Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders
Bernard "Bernie" Sandersis an American politician, serving as the junior United States Senator from Vermont since 2007. Sanders is the longest-serving independent in U.S. congressional history. He has always caucused with the Democratic Party, which has entitled him to committee assignments and at times given Democrats a majority. Sanders became the ranking minority member on the Senate Budget Committee in January 2015; he had previously served for two years as chair of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee. He publicly identified...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth8 September 1941
CityBrooklyn, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I think the issue of income and wealth inequality is in fact a moral issue.
We are the only major country on earth that doesn't guarantee health care to all people as a right and yet we end up spending much more than they do, so I do believe that we have to move toward a Medicare for all, single-payer system.
The good news is that the American people, not just the African-American community are saying enough is enough. You can`t hold people in custody and suddenly find out that they are dead. You can`t shoot people in the back.
If we are a free country, we have the right to be free.
People are hurting and angry, and they want something to be able to stand up and fight for. That`s what I believe the antidote is to Trumpism.
I don't represent large corporations and I don't want their money.
Black people are dying in this country because we have a criminal justice system which is out of control, a system in which over 50% of young African-American kids are unemployed, it is estimated that a black baby born today has a one in four chance of ending up in the criminal justice system.
The Occupy Wall Street protests are shining a national spotlight on the most powerful, dangerous and secretive economic and political force in America.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Jack Welch, the CEO of General Electric, laid off over 100,000 employees. His reward? When he retired from GE, he received a golden parachute of over $400 million dollars. This is the kind of corporate greed and irresponsibility that is destroying the middle class and must be ended.
A job should lift workers out of poverty, not keep them in it.
We are moving in exactly the wrong direction in higher education. Forty years ago, tuition in some of the great American public universities and colleges was virtually free. Today, the cost is unaffordable for many working class families. Higher education must be a right for all - not just wealthy families.
I think my experience at the University of Chicago, working in the civil rights movement, working in the peace movement, working with community organizations, did a lot to influence the politics that I have.
And the reason that I was one of the first, not one of the last to be in opposition to the TPP is that American workers should not be forced to compete against people in Vietnam today making a minimum wage of $0.65 an hour. Look, what we have got to do is tell corporate America that they cannot continue to shut down. We've lost 60,000 factories since 2001. They're going to start having to, if I'm president, invest in this country - not in China, not in Mexico.
As president, I will fight to make tuition in public colleges and universities free, as well as substantially lower interest rates on student loans.