Shay Totten on December 11, 2010 at 02:02 PM
On Friday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) captured the nation's attention with an eight-and-a-half hour speech on the Senate floor that specifically railed against proposed tax cuts for the wealthy, and more generally at capitalism run amok.
If you missed the speech on C-SPAN 2, the network put up the speech in three parts (links can be found in my Friday post).
Sanders' stem-winder against Walll Street greed, capitalist excess and laissez faire government has also been entered into the Congressional Record.
Below is the full record of his speech, which includes two colloquies, one with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and one with Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA). It comes in just shy of 70,000 words.
The Senate is scheduled to truly debate the merits of the proposed tax cut deal on Monday, a deal Sanders has criticized since it was first announced last week. We'll learn then if Sanders' speech has had any effect on his colleagues and their constituents.
Perhaps Sanders' staff should print up his speech in a nice little booklet (a little red booklet perhaps?) and package it along with a DVD of the speech. Proceeds of any sales could be used to pay down the debt. It'd be a great stocking stuffer for your favorite socialist. Or, better yet, that Tea Party uncle you love to debate at holiday meals.
So, kick back and scroll.
(Author's note to readers: I didn't do a lot of formatting changes, given the amount of text involved, so apologies for any missed punctuation or incorrect spacing.)
“Furthermore, according to a report from Citizens For Tax Justice, 82 Fortune 500 companies in America--I guess that is 82 out of 500--paid zero or less in Federal income taxes in at least 1 year from 2001 to 2003. That is a report from Citizens For Tax Justice. And the Citizens For Tax Justice report goes on to say:
In the years they paid no income tax, these companies earned $102 billion in U.S. profits. But instead of paying $35.6 billion in income taxes, as the statutory 35 percent corporate tax rate seems to require, these companies generated so many excess tax breaks that they received outright tax rebate checks from the U.S. Treasury totaling $12.6 billion.
That is from the Citizens For Tax Justice report.“
“ According to the Citizens for Tax Justice, if the Bush tax breaks for the top 2 percent are extended, these are some of the people who will benefit and what kind of benefits they will receive: Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of News Corporation, would receive a $1.3 million tax break next year. Mr. Murdoch is a billionaire. Do we really think he needs that? Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan Chase, whose bank got a $29 billion bailout from the Federal Reserve, will receive a $1.1 million tax break. Trust me, Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan Chase, is doing just fine. Vikram Pandit, the CEO of Citigroup, the bank that got a $50 billion bailout, would receive $785,000 in tax breaks. Ken Lewis, the former CEO of Bank of America--a bank that got a $45 billion bailout--the guy is already fabulously wealthy--would receive a $713,000 tax break. The CEO of Wells Fargo--these are the largest banks in America; the CEOs of these banks are already making huge compensation. John Stumpf, who is the CEO of Wells Fargo, would receive a $318,000 tax break every single year. The CEO of Morgan Stanley, John Mack, whose bank got a $10 billion bailout, would receive a $926,000 a year tax break. The CEO of Aetna, Ronald Williams, would receive a tax break worth $875,000.”