Bernie Sanders

Well, thank you very much, Chairman Enzi. Congratulations on your assuming the Chairmanship of this important committee.

Do we ask those people who are doing extremely well to start paying their fair share of taxes so that we can invest in our economy and reduce the deficit

I think, before we go forward and talk about where we want to go, it is important to know how we got to where we are today.

It is unacceptable that each and every year, millionaires, billionaires, and profitable corporations avoid $100 billion in taxes.

The simple truth is that the rich are becoming much richer while the middle class continues a 40-year decline.

Nobody is getting rich off of disability benefits.

According to the World Economic Forum, we are now in twelfth place. That is not anything that anybody on this committee should be proud of.

Would it be OK if I brought mine up and the Senator could catch up to it later? I am sure there will be another one.

I have a pending amendment. Does the Senator object to my bringing that up? I would like to bring that up; can I do that?

We still have 40 million Americans without any health insurance.

If we did what virtually every major country on earth did, say that health care is a right of all people, not a right for a business

In every major country on earth, health care is a right of all people.

The reality is that maybe it should not have to be the responsibility of the Bangor School District to provide health care, that maybe it should be a right of all of our people--whether they work in McDonald's in Bangor, whether they work…

Would your life be easier if maybe all you had to do was worry about providing education to the kids and not worry about health care for your employees?

We end up paying, per capita, almost twice as much as any country on earth for health insurance.

What would it mean for our country and for small businesses if you could go about your business of producing the best pizza possible at the lowest possible price rather than worrying about health care

A great nation is judged not by how many millionaires and billionaires it has, or by the size of its military budget. It is judged by how well it treats its weakest and most vulnerable citizens.

We must make public colleges and universities tuition-free and substantially reduce student debt.

At a time when we spend more than twice as much per capita on health care as any other nation, we need a Medicare-for-all, single-payer system.

We need to end the international embarrassment of being the only major country on earth that does not guarantee healthcare to all people as a right.

We need to end the international embarrassment of the United States being the only major country on Earth not to guarantee paid family and medical leave.

We must rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and create millions of good-paying jobs.

I recall speaking to physicians on this issue who talk about the absurdity of them writing out prescriptions that are not filled

We have got to come up with an approach which encourages innovation, which rewards innovators, which lets them make good profits.

So that we are clear on this: somebody in the United States who is not in the VA, not in Medicaid, has Hepatitis C.