one that recognizes that a high-quality public education from childhood to adulthood is the right of all, not just the privilege of a few. Now let me say a few words about labor, because Health Education Labor Committee is going to deal with labor big time. And in terms of labor, not only do I see a nation with a rigged economy and an unprecedented level of income and wealth inequality, I see workers from Vermont to California, companies like Starbucks and Amazon, I see workers in hospitals and factories on college campuses fighting back against corporate greed and organizing unions to receive better wages, benefits, and working conditions. That's what we're seeing all over this country, a rebirth of labor activism. But at the same time, unfortunately and unacceptably, I see major corporations engage in vicious and illegal union-busting activities as they attempt to deny workers their constitutional right to form unions. And we got news for those large corporations. You are going to stop breaking the law. Why do we want to grow the union movement and support workers who are trying to organize? The answer is obvious, and that is because unions provide better wages, better benefits, and better working conditions for their members. In fact, union workers make, on average, wages that are about 20% higher than their non-union counterparts. They also have much better healthcare and far better pension plans than non-union employees. And by the way, a lot of people don't recognize this, when unions win decent contracts for their members, they drive up wages for all workers in the country. And when we talk about low-wage jobs in America, we must talk about finally raising the minimum wage to a living wage. Unbelievably, and it really is quite unbelievable, the federal minimum wage today is $7.25 an hour, and it has not been raised since 2009. And tipped minimum wage workers have been stuck at a miserable $2.13 set minimum wage for over 30 years. Hasn't been raised in 30 years. So yes, we must follow the lead of some states around the country and raise the minimum wage to a living wage. We must stand up to the extraordinary greed and power of corporate America and make it possible for their workers to exercise their constitutional rights. That's all workers are asking for to organize unions. We must end the international embarrassment of the United States of America being the only major country on earth that does not guarantee paid family and medical leave. In terms of pensions, I see a nation, and again this is not an issue, very little discussion about, I see a nation where half of older Americans have no retirement savings and no idea how they will ever be able to retire with any shred of dignity. Imagine, you know, being 60, you've worked your whole life, you've got nothing in the bank and you're facing retirement. Millions of people are in that boat. I see a nation where 55% of senior citizens are trying to survive on an income of less than $25,000 a year. Can you imagine that? Being old, trying to get by on $25,000 a year, or less. To my mind, we need to expand the fine benefit pension plans in America which sadly are an endangered species in our country. Further, we must expand social security benefits, not cut them. My fellow Americans, there is a lot of discussion in the media about how divided our nation is. And on many issues, there is no question, but that is absolutely true. On many issues, we are very divided. But what we don't appreciate enough is that on some of the most important issues facing our country, the American people, whether they're Democrats, Republicans, independents, progressives, conservatives, are often quite united. The American people know that we are being ripped off by the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and they want us to substantially lower prescription drug prices. I saw a poll recently. That poll just Republicans. You know what issue was at the top of the list? Lowering the cost of prescription drugs. Whether you're Democrat or Republican, you know we should not be paying ten times more for the same drug sold in Canada or elsewhere. The American people, no matter what their political view may be, know that our healthcare system is outrageously expensive, bureaucratic, and wasteful. And the American people, regardless of their politics, want universal and lower-cost healthcare. The American people, again, regardless of their politics, know that education is essential to our lives and the future of this country and they want high quality and affordable public education from childcare to graduate school. The American people, again, regardless of party affiliation, know that no one can survive on $7.25 an hour minimum wage. The American people want to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. The American people know that workers have a constitutional right to form unions and that corporations that engage in illegal union-busting activities must be held accountable. And these are just a few of the issues within the jurisdiction of the Health Education Labor Committee that a strong majority of the American people want us to address. So my point here is, of course, there are differences, strong political differences in this country, but on many economic issues, working people, whether they're progressive or conservative, understand that corporate greed is destroying this country and they want us to act on their behalf. So if you were to ask me today what is the state of a struggling working class, I would tell you that the working class of this country is united around an agenda that meets the needs of ordinary Americans and not just wealthy billionaire campaign contributors. Our job is to bring those people together. Now, at a time when too many, far too many Americans are giving up on democracy. That's a sad reality. Now is the time for all of us, Democrats, Republicans, independents, to attempt to restore faith in our government. If government ignores your life and your pain and the needs of the kids, your kids, it is understandable that you say, who cares about democracy? Who cares what Congress is doing? They don't care about me. And our job is now, now for Congress to have the courage to take on the powerful corporate interests and their lobbyists and the campaign contributors who flood Capitol Hill and show the American people that our government can work for them and not just the 1%. And let me add, it is imperative that we take the discussion of all of these important issues and more, that we take this discussion outside of the Beltway here in Washington into communities all across this nation. And I intend to see that our committee gets around this country. They hear directly from workers about the struggles that they face on their jobs. I look forward to hearing from seniors who cannot afford the outrageously high healthcare costs which they face every day. I look forward to hearing from young people around the country who want the opportunity to get a decent education but don't want to leave school deeply in debt. And I look forward to hearing from parents who want high quality and affordable childcare for their kids. In this difficult moment in American history, and it is a very difficult moment, let us have the courage to stand together and fight back against corporate greed. Let us fight back against the massive income and wealth inequality which is taking place right now. Let us fight back against a corrupt political system dominated by billionaire campaign contributors. Let us listen to the needs of working families and not just corporate CEOs. Finally, let us stand together and create an economy and a government that works for all, not just the 1%. Thank you all very much.