September, 23 2021, 01:54pm EDT

Sanders Calls for $3.5 Trillion Reconciliation Bill
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Thursday delivered remarks on the floor of the U.S. Senate on the need to address the long-neglected crises facing the working class and pass the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill.
His remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below:
"As Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, I want to say a few words about some of the important budgetary issues that Congress is now facing.
WASHINGTON
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Thursday delivered remarks on the floor of the U.S. Senate on the need to address the long-neglected crises facing the working class and pass the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill.
His remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below:
"As Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, I want to say a few words about some of the important budgetary issues that Congress is now facing.
"I want to focus on the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill but before that I want to comment on the looming debt ceiling crisis. Republican leader Mitch McConnell this morning once again reiterated that the Republican Party will not vote to lift the debt ceiling and in extraordinarily irresponsible manner, will not pay the debts incurred under the Trump Administration.
"In his statement, as he has done time and time again, Senator McConnell implies that this debt ceiling has something to do with future spending. It does not. Like anybody who owns a credit card the payments that are made are for past spending, in this case spending incurred under President Trump. And let's be clear: if the United States, the largest economy in the world, defaults on its debt it will plunge not only our country but the entire global economy into a severe economic depression. That means massive unemployment, higher interest rates, severe reduction in government services and possible cuts in Social Security and Medicare.
"The irresponsibility of the Republican leadership is not just something that I worry about. According to press reports, former Republican secretaries of Treasury Hank Paulsen who worked under George W. Bush and Steven Mnuchin, who worked under Donald Trump, both visited with Senator McConnell to make the case about the need to extend the debt ceiling.
"They understand how important it is that the United States of America does not default on its debt and it is about time that my Republican colleagues listened to them.
"Now let's go to reconciliation. There has been a lot of talk about the need to compromise. Well, let me be clear. To a very significant degree that has already taken place. Of the 11 Democratic Members of the Senate Budget Committee, 9 understood the need for a $6 trillion bill which would finally address the unmet needs of the working families of our country as well as begin the process of tackling the existential threat of climate change. My guess is that at least 40 out of the 50 members of the Democratic caucus supported the $6 trillion proposal.
"We compromised - big time. We cut that proposal almost in half and agreed to a $3.5 trillion bill. That to my mind is a major compromise.
"And, as we go forward in this debate, let's talk about why we need every penny in that bill. And, let us, at this point, also make clear that this bill should not add a nickel to the deficit, and that it should be paid for by finally demanding that the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations in this country start paying their fair share of taxes. SO anyone who tells you that a $3.5 trillion bill is going to add to the deficit is not telling the truth. It should and will be fully paid for.
"So what's in this legislation? The corporate media has done a pretty bad job about talking about it so let me talk about some of the most consequential pieces in it.
"First, as a result of the extraordinarily successful American Rescue Plan, we cut childhood poverty in this country by over half. And for black and brown families that number is even higher. We must extend the $300 a month per child direct payment that working class families are now receiving. To not pass this reconciliation bill, and not continue those payments, would plunge those children back into poverty which is morally unacceptable.
"Furthermore, in the United States of America, every person in Congress should be outraged by the dysfunctionality of our childcare system. It is not a radical idea to say that every family in America should be entitled to high quality and affordable childcare. And under this legislation no working family in this country will be paying more than 7 percent of their income for childcare.
"On top of that, we are going to make pre-K education for 3-and 4-year-olds free. Yes, that is right--free. We are going to do what other industrialized countries do and understand that the most important investment we can make is in the little children.
"By the way, when we do that, we are going to allow well over a million women to go back to work because they no longer have to stay home because of lack of affordable childcare.
"In the midst of massive labor shortages in many part of the country creating a strong childcare system is a no brainer.
"Further, at a time when the pharmaceutical industry charges us the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs we are going to demand that Medicare start negotiating prescription drug costs with the pharmaceutical industry. We're also going to significantly lower prescription drug costs for all Americans. And with those savings which should amount to at least $500 billion we are going to do what the overwhelming majority of the American people want us to do and expand Medicare to include the dental, vision and hearing benefits that senior citizens desperately need.
"This is America. Elderly people should not walk around with no teeth in their mouth and not be able to afford to go to a dentist. Grandparents should not be unable to communicate with their grandchildren because they cannot afford hearing aids. And seniors should not be unable to read their daily newspaper because they can't afford a pair of glasses. The need to expand Medicare to cover dental care, hearing aids and eyeglasses is absolutely critical. Nobody denies that oral health, hearing and vision are essential parts of healthcare. We cannot continue to deny seniors these basic healthcare benefits.
"Not surprisingly, that out of all of the provisions in President Biden's Build Back Better plan, expanding Medicare to provide dental, vision and hearing aids is, by far and away, the most popular. According to a June 30th Morning Consult poll, adding dental, vision and hearing benefits to Medicare is supported by 84% of the American people including 89% of Democrats and 79% of Republicans. This is what the American people want and this is what we must deliver to them.
"Given that, it is hard for me to imagine that any member of the House or the Senate would oppose this very popular provision.
"Mr. President, it is a bit embarrassing that our great country is the only major country on Earth not to guarantee paid family and medical leave.
"Imagine that. Every other country in the world, virtually, does that. In America, I have met with women, low-income women, who give birth, and then they have to go back to work in a week or two because they don't have the money to stay home. We are going to end that. We are going to have, as a nation, guaranteed paid family and medical leave.
"We are going to address the reality that many of our younger people are unable to obtain the good-paying jobs that are out there because they lack the higher education.
"Now, I myself will go further than this bill is going to go. I think time is long overdue to make public colleges and universities tuition-free and cancel all student debt. That is not what is in this bill. But what is in this bill says that, at the very least, every American will have the right to get 2 years of community college, and they can use that to get the training they need, to get the good jobs. Maybe it is nursing. Maybe it is something else. But they will also get the credits they need so they can transfer into a 4-year school, making a big step forward in getting young people the ability to get the training they need and the education they need to obtain the good-paying jobs that are out there.
"Mr. President, I know that you are aware that right here in this country, right here on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, you have people sleeping out on the street, and they are sleeping out on the street in every State in this country. In fact, we have almost 600,000 people sleeping out on the streets of the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Well, this legislation will create millions of jobs in housing and in other areas because we are going to build the low income and affordable housing that we need.
"It is not only homelessness. You have 18 million households spending 50 percent of their limited incomes on housing. We need to build low-income and affordable housing, and when we do that, we will create a heck of a lot of good-paying jobs.
"Mr. President, we are an aging society, and whether people have severe disabilities or whether they are just getting old, people would rather stay at home in many cases rather than be forced into nursing homes. What our legislation will do is significantly improve home healthcare in this country and make sure that those people who provide that important service, difficult service, are adequately compensated.
"I know that many of my Republican colleagues don't believe that climate change is real, don't believe that we should do anything about it, but they are dead wrong. And we cannot go home and look our children and grandchildren in the eye knowing what we know, knowing that in many ways, the climate crisis turns out to be worse than what scientists predicted it would be.
"We turn on the TV and we see the unbelievable fires in Oregon and California, and learn that the Siberian fire (the largest in the world) is sending smoke thousands of miles. We learn that July was the hottest month ever, and the climate change is exacerbating extreme weather disturbances like hurricane Ida which brought havoc on Louisiana.
"This legislation takes an important step forward. It doesn't go as far as it should, but it is a major step forward in transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy.
"I know we have heard from my Republican colleagues who are very upset that this will be a partisan bill, which it will be, but let me remind them that they use the so-called reconciliation process recently in two areas--two areas.
"No. 1, they thought it important to go forward in a partisan way, without Democratic support, for the enormously important goal of giving massive tax breaks to billionaires and large corporations which drove up the national debt by $2 trillion. That is how they used the reconciliation process.
"Well, we have a little different idea. We are going to use the reconciliation process and the 50 votes we have with the Vice President to protect the working families of this country, not the billionaire class.
"The other effort that they made in terms of reconciliation was to try--and they came within one vote of doing it; the late John McCain--they would have thrown up to 30 million Americans off of healthcare by ending the Affordable Care Act.
"So they have used reconciliation, and we will use it, except we are going to use it to protect ordinary Americans--the children, the elderly, the sick, and the poor--rather than just the very wealthy or the pharmaceutical industry.
"Mr. President, let me conclude by reiterating what has been said time and time again by the President, by the Majority Leader of the Senate and by the Speaker of the House: There are two extremely important pieces of legislation that we are dealing with and both must be passed together. We need to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill which will help rebuild our roads and bridges and wastewater plants and other physical assets. But even more importantly, we need to address the crises facing working families all over this country.
"When we go forward and do that, when we protect our children and the elderly and the environment, we are going to create millions of good-paying jobs, put people to work rebuilding this country in a way that is long, long overdue."
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As Historic Heatwave Grips Europe, Coalition Says 'No to a Climate Law for Polluters'
"Will the European Commission propose a climate law that ends fossil fuel use and reflects the E.U.'s fair share of climate responsibility? Or will it choose political convenience?"
Jun 30, 2025
As yet another dangerous heatwave pushes temperatures well into the triple digits across much of Europe, climate defenders on Monday renewed calls for stronger action to combat the planetary emergency—including by ensuring that the impending European Climate Law ends fossil fuel use and eschews false solutions including international carbon offsetting.
Croatia, France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain are among the countries where near- or record-high temperatures have been recorded. Portugal and Spain both recorded their hottest-ever June days over the weekend. El Granado in southwestern Spain saw the mercury soar to nearly 115°C (46°C) on Saturday. The heatwave is expected to continue into the middle of the week, with authorities warning of elevated wildfire risk and potential severe health impacts.
"Extreme heat is no longer a rare event—it has become the new normal," United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Sunday on social media. "I'm experiencing it firsthand in Spain during the Financing for Development Conference. The planet is getting hotter and more dangerous—no country is immune. We need more ambitious #ClimateAction now."
On Monday, Real Zero Europe—"a campaign calling on the European Union to deliver real emissions reductions and real solutions to the climate crisis, instead of corporate greenwashed 'net zero' targets"—published a call for an E.U. Climate Law that does not contain provisions for international carbon offsetting, in which countries or corporations compensate for their greenhouse gas emissions by funding projects that reduce emissions in other nations.
🔴 OUT NOW📢 69 NGOs call on the EU to deliver a Climate Law that rejects international carbon offsetting & Carbon Dioxide Removals (#CDR), commits to a full fossil fuel phase-out, and reflects Europe’s fair share of climate responsibility!Read the statement👇www.realzeroeurope.org/resources/st...
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— Real Zero Europe (@realzeroeurope.bsky.social) June 30, 2025 at 2:40 AM
A draft proposal of the legislation published Monday by Politico revealed that the European Commission will allow E.U. member states to outsource climate efforts to Global South nations staring in 2036, despite opposition from the 27-nation bloc's independent scientific advisory board. The outsourcing will enable the E.U. to fund emissions-reducing projects in developing nations and apply those reductions to Europe's own 2040 target—which is a 90% net decrease in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels.
The proposal also embraces carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies like carbon capture and storage, whose scalability is unproven. Climate groups call them false solutions that prolong the fossil fuel era.
"E.U. climate policy stands at a crossroads: Will the European Commission propose a climate law that ends fossil fuel use and reflects the E.U.'s fair share of climate responsibility?" the Real Zero Europe letter says. "Or will it choose political convenience—abandoning that goal under pressure from corporate and populist interests, and turning to risky, unjust carbon offsetting and other false solutions?"
"Taking responsibility for the E.U.'s past and present role in causing the climate crisis means doubling down on a just and full fossil fuel phaseout not hiding behind false solutions as currently proposed," the letter continues. "The law as planned will send a dangerous signal far beyond E.U. borders. The climate and biodiversity crises are already harming people, especially vulnerable communities and populations largely in the Global South, who have least contributed to the climate crisis."
The 69 groups stress that international carbon offsetting "is a smokescreen for giving license to fossil fuel use beyond 2050" that diverts critical resources and public funds from real climate solutions and climate finance."
"Given the scale of climate catastrophe, for the E.U. to allow international offsets and technological CDR gives a lifeline to polluting industries such as the fossil fuel, agribusiness, plastics, and petrochemical industries," the letter states.
"We say no to an E.U. Climate Law that puts polluting industries over people and climate by embracing the use of international offsets and CDR approaches," the letter's signers said. "We call on the Commission to deliver an E.U. Climate Law and its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the U.N. climate negotiations that clearly reflects the bloc's responsibility for the climate crisis. That means a full fossil fuel phaseout and a just transition."
This heatwave is brutal. Temperatures above 40°C in June across France, Spain, Italy...We still hear from right-wing politicians that “it’s just summer.” It’s not. This is the climate crisis courtesy of the fossil fuels industry. It’s not normal.
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— European Greens (@europeangreens.eu) June 30, 2025 at 7:01 AM
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk also addressed the European heatwave on Monday, saying that "the climate crisis is a human rights crisis."
"Rising temperatures, rising seas, floods, droughts, and wildfires threaten our rights to life, to health, to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, and much more," he continued. "The heatwave we are currently experiencing here shows us the importance of adaptation measures, without which human rights would be severely impacted."
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Critics are sounding the alarm as congressional Republicans edge closer to passing a sweeping tax and spending bill desired by U.S. President Donald Trump that would inject tens of billions of dollars of funding into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency at the forefront of the president's immigration crackdown.
"Republicans' Big, Bad Betrayal Bill shovels BILLIONS OF DOLLARS more into ICE's budget. Yes, the same ICE that has arrested U.S. citizens, carried out illegal deportations, and denied members of Congress access to detention facilities. HELL NO," wrote Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) on X on Sunday.
On Monday, the Senate kicked off a vote-a-rama process where senators can demand an unlimited number of votes on amendments to the reconciliation package.
While negotiations on the legislation are still ongoing, the version of the reconciliation bill that was narrowly advanced in the Senate on Saturday includes $29.85 billion for ICE to "remain available through September 30, 2029" for personnel recruitment, technology for "enforcement and removal operations," and other priorities. It also includes $45 billion "for single adult alien detention capacity and family residential center capacity," also available through the same period.
The bill text also includes $46.5 billion for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to spend on border infrastructure, to remain available through September 30, 2029.
Journalist Nicolae Viorel Butler, who reports on immigration for the outlet Migrant Insider, reported on Sunday that all told the measure proposes in excess of $175 billion in "direct immigration-related funding for fiscal year 2025."
This, Butler wrote, reflects "a historic expansion of immigration enforcement operations under a Republican-controlled Congress and the Trump administration."
This money would be a big addition on top of what these agencies already receive. For example, a National Immigration Forum explainer focused on the House version of the reconciliation package noted that $45 billion for ICE detention capacity constitutes an 800% increase in detention funding compared to fiscal year 2024.
"This is the level of funding where all the possibilities for American politics that have been described as hyperbolic over the past decades—the comparisons to Nazi Germany and other nightmares of the 20th century—become logistically possible and politically likely," wrote the philosopher Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò on Bluesky, commenting on the infusion of funding.
In every state, immigration arrests carried out by ICE have sharply increased. Also the number of those arrested and detained by ICE who have no criminal record is up more than 1,400% compared to a year ago, according to The Washington Post.
Increased funding for ICE and immigration enforcement is not the only part of the bill drawing scrutiny.
In May, nonpartisan budget scorekeepers said that the U.S. House of Representatives-passed version of the legislation would, if passed, cut household resources for the bottom 10% of Americans while delivering gains to the wealthiest in the form of tax breaks. Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, called the House version of the legislation the "the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in a single law in U.S. history."
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As health officials across Europe issued warnings Monday about extreme heat that could stretch into the middle of the week in several countries—the kind of dangerous conditions that meteorologists have consistently said are likely to grow more frequent due to human-caused climate change—a top United Nations climate expert told the international body in Geneva that the "defossilization" of all the world's economies is needed.
Elisa Morgera, the U.N. special rapporteur on climate change, presented her recent report on "the imperative of defossilizing our economies," with a focus on the wealthy countries that are projected to increase their extraction and use of fossil fuels despite the fact that "there is no scientific doubt that fossil fuels... are the main cause of climate change."
"Despite overwhelming evidence of the interlinked, intergenerational, severe, and widespread human rights impacts of the fossil fuel life cycle," said Morgera, "these countries have and are still accruing enormous profits from fossil fuels, and are still not taking decisive action."
World leaders must recognize the phase-out of fossil fuels "as the single most impactful health contribution" they could make, she argued.
Morgera named the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada as wealthy nations where governments are still handing out billions of dollars in subsidies to fossil fuel companies each year—direct payments, tax breaks, and other financial support whose elimination could reduce worldwide fossil fuel emissions by 10% by 2030, according to the report.
"These countries are responsible for not having prevented the widespread human rights harm arising from climate change and other planetary crises we are facing—biodiversity loss, plastic pollution, and economic inequalities—caused by fossil fuels extraction, use, and waste," said Morgera.
She also pointed to the need to "defossilize knowledge" by holding accountable the companies that have spent decades denying their own scientists' knowledge that continuing to extract oil, coal, and gas would heat the planet and cause catastrophic sea-level rise, hurricanes, flooding, and dangerous extreme heat, among other weather disasters.
Defossilizing information systems, said Morgera, would mean protecting "human rights in the formation of public opinion and democratic debate from undue commercial influence" and correcting decades of "information distortions" that have arisen from the public's ongoing exposure to climate disinformation at the hands of fossil fuel giants, the corporate media, and climate-denying politicians.
Morgera said states should prohibit all fossil fuel industry lobbying, which companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron spent more than $153 million last year in the U.S. alone—with spending increasing each year since 2020, according to OpenSecrets.
"More recent research has documented climate obstruction—intentional delaying efforts, including through media ownership and influence, waged against efforts for effective climate action aligned with the current scientific consensus," wrote Morgera. "Fossil fuel companies' lobbyists have increased their influence in public policy spaces internationally... and at the national level, to limit regulations and enforcement. They have instilled doubt about the need to act on, and the viability of, renewables, and have promoted speculative or ineffective solutions that present additional lock-in risks and higher costs."
While a transition to a renewable energy-based economy has been portrayed by the fossil fuel industry and its supporters in government as "radical," such a transition "is now cheaper and safer for our economics and a healthier option for our societies," Morgera toldThe Guardian on Monday.
"The transition can also lead to significant savings of taxpayer money that is currently going into responding to climate change impacts, saving health costs, and also recouping lost tax revenue from fossil fuel companies," she said. "This could be the single most impactful health contribution we could ever make. The transition seems radical and unrealistic because fossil fuel companies have been so good at making it seem so."
In addition to lobbying bans, said Morgera, governments around the world must ban fossil fuel advertising and criminalize "misinformation and misrepresentation (greenwashing) by the fossil fuel industry" as well as media and advertising firms that have amplified the industry's disinformation and misinformation.
Several countries have taken steps toward meeting Morgera's far-reaching demands, with The Hague in the Netherlands introducing a municipal ordinance in 2023 banning fossil fuel ads, the Australian Green Party backing such a ban, and Western Australia implementing one.
The fossil fuel industry's "playbook of climate obstruction"—from lobbying at national policymaking summits like the annual U.N. Climate Change Conference to downplaying human rights impacts like destructive storms and emphasizing the role of fossil fuels in "economic growth"—has "undermined the protection of all human rights that are negatively impacted by climate change for over six decades," said Morgera.
Morgera pointed to three ways in which states' obligations under international humanitarian laws underpin the need for a fossil fuel phaseout by 2030:
- The survival of states that contributed minimally to climate change is impaired by loss of territory to sea-level rise and/or protracted unsafe climatic conditions;
- People are substantially deprived of their means of subsistence because of the severe deterioration of entire ecosystems due to climate change due to flooding, drought, and extreme heat; and
- The cultural survival of the populations of small island developing states, Indigenous peoples, people of African descent, peasants and small-scale fishers is impaired by loss of territories, protracted unsafe climatic conditions and/or severe ecosystem degradation.
Morgera's report was presented as more than a third of Tuvaluans applied for a visa to move to Australia under a new climate deal between the two countries, as the Pacific island is one of the most vulnerable places on Earth to rising sea levels and severe storms.
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