[This bill cuts programs for the most vulnerable, and is totally
unnecessary – why doesn’t Biden invoke the 14th amendment?]
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BERNIE SANDERS: I COULD NOT, IN GOOD CONSCIENCE, VOTE FOR THE DEBT
CEILING BILL  
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Bernie Sanders
June 2, 2023
Guardian
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_ This bill cuts programs for the most vulnerable, and is totally
unnecessary – why doesn’t Biden invoke the 14th amendment? _

Bernie Sanders, by Nathan Congleton (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

 

Let’s be clear. The original debt ceiling legislation
that Republicans
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would have, over a 10-year period, decimated the already inadequate
social safety net of our country and made savage cuts to programs that
working families, the children, the sick, the elderly and the poor
desperately needed.

The best thing to be said about the current deal on the debt ceiling
is that it could have been much worse. Instead of making massive cuts
to healthcare, housing, education, childcare, nutrition assistance and
other vital programs over the next decade, this bill proposes to make
modest cuts to these programs over a 2-year period. This bill will
also prevent a global economic catastrophe by extending the debt
ceiling until January 1, 2025 – when we will have to go through with
this absurd process once again.

Having said that, on Thursday night I voted against the bill.

At a time when this country is rapidly moving toward Oligarchy, with
more wealth and income inequality than we’ve ever experienced, I
could not in good conscience vote for a bill that cuts programs for
the most vulnerable while refusing to ask billionaires to pay a penny
more in taxes. Wall Street and corporate interests may be enthusiastic
about this bill, but I believe it moves us in exactly the wrong
direction.

I could not, in good conscience, vote for a bill that makes it harder
for working families to afford the outrageously high price of
childcare, housing and healthcare while, by cutting IRS funding,
actually make it easier for the wealthiest people and most profitable
corporations in America to cheat on their taxes.

At a time when climate change is an existential threat to our country
and the entire world I could not, in good conscience, vote for a bill
that makes it easier for fossil fuel companies to pollute and destroy
the planet by fast-tracking the disastrous Mountain Valley Pipeline.
When the future of the world is literally at stake we must have the
courage to stand up to the fossil fuel industry and tell them, and the
politicians they sponsor, that the future of the planet is more
important than their short-term profits.

At a time when we spend more on the military than the next 10 nations
combined I could not, in good conscience, vote for a bill that
increases funding for the bloated Pentagon and large defense
contractors that continue to make huge profits by fleecing American
taxpayers with impunity. Let us not forget that the Pentagon is the
only federal agency that cannot pass an independent audit or account
for trillions of dollars in spending.

At a time when the pharmaceutical industry is charging the American
people, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs
I could not, in good conscience, vote for a bill that does nothing to
take on the greed of the big drug companies that are bankrupting
Medicare and cancer patients while spending tens of billions of
dollars on stock buybacks and dividends.

At a time when over 45 million Americans are drowning in student debt
I could not, in good conscience, vote for a bill that eliminates the
moratorium on student loan payments that has been a lifeline to
millions of working-class families during the pandemic.

Deficit reduction cannot just be about cutting programs that working
families, the children, the sick, the elderly and the poor depend
upon. It must be about demanding that the billionaire class and
profitable corporations pay their fair share of taxes, reining in out
of control military spending, saving Medicare tens of billions on
prescription drugs costs and ending billions of dollars in corporate
welfare that goes to the fossil fuel industry and other corporate
interests.

The fact of the matter is that this bill was totally unnecessary. The
President has the authority and the ability to eliminate the debt
ceiling today by invoking the 14th Amendment. I look forward to the
day when he exercises this authority and puts an end, once and for
all, to the outrageous actions of the extreme right-wing to hold our
entire economy hostage in order to protect their corporate sponsors.

_Bernie Sanders [[link removed]] is a US Senator, and
Chairman of the health education labor and pensions committee. He
represents the state of Vermont, and is the
longest-serving independent
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Congress_

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