Page:Congressional Record - 2010-12-10.pdf/14

S8742 up these financial institutions. But when you have a handful of banks that received huge bailouts from the Federal Government that are issuing two-thirds of the credit cards in this country, it seems to me to be somewhat absurd that the Fed did not say to them: Sorry, you can't charge people 25 or 30 percent interest rates on your credit cards. The same principle applies to mortgages. I don't have to tell anybody in this country that we have seen millions of folks lose their homes through foreclosure, and once again we see that the four largest banks in this country—Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup—issue half of all mortgages. Four banks issue two-thirds of the credit cards and half of the mortgages. We bail these financial institutions out. Don't they have some responsibility to the American people? How many more Americans could have remained in their homes if the Fed had required those bailed-out banks to reduce mortgage payments as a condition of receiving these secret loans?

In terms of the interest rates on credit cards, a lot of people don't know this, but right now the banks are able to charge as much as they want to charge, but, in fact, credit unions are not.

Right now, we are looking at a situation where over one-quarter of all credit cardholders in this country are now paying interest rates above 20 percent and in some cases as high as 79 percent. In my view, when credit card companies charge over 20 percent interest, they are not engaged in the business of making credit available to their customers; they are involved in extortion and loan-sharking—nothing essentially different than gangsters who charge outrageously high prices for their loans and who break kneecaps when their victims can't afford to pay them. So that is where we are right now.

I get calls—and I am sure every other Senator gets calls—from constituents who are very upset. They are going deeper and deeper into debt because they can't pay 25 or 30 percent interest rates on their credit cards. We bailed out the credit card companies. There was no provision that said: Stop ripping off the American people. Stop these companies from committing usury.

We are working on legislation that would say to these private banks not to charge any more money for the credit they provide than do the credit unions. It is going to be a tough fight because the lobbyists from Wall Street are all over this place. Wall Street spends huge amounts of money in campaign contributions, and it is going to be tough. But I think we need to pass that. I think the Fed needs to be much more active, in terms of what kinds of interest rates credit card companies should be paying.

Today, I am going to focus a lot, obviously, on an agreement reached between the President and the Republican leadership, which I think does not serve the American people well. One of the areas, as I mentioned earlier, where I think we could do a lot better in addressing the crisis of high unemployment in this Nation is by investing the kinds of money we need in our infrastructure.

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, they graded America's roads, public transit, and aviation with a D. They said we must invest $2.2 trillion over the next 5 years simply to get a passable grade. Unfortunately, in the agreement struck between the President and the Republican leadership, to the best of my knowledge, not one nickel is going into investing in our infrastructure.

Let me tell you why we need to invest in infrastructure. A, that is where you can create the millions of jobs we desperately need in order to get us out of this recession. Second of all, we need to invest in infrastructure because, if we don't, we will become less and less competitive internationally.

According to the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, $225 billion is needed annually for the next 50 years to upgrade our surface transportation system to a state of good repair and create a more advanced system. The Federal Highway Administration reports that $130 billion must be invested annually for a 20-year period to improve our bridges and the operational performance of our highways. At present, one in four of the Nation's bridges is either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. One in four of our bridges is either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Yet in this agreement struck by the President and the Republican leadership, to the best of my knowledge, not one nickel is going into our infrastructure. We need to invest in our infrastructure. We need to improve our infrastructure. When we do that, we can create millions of jobs.

The Federal Transit Administration says $22 billion must be invested annually for a 20-year period to improve conditions and performances for our major transit systems. In Vermont, the situation is no different than in the rest of the country. Thirty-five percent of Vermont's 2,700 bridges—nearly 1,000 bridges—are functionally obsolete. In recent years, we have had to shut down bridges, which caused a lot of inconvenience to people who live in those areas, to workers who had to get to work using a bridge. Nearly half the bridges in Vermont have structural deficiencies. Rural transit options are few and far between, making rural, low-income Vermonters especially vulnerable to spikes in gas prices. In other words, in Vermont, and in other areas of rural America, you have one choice in the vast majority of cases as to how you get to work. That one choice is that you get in your car, you pay $3 for a gallon of gas, and that is it. That is because rural transportation in this country is very weak.

We can create jobs building the buses and vans we need, making it easier and cheaper for workers in rural America to get to work. In urban areas, it is no different. Transit systems in Chicago, New York, and even here in Washington, DC, are in disrepair. Let's improve and repair them. That makes us more efficient, more productive, and more competitive, and it creates jobs now. Not one nickel, as far as I can understand, has been invested in our infrastructure in this agreement.

The United States invests just 2.4 percent of GDP in infrastructure; whereas, Europe invests twice that amount.

Here is something I think every American should be keenly aware of and very worried about. I don't have to tell anybody that the Chinese economy is exploding every single day in almost every way. In China, they are investing almost four times our rate—or 9 percent—of their GDP annually in their infrastructure. Years ago, I was in Shanghai, China. I was coming from the airport to downtown as part of a congressional delegation. While we were on the bus coming in, my wife noticed something. She said: What was that? There was a blur that went by the window. Of course, I didn't notice it; she did. It turned out that blur was an experimental train they were working on—high-speed rail, which is now operational there, and other similar prototypes are being developed in China. Here we are, the United States of America, which for so many years led the world in so many ways, and now you are seeing a newly developing country such as China with high-speed rail all over their country, making them more productive and efficient, and in our cities, our subways are breaking down. Amtrak is going 50, 60 miles an hour, and the Chinese and Europeans have trains going hundreds of miles an hour.

This is the United States of America. Maybe I am old-fashioned. I think we can do it too. I think we can rebuild our rail system, make our country more efficient and create jobs.

China invested $186 billion in rail from 2006 to 2009, and according to the New York Times, within 2 years, they will open 42 new high-speed rail lines, with trains reaching speeds of 200 miles an hour. That is China. So I think if China can do it, the United States of America can do it. That is the way to rebuild America, make us stronger and create jobs.

By 2020, China plans to add 26,000 additional miles of tracks for freight and travel, as well as 230,000 miles of new or improved roads, and 97 new airports—97 new airports. Does anybody in America have the same problem I have when you go to the airport, where you are waiting in line and you have to deal with all the problems of older airports? China is building 97 new ones. We are not. If we are going to be effective in the international economy, and if our kids will have decent jobs, it is high