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In just a few days, Democrats will control the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.
And, in this unprecedented moment, the new Democratic majority must show that it has the courage to act boldly and decisively in addressing the multiple crises we now face. Yes. We can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time.
We can impeach Trump. We can process President Biden’s nominees. And yes. We can pass legislation that addresses the enormous crises facing working families in this country.
Today in America, as a result of the pandemic and economic meltdown, tens of millions of workers have lost their jobs and their incomes. Half of workers are living paycheck to paycheck. Emergency food shelves have unprecedented levels of demand and cars are lined up for miles for nutritional assistance.
Today in America, more than 90 million Americans are either uninsured or underinsured. That means they cannot go to a doctor when they get sick. How frightening is that during the midst of a global pandemic?
Today in America, millions of families are worried about being evicted from their apartments or losing their homes. In the midst of the worst public health crisis in 100 years, people are actually worried about where they’re going to be sleeping next month. Outrageous.
Today in America, our education system from childcare to graduate school is in absolute chaos. The majority of young people in this country have seen their education disrupted and it is likely that hundreds of colleges will soon cease to exist.
Now is the time to get our priorities right, and that starts with getting the American people the help they desperately need right now.
The good news is we can do that through a process called “budget reconciliation” that requires only a simple majority of votes in the Senate, not 60 votes.
This is something my Republican colleagues have used in the past — both under Bush and under Trump. They have used reconciliation for tax breaks for the rich and large corporations, and they used reconciliation to try and repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Well, as the incoming Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, I am going to use reconciliation too, but in a somewhat different way. Instead of providing for the rich and the powerful, we're going to aggressively use reconciliation to help the working families of our country.
What does all of this mean for the average American?
It means that we aggressively crush the pandemic and enable the American people to return to their jobs and schools. This will require a federally-led emergency program to produce the quantity of vaccines that we need and get them into peoples' arms as quickly as possible.
It means that during the severe economic downturn we're experiencing, we must make sure that all Americans have the financial resources they need to live with dignity. We must increase the $600 in direct payments for every working-class adult and child that were recently passed to $2,000, raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, expand unemployment benefits and prevent eviction, homelessness and hunger.
It means that, during this raging pandemic, we must guarantee healthcare to all. We must also end the international embarrassment of the United States being the only major country on earth not to provide paid family and medical leave to workers.
It means making pre-kindergarten and childcare universal and available to every family in America.
But that is not enough. This year we must also pass a second reconciliation bill that deals with the major structural changes that our country desperately needs. Ultimately, we must confront the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality and create a country that works for all and not just the few. Americans should no longer be denied basic economic rights that are guaranteed to people in virtually every other major country on earth.
This means creating millions of good-paying jobs rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and constructing affordable housing, modernizing our schools, combating climate change and making massive investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy.
It means making public colleges, universities, trade schools and HBCUs tuition free and forcefully addressing the outrageous level of student debt for working families.
And it means making the wealthiest Americans and most profitable corporations pay their fair share of taxes. We cannot continue to allow profitable corporations like Amazon to make billions of dollars in taxes and pay nothing in net federal income taxes. And billionaires cannot be allowed to pay a lower tax rate than working class Americans. We need real tax reform.
There is no reason Joe Biden could not sign into law two major bills that will accomplish most of the goals I listed above within the first 100 days of the new Congress. We simply cannot allow Mitch McConnell and the Republican leadership to sabotage legislation that would improve the lives of millions of working Americans, and is wildly popular.
But, in order for us to be successful, all of us are going to have to work together — both inside the beltway and outside the beltway.
Because the truth is, no real change in American history, not the labor movement, the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the gay rights movement, the environmental movement or any other movement has ever had success without grassroots activism, without millions of people engaged in the struggle for justice.
Say that you’re in:
Sign my petition if you agree we must use the budget reconciliation process to help Americans survive the COVID crisis and rebuild America’s crumbling economy and working class.
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If Republicans can use reconciliation to protect the wealthy and the powerful and to take away health care from millions of Americans, then we can use it to protect working families, the sick, the elderly, the disabled and the poor.
And if you’re with me in this fight, that’s just what we’ll do.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
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