[If our budget passes, it would be one of the most important
pieces of legislation since the New Deal. But we must fight for it. ]
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BERNIE SANDERS: A BIG WIN FOR THE WORKING CLASS IS WITHIN REACH  
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Bernie Sanders
July 21, 2021
Guardian
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_ If our budget passes, it would be one of the most important pieces
of legislation since the New Deal. But we must fight for it. _

"Bernie Sanders" by Gage Skidmore, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

 

Now is the time.

At a time when the gap between the very rich and everyone else is
growing wider, when two people now own more wealth than the bottom 40%
and when some of the wealthiest people and biggest businesses in the
world pay nothing in federal income taxes, the billionaire class and
large profitable corporations must finally start paying their fair
share of taxes.

Now is the time.

At a time when real wages for workers have not gone up in almost 50
years, when over half our people live paycheck to paycheck, when over
90 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, when working
families cannot afford childcare or higher education for their kids,
when many Americans no longer believe their government represents
their interests, the US Congress must finally have the courage to
represent the needs of working families and not just the 1% and their
lobbyists.

Now is the time.

At a time of unprecedented heatwaves, drought, flooding, extreme
weather disturbances and the acidification of the oceans, now is the
time for the US government to make certain that the planet we leave
our children and future generations is healthy and habitable. We must
stand up to the greed of the fossil fuel industry, transform our
energy system and lead the world in combating climate change.

As chairman of the US Senate budget committee I fought hard for a $6tn
budget which would address these and other long-neglected needs. Not
everyone in the Democratic caucus agreed with me and, after a lot of
discussion and compromise within the budget committee, an agreement
was reached on a smaller number. (Needless to say, no Republicans will
support legislation which taxes the rich and protects working
families.)

While this budget is less than I had wanted, let us be clear. This
proposal, if passed, 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. It will also put
the US in a global leadership position as we combat climate change.
Further, and importantly, this legislation will create millions of
good-paying jobs as we address the long-neglected needs of working
families and the planet.

Why is this proposal so significant?

We will end the days of billionaires not paying a nickel in federal
income taxes by making sure the wealthy and large corporations do not
use their accountants and lawyers to avoid paying the massive amounts
that they owe. This proposal will also raise the individual tax rate
on the wealthiest Americans and the corporate tax rate for the most
profitable companies in our country. Under this proposal, no family
making under $400,000 a year will pay a nickel more in taxes and will,
in fact, receive one of the largest tax cuts in American history.

We will aggressively reduce our childhood poverty rate by expanding
the child tax credit so that families continue to receive monthly
direct payments of up to $300 per child.

We will address the crisis in childcare by fighting to make sure that
no working family pays more than 7% of their income on this basic
need. Making childcare more accessible and affordable will also
strengthen our economy by allowing millions more Americans (mostly
women) to join the workforce.

We will provide universal pre-kindergarten to every three- and
four-year-old.

We will end the international disgrace of the United States being the
only major country on Earth not to guarantee paid family and medical
leave as a right.

We will begin to address the crisis in higher education by making
community colleges in America tuition-free.

We will address the disgrace of widespread homelessness in the United
States and the reality that nearly 18m households are paying over 50%
of their incomes for housing by an unprecedented investment in
affordable housing.

We will ensure that people in an ageing society can receive the home
healthcare they need and that the workers who provide that care
aren’t forced to live on starvation wages.

We will save taxpayers hundreds of billions by having Medicare
negotiate prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry
and use those savings to cover the dental care, hearing aids and
eyeglasses that many seniors desperately need.

We will rebuild our crumbling roads, bridges, water systems,
wastewater treatment plants, broadband and other aspects of our
physical infrastructure.

We will take on the existential threat of climate change by
transforming our energy systems away from fossil fuels and toward
renewable energy.

This effort will include a nationwide clean energy standard that moves
our transportation system, electrical generation, buildings and
housing and agriculture sector toward clean energy.

In the midst of the many long-ignored crises that this legislation is
attempting to address, we will not have one Republican senator voting
for it

Through a Civilian Climate Corps we will give hundreds of thousands of
young people good-paying jobs and educational benefits as they help us
combat climate change.

We will fight to bring undocumented people out of the shadows and
provide them with a pathway to citizenship, including those who
courageously kept our economy running in the middle of a deadly
pandemic.

In the midst of the many long-ignored crises that this legislation is
attempting to address, we will not have one Republican senator voting
for it. Tragically, many Republican leaders in Congress and around the
country are just too busy continuing to lie about the 2020
presidential election, undermining democracy by suppressing voting
rights, denying the reality of climate change and casting doubts about
the efficacy of the Covid-19 vaccines.

That means that the 50 Democrats in the US Senate, plus the
vice-president, will have to pass this most consequential piece of
legislation alone. And that’s what we will do. The future of working
families is at stake. The future of our democracy is at stake. The
future of our planet is at stake.

Now is the time.

_Bernie Sanders [[link removed]] is a US senator, and the
ranking member of the Senate budget committee. He represents the state
of Vermont, and is the longest-serving independent
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Congress_

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