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FOCUS: Bernie Sanders | Nothing Will Happen if We Look at This Reconciliation Process as a Spectator Sport
Bernie Sanders, Reader Supported News
Sanders writes: "It is no secret that our nation faces enormous needs."
It is no secret that our nation faces enormous needs.
We have more income and wealth inequality than at any time in the last century. More than 90 million Americans are uninsured or under-insured. Seniors lack the dental, hearing and vision care they desperately need, and as a country we pay more for prescription drugs than any other developed country in the world.
Over 500,000 of our people are homeless and more than 18 million households are paying more than 50 percent of their limited incomes on housing. At the same time our child care system is dysfunctional and enormously expensive, and we have one of the highest rates of childhood poverty of any major nation.
Many of our teachers are underpaid and are forced to teach in schools with broken chairs, flooded classrooms, and inadequate support staff. Meanwhile, too many young adults either cannot afford to get a higher education or enter the workforce with obscene amounts of debt.
Our roads and bridges are crumbling and we need to rebuild our water systems, wastewater treatment plants, broadband, and other aspects of our physical infrastructure.
And all of this is occurring while the existential threat of climate change has already ushered in an era with more floods, more extreme weather, more wildfires, more drought, more ocean acidification, more disease, more lost economic activity, and threatens the very habitability of our planet for future generations.
In other words, we live in an unprecedented moment in history, and there is an enormous amount of work that has to be done.
The good news is that the $3.5 trillion Reconciliation Bill written by the Budget Committee is a serious effort at addressing these and other long-neglected crises. And while this compromise budget is less than I had wanted, this proposal will be the most consequential piece of legislation for working people, the elderly, the children, the sick, and the poor since FDR and the New Deal of the 1930s.
The bad news is, passing this legislation will not be easy. It will require taking on the greed and power of corporate America and the billionaire class who have enormous control over what goes on in Washington. It is no secret that they will do everything they can to protect their profits and maintain the status quo in this country.
We are taking on a pharmaceutical industry that has spent $4.7 billion in lobbying and campaign contributions over the past 20 years, an average of almost $250 million per year. And just last week, they launched another seven-figure ad buy against provisions that would save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars and lower the cost of drugs by 50 percent by having Medicare negotiate prescription drug prices — savings that will be used to cover the dental care, hearing aids and eyeglasses seniors desperately need — an idea that a recent Kaiser poll found enjoys the support of almost 90 percent of the American people. Now I get that the pharmaceutical industry owns the Republican Party and that no Republican will vote for this legislation, but there is no excuse for Democrats not supporting it.
We are taking on a fossil fuel industry that, between 2000 and 2016, spent more than $2 billion lobbying against legislation to protect our planet from climate change, and has only ramped up the pace of their efforts since then. They too recently launched a major advertising effort against the bill that would finally take on the threat of climate change by transforming our energy systems away from fossil fuels and toward energy efficiency and sustainable energy — while creating good-paying jobs for working people and young people.
We are taking on business lobbyists that have described our bill as an “existential threat” because at a time when the gap between the rich and everyone else is growing wider, when two people own more wealth than the bottom 40 percent, and when some of the wealthiest people and biggest businesses pay nothing in federal income taxes, we are asking the billionaire class and large profitable corporations to finally pay their fair share in taxes.
That, and more, is what we are up against. In this legislation we are taking on the entire American ruling class who will do everything they can to protect their wealth and power.
This fight will not be easy.
Money dominates almost everything that goes on in Congress.
Wall Street, the pharmaceutical industry, the coal and oil companies, the health care industry, agribusiness and the rest of corporate America spend billions every year not just on campaign contributions, but also on lobbying. And they get what they pay for: the desires of the rich and powerful are well-attended to while the pain of working families is ignored.
But I believe this time could be different.
Yes. I believe this time we can overcome the insatiable greed that exists in much of corporate America.
Yes. I believe we can take on the fossil fuel industry, effectively combat climate change and transform our energy system away from fossil fuel and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy.
Yes. I believe we can take on the pharmaceutical companies and end the international disgrace of being the only country that allows the drug companies to charge whatever they want for prescription drugs, while making sure seniors get the vision, dental, and hearing aids they need.
Yes. I believe we can take on the billionaire class, finally make them start paying their fair share of taxes, and tell them, “No, you can’t have it all. You can’t continue to have huge tax breaks while children go hungry, while people can’t afford medicine, while seniors can’t chew their food, while our planet burns.”
No. We will not be able to accomplish any of these goals through this Reconciliation Bill if we look at this process as a spectator sport, assuming others — especially those in Congress — will do it for us without your participation.
They won’t.
The future is in your hands. So make your voice heard — help me tell my colleagues that yes, people are tuned into this reconciliation debate, and want action:
Please add your name to tell Congress it is time to prioritize the needs of people who don’t know how to manipulate the system like the billionaire class of this country and pass the $3.5 trillion compromise Reconciliation Bill that will finally address the real pain of people in this country while saving our planet for future generations.
Humanity is at a crossroads. We can either continue down the current path of greed, consumerism, oligarchy, war, racism, and environmental degradation. Or we can lead the world in moving in a very different direction.
The choice is ours.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
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