Bernie Sanders Quotes

At a time when working families continue to struggle, poll after poll shows that the vast majority of the American people support the provisions in President Joe Biden's $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Act. Some 88 percent believe we should lower the cost of prescription drugs, 84 percent believe we should expand Medicare to include dental care, hearing aids and eye glasses, 73 percent support establishing Paid Family and Medical Leave, and 67 percent want universal Pre-K. Further, 67 percent believe the federal government should raise taxes on high-income people and corporations to help pay for these desperately needed programs – which is what this legislation does. So, given this overwhelming support, why is it taking so long for Congress to pass this bill? The answer is simple. Follow the money. As part of our corrupt, big-money dominated political system, the pharmaceutical industry is now spending hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying, campaign contributions and television ads to defeat this legislation because it does not want Medicare to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices. In order to increase their profits they want American taxpayers to continue paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for our medicine – sometimes ten times more than the people in other countries. Last year alone, while nearly one out of four Americans could not afford to fill the prescriptions their doctors wrote, six of the largest pharmaceutical companies made nearly $50 billion in profits and the ten highest paid executives in the industry made more than $500 million in compensation. In order to preserve their corrupt and greedy pricing system, the drug companies hired nearly 1,500 lobbyists, including former leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties, to protect their interests. That is 3 lobbyists for every member of Congress. Unbelievable!

Our country faces unprecedented challenges today. They cannot be resolved with half-steps or compromises. There is not a middle ground between the insatiable greed of uber-capitalism and a fair deal for the working class. There is not a middle ground as to whether or not we save the planet. There is not a middle ground about whether or not we preserve our democracy and remain a society based on equal protection for all. Democrats face the most fundamental of all choices. They must choose whether to be on the side of the working class men and women who create the wealth of this country, or to be on the side of the billionaire class, and the wealthy campaign donors who hoard wealth for their own self-interest. By making unequivocal decisoon as to which side they are on in the class war, Democrats can finally enact policies to overcome uber-capitalism and the greed, inequality, and bigorty that have denied this country the promise of "liberty and justice for all."
This is the stuff of a political revolution. A political revolution that every poll tells us the American people want. The danger for the Democratic Party is not being too bold. It's being too cautious. It's time, finally, for the Democrats to recignize that good policy is good politics. It's good for the country. It's good for the world. Let's do it!

Can I respond? Amy used the word alienating. Hey, Amy, my favorability nationally I believe are the highest up here, as a matter of fact. All right. But the point is -- the point is the way we are going to beat Trump, which is what everybody up here wants, is we need a campaign of energy and excitement. We need to have the largest voter turnout in the history of the United States. We need to bring working people back in to the Democratic Party. We need to get young people voting in a way they have never done before. That is what our campaign is about.

To my mind, in a democratic society, constituents have a right to know how their senators vote on some of the most important issues facing the country. If Manchin, Sinema and Senate Republicans want to sink the Build Back Better package and then go on vote against individual bills that do exactly what the American people want: lowering prescription drug costs, demanding the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, expanding Medicare, improving home healthcare, extending the Child Tax Credit, building affordable housing, addressing the crisis of childhood poverty, making a wildly expensive child care system affordable and combating climate change, they should have that opportunity. And then they can go home and try to explain their votes to their constituents. That’s what democracy is supposed to be about.

First, we must increase the direct payments passed by Congress in December from $600 to $2,000 for every working-class adult and their children. On this issue, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, several Republicans in the House and the Senate and undoubtedly millions of struggling Americans – who wanted more stimulus in December –would agree. But given the enormous crises facing the country, that is not enough. Through reconciliation, we must pass a major Covid-relief package that expands emergency unemployment benefits to $600 a week, provides aid to state and local governments to prevent mass layoffs, enacts hazard pay for frontline workers, saves the US Postal Service, addresses the crisis of homelessness and ensures that no one in America goes hungry or is evicted. During the crisis, we must provide emergency health care to all by requiring Medicare to pay the medical bills of the uninsured and under-insured. We must fully fund Covid-19 testing, tracing and vaccine distribution. At a time when our primary care health care system is faltering, and when millions have no medical home, we must also substantially increase funding for community health centers and the National Health Service Corps, which provides scholarships and forgive student debt of medical professionals who agree to work in underserved areas.

BASH: Senator Sanders, Senator Sanders, let me just follow up with you about an issue that you're having. For the second consecutive presidential election, you're struggling to gain wide support from African-Americans. Why is your message not resonating with African- American voters?

Poverty is increasing. And if wages are going down, I don’t know why we need millions of people to be coming into this country as guestworkers who will work for lower wages than American workers and drive wages down even lower than they are right now. ... You have guestworker programs that have been described by the , one of the important institutions in this country who studies these issues, as guestworkers programs akin to slavery, where people came in. They were cheated. They were abused. They were humiliated. And if they stood up for their rights, they would be thrown out of the country. I supported the 2013 immigration reform bill. And what I believe right now is not only that we need comprehensive . ... In this country, immigration reform is a very hot debate. It’s divided the country. But I would hope very much, that as we have that debate, we do not, as Donald Trump and others have done, resort to racism and xenophobia and bigotry. This idea of suddenly, one day or maybe a night, rounding up 11 million people and taking them outside of this country is a vulgar, absurd idea that I would hope very few people in America support.

Occasionally, it might be a good idea to be honest about American foreign policy.

No, I'm very proud of being Jewish. And being Jewish is so much of what I am. Look, my father's family was wiped out by Hitler in the Holocaust. I know about what crazy and radical and extremist politics mean. I learned that lesson as a tiny, tiny child when my mother would take me shopping, and we would see people working in stores who had numbers on their arms because they were in Hitler's concentration camps. I'm very proud of being Jewish. And that's an essential part of who I am as a human being.

Look, at this particular moment in history, and perhaps at any moment in history, despair is not an option.

The Biden administration has pushed for a global minimum corporate tax. This is a good step toward ending the race to the bottom. But we must think even bigger: a global minimum wage, which would strengthen the rights of workers around the world, providing millions more with the chance for a decent, dignified life and diminishing the ability of multinational corporations to exploit the world’s neediest populations. To help poor countries raise their living standards as they integrate into the global economy, the United States and other rich countries should significantly increase their investments in sustainable development. For the American people to thrive, others around the world need to believe that the United States is their ally and that their successes are our successes. Biden is doing exactly the right thing by providing $4 billion in support for the global vaccine initiative known as COVAX, by sharing 500 million vaccine doses with the world, and by backing a WTO intellectual property waiver that would enable poorer countries to produce vaccines themselves. China deserves acknowledgment for the steps it has taken to provide vaccines, but the United States can do even more. When people around the world see the American flag, it should be attached to packages of lifesaving aid, not drones and bombs. Creating true security and prosperity for working people in the United States and China alike demands building a more equitable global system that prioritizes human needs over corporate greed and militarism. In the United States, handing billions more in taxpayer dollars to corporations and the Pentagon while inflaming bigotry will not serve these goals.

In terms of labor and our economy, we must recognize that we live in a period of more income and wealth inequality than at any time in the last hundred years. While the very rich become richer and three people now own more wealth than the bottom half of American society, 60% of American workers live paycheck to paycheck and millions are trying to exist on starvation wages. Meanwhile, we have a pathetic federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour which has not been raised since 2009. As more and more workers try to improve their standard of living by forming unions, they are facing fierce and illegal union busting from such employers as Starbucks, Amazon, McDonalds and other major employers.

Republicans are constantly on the watch to exploit grievances. And what of Democrats? Do they counter the GOP strategies that deflect attention from the real sources of pain and frustration among working-class voters of all backgrounds? Ask yourself: What is the overall message of the Democratic president, Democratic congressional leaders, and the Democratic Party leaders? If Republicans have defined minorities or immigrants or gay people as "the enemy," and "the problem," who are Democrats calling out as the real culprits? Who are Democrats holding responsible for the pain that so many Americans are experiencing? It's not enough to simply say that the Republicans are engaging in ugly politics when they target immigrants, women, people of color, and the LGBTQ community. It's not enough simply to say that Trump and his followers are extremists who do not believe in democracy and the rule of law. Democrats should be making it absolutely clear that the people the Republicans take their money from, and the people whom Republican policies serve—the very rich and the very powerful individuals who seek an America where uber-capitalism defines every aspect of our economy and of our society—are the problem. There is a reason why Republicans oppose saving the planet, oppose taxing the rich, oppose regulating corporations. And oppose responding to inflation by addressing corporate price gouging and profiteerring. They are delivering for their billionaire donors and their corporate sponsors. Pure and simple. Democrats should be making it clear that they are prepared to challenge the rich and powerful on behalf of the working class. This will resonate with the American people in ways that the GOP lies never could. Unfortunately, this economic justice message is rarely if ever delivered by the Democrats. And that has a lot to do with our broken campaign finance system and Democrats' dependency on campaign contributions from the wealth and powerful.

If there is going to be class warfare in this country, it’s time that the working class of this country won that war and not just the corporate elite. (Senator Sanders was speaking to the Iowa AFL-CIO convention summer 2019)

I learned a great deal about immigration as a child because my father came from Poland at the age of 17, without a nickel in his pocket, without knowing one word of English. He came to the United States to escape the crushing poverty that existed in his community, and to escape widespread anti-Semitism. And, it was a good thing that he came to this country because virtually his entire family was wiped out by Hitler and Nazi barbarism... The underlying principles of our government will not be racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, and religious bigotry. I did not come from a family that taught me to build a corporate empire through housing discrimination. I protested housing discrimination, was arrested for protesting school segregation, and one of the proudest days of my life was attending the March on Washington for jobs and freedom led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.