I happen to believe also that what, to me, democratic socialism means is we deal with an issue we do not discuss enough... not in the media and not i… - Bernie Sanders

I have been criticized because the proposal for Medicare for All that I introduced includes making sure that undocumented people are also covered. And right now, we have the absurd situation where undocumented people who try to do the right thing -- they're sick; they want to go to the doctor; they don't want to spread this disease -- are now standing and thinking about when ICE is going to deport them. So one of the things that we have to do is to make sure that everybody feels comfortable getting the health care that they need. That should be a general principle, above and beyond the coronavirus. Second of all, we've got to end these terrible ICE raids, which are terrorizing communities all over this country. And thirdly, to answer your question, the time is long overdue for this country to move to comprehensive immigration reform and a path towards citizenship for those 11 million undocumented. And furthermore, on day one as president, I would restore the legal status of the 1.8 million young people of DACA.

Let’s be clear. The $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Act will not only expand Medicare, improve home health care for the elderly and disabled, lower prescription drug prices, combat climate change, and demand that the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share of taxes. It will cut child poverty in half by extending the $300 a month direct payments for working class parents that expire in December. It will allow more than a million women to get back into the workforce by making sure that working families pay no more than 7 percent of their incomes on child care and make pre-school free for every 3 and 4 year old in America. It will end the international embarrassment of the United States of America being the only major country on earth not to guarantee paid family and medical leave as a human right. Under this legislation, we will no longer tell working moms that they must go back to work a week or two after giving birth in order to put food on the table and pay the rent. It will address the labor shortage in America by making community colleges tuition free so that young people have the opportunity to acquire the skills they need for the good-paying jobs that are going unfilled today. It will create hundreds of thousands of jobs by building the affordable housing we need so that millions of Americans are no longer paying over 50 percent of their limited incomes on housing and so 600,000 Americans are no longer sleeping out on the street or in homeless shelters.

The good news is that the House and an overwhelming majority of the Senate Democratic Caucus – as many as 48 out of 50 members – are prepared to pass strong and popular legislation that addresses the long-neglected needs of the working class. At a time when the top 1% is doing phenomenally well, we are ready to reform our regressive tax system and demand that the very rich and large corporations pay their fair share of taxes. We want to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and substantially lower prescription drug prices, expand Medicare to cover hearing, dental and vision, address the crisis of childhood poverty and a dysfunctional child care system, improve the quality of home health care, build the affordable housing we desperately need and create millions of good jobs by combating the existential threat of climate change. The bad news is that two members of the Senate Democratic Caucus, Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, have withheld their support. For six months, President Biden and many of us have engaged in endless negotiations with these senators. These never-ending conversations, which have gone nowhere, must end. The time for voting must begin.