Capitol Words a project of the Sunlight Foundation

Sen. Bernard Sanders

Mr. President, it is no great secret that our country today faces many enormously difficult problems. We remain in the midst of a very serious recession. Real unemployment is at about 15 percent. Our middle class continues to decline. The gap between the very rich and everybody else is growing wider. Fifty million Americans have no health insurance. Millions of young people are struggling, trying to figure out how they are going to make it into college and pay for their college education. But in the midst of all of those problems, I hope very much that we do not forget about the problems facing one of the most vulnerable sectors of our society; that is, senior citizens.

We are an aging population. That is no secret. Today, and every day, some 10,000 Americans reach the age of 65. If we as a nation do not begin to address the very serious reality of an aging population, we are going to be in a lot of trouble that we are not anticipating.

One of the issues we have to understand is that not only are we an aging population, but many of those people who are becoming 65 and older are dealing with issues of poverty. Incredibly enough, 20 percent of the seniors in this country are living on average incomes of $7,500 per year--$7,500 per year average income for the bottom 20 percent of seniors in this country. Frighteningly, and embarrassingly, more and more seniors in this country are literally going hungry. Today, there are almost 1 million seniors who go hungry and many more who face the threat of hunger. That should not be happening in the United States of America.

What America is supposed to be about is that when we age, we can live out our remaining years with security and dignity, not trying to find food in order to stay alive.

Now, that is the bad news. The good news is that we have Federal legislation called the Older American Act which, to some degree, begins to address these very serious problems.

I am happy to announce, as the chairman of the Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, we are introducing legislation to reauthorize and improve the Older Americans Act.

The legislation we are offering is going to do its very best to say senior citizens in this country will not go hungry. This legislation is going to significantly increase funding for senior centers all over this country, to provide congregate meal programs in senior centers. In my view, these congregate meal programs are enormously important, not only because they provide good nutrition to seniors all over our Nation but also they allow seniors to come together to socialize, to talk to each other, to get some of the professional help they need in their waning years. So we have to strengthen the congregate meal program, and that is what this bill does.

In addition to that, there is another program which is almost life and death to some of the most fragile and vulnerable people in this country; that is, the Meals on Wheels Program. What Meals on Wheels is about--it takes place all over this country--is, you have people in senior centers and in other institutions who take meals--a good, quality, nutritious hot meal--to seniors, sometimes living at the end of a dirt road in Vermont or in Utah or in New Hampshire. These are people who cannot leave their homes, especially in the wintertime. These are people who, in some cases, would not survive if they did not have that Meals on Wheels Program.

I wish to take this opportunity to thank the many volunteers from senior centers and other institutions who get in their cars and trucks to take these hot meals to seniors all over this country through the Meals on Wheels Program.

What we are finding in my State of Vermont--and what we are finding around the country--is, many senior centers simply do not have the resources now to accommodate the growing number of seniors who need the Meals on Wheels Program.

Let me further say to any of my friends who say: Senator Sanders, this is a good idea. It is going to cost money. Yes, it will. Increased funding for Meals on Wheels and congregate meals will cost additional revenue. But at the end of the day, the Federal Government will save money. We have had hearings on this issue. We have had physicians come forward, and they say one of the reasons seniors end up in the hospital, seniors end up in the emergency room, is because they are malnourished. Sometimes, literally, because of poor nourishment, they fall, break their hips, at great expense to Medicaid or Medicare. So not only is it the right and moral thing to do to keep seniors in this country from going hungry; in the long run, we save money by keeping them healthy.

Furthermore, in this bill, we are going to do something I think is long overdue. There has been a lot of discussion in the Senate and in the House about Social Security. Some of my friends--often Republicans, sometimes Democrats--think we should cut Social Security, we should try to move toward a balanced budget by cutting funding for some of the most vulnerable people in this country. I strongly oppose that.

One of the arguments brought forth to cut Social Security is: The COLA--the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly; how we determine what the COLA is--it is too generous. It is inadequate. When I tell that to senior citizens in Vermont, do you know what they do? They laugh. They literally laugh when I tell them there are people in Washington, DC, who believe the formulation as to how we determine COLAs is too generous, and they say: Bernie, we have not gotten a COLA for the last 2 years, so how is this too generous? They are, of course, right.

The way we, in my view, formulate the COLA right now is inadequate, not because it is too generous but quite the contrary. The truth is, seniors' purchasing needs are different than the general population. Everybody knows that. Seniors spend a higher percentage of their income on prescription drugs. They spend it on health care. In cold-weather States such as mine and New Hampshire, they spend it on keeping warm. Senior citizens are not out there, by and large, buying flat-screen TVs or laptop computers or iPhones or iPads. Their money is going into health care.

What has been happening in recent years is, while the cost of some products--electronics in general--has been going down, the cost of prescription drugs and health care has been going up. So when you tell seniors their COLA is too generous, they tell you that makes no sense at all because they are spending more and more on health care, prescription drugs, staying warm in the wintertime.

So what we have done in this bill is requested that the Bureau of Labor Statistics improve the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly, or CPI-E, by including more of the items seniors spend money on, such as prescription drugs and other health care costs. We must have a more accurate measure for COLAs for seniors, and I believe this is the path to a fair COLA.

I look forward to working with all the Members of the Senate to make sure we do right by our parents and our grandparents, that we make sure seniors in this country can live out their remaining years in security and dignity by reauthorizing a strong and fair Older Americans Act in the coming months.

I especially want to applaud Senators Kohl, Mikulski, Casey, and Franken for introducing other thoughtful, innovative, and important Older Americans Act amendments.

We are at a critical moment in American history. In the midst of all the other challenges we face, let us not turn our backs on those who sacrificed, who fought the wars, who built the economies that made this country great. Let us support a strengthened and improved Older Americans Act.