He's been all over this for a while now. Tomorrow, he's supposedly introducing new legislation to stop profitable corps from sheltering income in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens. He also wants to stop tax breaks for companies that ship jobs and factories overseasons. ("Take that, Phile Mickelson," says Sanders. Not really, but given the previous discussion....) http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=458e961f-7acd-458a-a614-fa55ea08bc6d Income Inequality in America February 4, 2013 While the mainstream media look for bright spots in an economy that is still recovering from a terrible recession, the millions of people who remain out of work too often are overlooked. Real unemployment stands at more than 14 percent when those forced into part-time jobs and those who gave up looking for work are counted, according to the latest unemployment report issued last Friday by the Department of Labor. In America today, the top 1 percent owns more than 35 percent of all of the nation’s household wealth while the bottom 60 percent owns only 2.3 percent of the wealth. The distribution of income is even worse. In 2010, 93 percent of all new income went to the top 1 percent, while the bottom 99 percent of people accounted for the remaining 7 percent. “We have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth, worse today in the United States than at any time since 1928 before the Great Depression,” Sen. Bernie Sanders told Ed Schultz. “It’s not only morality and fairness, it is about politics,” Sanders added. “The big corporations that are enjoying record-breaking profits - the wealthiest people - are doing phenomenally well. They`re not sitting on their money. They`re putting huge amounts of money into the political process so they get even more tax breaks, and more ability to outsource jobs, more ability to put their money in tax havens in the Cayman Islands." To help create jobs, Sanders advocated investing significant sums of money rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure, including roads, bridges, water systems and mass transit. And given the threat of global warming, he also called for a heavy investment in weatherization, energy efficiency and sustainable energy to create millions of new jobs. Sanders also said Wall Street must stop sitting on huge amounts of money and instead provide small and medium-sized businesses the capital they need to expand and create new jobs.
I don't follow much of what he says, so to be honest, I don't know much about him/his opinions. But a friend sent a couple of links, and his videos.... he gets crazy, man. Don't get me wrong, he has some valid points (he also has some crazy ones). But sometimes they way they're delivered....
I don't always agree with him, but I often do and I greatly respect him. Not many politicians I respect.
I admire him for calling himself what the rest of his Dems are afraid to say about themselves. Socialists is an economic philosophy, and not a smear. Calling him an 'independent' is laughable, though. He is in the Dem caucus and is on Dem committees, and literally is one of the most solid Dem votes in the Senate.
How would you expect him to vote? He's aligning himself with the people you accuse of being identical to him in economic philosophy. All of his votes this year have been in support of Republican sponsored bills.
Republicans are mostly socialist, so it doesn't matter. They're the borrow and spend party, instead of tax and spend. And there can never be enough military spending for them.
Well, obviously there can, since they've cut back 10% since 2009 (from 710B in 2009 to 635B in 2013, including Overseas Contingency). Meanwhile, foreign economic aid has gone from 24B to 47B. And Medicare/Caid, which is supposed to pay for itself, has increased from 784B to 976B. Intakes are ~270B, for an overrun greater than the entire DoD budget. And interest has gone from 142B to 411B.
I'm at Camp Leatherneck right now on some pretty slow wifi. Gotta love contractors who need internet.
