Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders
Bernard "Bernie" Sandersis an American politician, serving as the junior United States Senator from Vermont since 2007. Sanders is the longest-serving independent in U.S. congressional history. He has always caucused with the Democratic Party, which has entitled him to committee assignments and at times given Democrats a majority. Sanders became the ranking minority member on the Senate Budget Committee in January 2015; he had previously served for two years as chair of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee. He publicly identified...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth8 September 1941
CityBrooklyn, NY
CountryUnited States of America
As a result of the digital age and the decline of first-class mail, there is no question that the Postal Service must change and develop a new business model.
I was not a great student at the University of Chicago. I think that is - the record will bare me out. But I spent a lot of time reading history, sociology, psychology - reading everything except what I was supposed to read for class the next day.
We have to say to the billionaire class, enough is enough. You cannot have it all. You are going to pay more in taxes.
The United States has got to join the rest of the industrialized world in making sure that working families of the middle class have benefits that they absolutely need. We are the only major country on Earth that does not guarantee health care to all people as a right. We are the only major country on Earth that does not provide paid family and medical leave. There are many countries around the world which make sure that public colleges and universities are tuition-free. In our country, it's becoming increasingly difficult to afford to go to college.
We did phenomenally well with young people. I think we did well with working class people.
We will do well when young people, when working-class people come out. We do not do well when the voter turnout is not large. We did not do as good a job as I had wanted to bring out a large turnout.
The TPP is another corporate-backed agreement that is the latest in a series of trade policies which have cost us millions of decent-paying jobs, pushed down wages for American workers and led to the decline of our middle class. We want American companies to create decent-paying jobs in America, not just low-wage countries like Vietnam, Malaysia or China. The TPP must be defeated.
This is what oligarchy looks like: Today, the top one-tenth of 1 percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. The top one-hundredth of 1 percent makes more than 40 percent of all campaign contributions. The billionaire class owns the political system and reaps the benefits from it.
The billionaire class fully understands what is at stake. That's why a handful of them are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the current elections. Their goal is not to strengthen the middle class, but continue the trend in which the rich are getting richer at the expense of everyone else.
Are we prepared to take on the enormous political power of the billionaire class or do we continue to slide into economic and political oligarchy?
Message to the billionaire class: You can't have it all!
The Fed has got to become a more democratic institution that is responsive to the needs of the middle class, not just Wall Street CEOs.