Senator Bernie Sanders Take On Reality

I just wanted to share a part of this letter from Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), an actual "Socialist" Senator from Vermont, on where we should go now after the 2010 Elections. While Sanders goes further than I would on some stuff, he seems to have a grasp on what's going to happen now.

Republican senators and members of Congress who are conservatives today will become even more conservative, by far. They will all be looking over their shoulders at potential Tea Party challenges in the 2012 elections. The belief that government can meet the needs of ordinary Americans - for secure retirements, for oversight that makes food and drugs safe, for regulation that reins in the greed and irresponsibility of Wall Street - will be undermined by a harsh and dishonest campaign to portray government as the "enemy" of Americans.

Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that allowed huge amounts of corporate money to secretly fund advertisements in the recent election, will likely be supported by every single Republican. Many will seek to demonize immigrants, gays, and minorities. They will seek to greatly circumscribe a woman's right to choose. And on and on it will go.

In short, at the very moment when the United States faces huge challenges, the Republicans in Congress will follow the agenda announced by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell: Make sure President Obama cannot be re-elected. Rather than trying to address our severe economic problems - high unemployment rates, reduced wages and income, the outsourcing of American jobs, a housing foreclosure crisis - Republicans will do everything they can to play politics and position themselves for better electoral prospects in 2012. One of the central items on their agenda will be to undermine President Obama through a variety of congressional investigations. I would not be surprised if some of the right-wing extremists in the House pushed for Obama's impeachment on one or another absurd charge.

In the face of this impending Republican onslaught, let me briefly address four issues that are certain to come to the forefront in the very near future.

Should the Bush-era tax cuts for the top 2 percent be extended? At a time when this country has (a) a $13.7 trillion national debt and (b) the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major country I disagree with Republicans who believe that we should be providing, over a 10-year period, $700 billion in tax breaks for the wealthiest people in our country. For people earning more than $1 million a year, this would amount to an average tax break of about $100,000 a year. With the top 1 percent already earning 23.5 percent of all income in this country, which is more than the bottom 50 percent makes, that would be morally unfair and economically unwise.

What should we do with Social Security? Many of my Republican colleagues will be telling you that Social Security "is going bankrupt," that it needs to be privatized or, at the very least, that Social Security benefits should be cut and the retirement age raised to 70. In my view, this is wrong, wrong, wrong. The Social Security trust fund today has a $2.6 trillion dollar surplus, has not contributed one nickel to our national debt, and can pay out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 29 years. Social Security has been enormously successful for the last 75 years in its goal of lowering poverty among seniors, the disabled, widows and orphans. Our job must be to strengthen Social Security to make sure that it is there for our kids and grandchildren. One way to do that is to lift the cap on income that is subject to Social Security payroll taxes (now at $106,800) as we did with Medicare.

How do we create the jobs we need to rebuild the middle class? During the eight years of President Bush, this country lost nearly 5 million manufacturing jobs, contributing to a net loss of over 600,000 private sector jobs. Median family income declined by about $2,200. Millions of American workers were forced to work longer hours for lower wages, while millions more were driven out of the middle class and into poverty. The only people who did well under Bush were the very wealthy with almost all new income going to the top 2 percent. In fact, the top 400 wealthiest families in the country saw their incomes more than double.

Amazingly, my Republican colleagues want to go back to the exact same policies that created this disastrous record. Despite the fact that we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country, they want to continue "trickle-down economics" and provide more tax breaks for the rich. Despite the fact that millions of good paying jobs were outsourced to China, India, Mexico and other low wage countries, they want to expand unfettered free trade. Despite the fact that de-regulation allowed the crooks on Wall Street to sell worthless products and plunge our economy into the worst economic downturn since the 1930s, many of them want to repeal the recently passed financial reform law and allow the huge banks to continue doing anything they want. Despite the fact that small business is our engine for job growth, almost all Republicans voted against a recently-passed bill which will provide $30 billion in affordable loans to small businesses across the country and provided $12 billion in small business tax relief.