The Public Record
Bernie Sanders is an American politician and activist who has served as the junior United States senator from Vermont since 2007. A member of the Independent party, Sanders is known for his progressive policies and advocacy for social justice, healthcare reform, and income equality. He previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1991 to 2007, where he was the first independent elected to the House in 40 years. Throughout his career, Sanders has been a vocal critic of economic inequality and corporate influence in politics.
If somebody says, 'I am going to build you this weapons system for $5 billion,' and then they come back and say, 'Oh, I am sorry, it cost $10 billion,' is there somebody at the Department of Defense that says, 'Well, you are going to have…
I think it is important that we focus on the elephant in the room, which is the Pentagon.
I appreciate very much, Mr. Chairman, the hearing that you held in March on the need for an audit of the Department of Defense.
I think there is widespread agreement that there is something wrong when the Pentagon is the only Federal agency in the country that has not been able to pass an independent audit 28 years after Congress required it to do so.
Twenty-eight years does seem to be enough time for the Pentagon under Democratic and Republican leadership to maybe get its act together and give us an audit.
83 percent of those tax benefits by the end of the 10-year period go to the top 1 percent.
They could add the other $19 million to the cost of their F-35s, can't they, pretty easily?
I introduced legislation that would lift the cap on taxable Social Security income for people making $250,000 a year or more.
So what I would say--and, Dr. Hall, while we are at it, talk a little bit about income and wealth inequality.
It seems to me that we may have a serious problem above and beyond cost overruns.
Do we have an epidemic of fraud and illegal behavior within the defense contractors industry?
But, presumably, Mr. Dodaro, doesn't somebody at the DoD know that, know what you are talking about?
So we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars defending ourselves from China while major corporation after major corporation is shutting down in the United States.
We cannot maintain a passion for deficits that evaporates as soon as it bumps up against tax benefits for big oil.
On page 128 of your report on the budget and the economy, however, the CBO projects that the Trump tax plan will increase the deficit by nearly $1.9 trillion over the next 11 years.
The President's tax plan is not going to lower the deficit. According to the CBO, it is going to increase the deficit.
You do not do that by cutting Social Security. What you do do is say to the wealthiest people in this country, who in many ways have never had it so good, you recognize the fact that income and wealth inequality is worse today than at any…
What we should not be doing as a Nation is giving unbelievable tax breaks to billionaires, and then say, 'Oh, we have got to cut Social Security or take away health care benefits from the elderly in this country.'
The results are in, and the nonpartisan experts at CBO tell us that not only will the Trump tax plan not pay for itself, it will add nearly $1.9 trillion to the Federal deficit over the next 11 years.
I apologize, Mr. Chairman, but what I would like to get back from you is your ideas of what we can do about excessive CEO salaries.
All right. And what happens, tell me what we do when somebody says, 'Hey, sorry, you are going to have to give me more money for the same contract that I agreed to'?
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