Bernie Sanders

I am deeply concerned that the proposed budget eliminates the availability of a second Pell grant in the same award year.

John McCain's campaign has suggested that the best answer for the growing pressures on Social Security might be to cut cost-of-living adjustments or raise the retirement age. Let me be clear. I will not do either.

I would suggest that when we talk about sacrifice, maybe some of the campaign contributors and the wealthiest people in this country might want to make some of that sacrifice rather than just the middle class.

In 2007, the wealthiest 400 Americans made an average of $345 million a year.

The people on top, the top 1 percent, the top 2 percent, are doing phenomenally well at the same time as the middle class in this country is collapsing.

I voted against the Wall Street bailout, and I do understand much of that money has been paid back.

I voted against the Medicare Part D prescription drug program written by the drug companies and the insurance companies.

I voted against huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in the country.

This Senator voted against the war in Iraq, for a number of reasons, not the least of which it was unpaid for.

The United States today has the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major country on Earth.

Real unemployment in America today--I have not heard a word about unemployment yet, by the way--is 16 percent.

Let us see some political courage there rather than throwing senior citizens off the LIHEAP program or low-income people off of life and death programs for them.

If Social Security has not contributed one nickel to the deficit, why are we looking at it within the context of deficit reduction?

The President has proposed in his budget to let the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans expire at the end of 2012.

When the President ran for office, he was very clear in saying that Social Security has been an absolute success for the last 75 years, it is vital to the well-being of the working people of this country.

Well, actually, we raised the payroll tax in 1983 so that it is now a viable program.

My point was that right now we are having a major debate about the future of Social Security.

We could talk about Canada again. Again, I live an hour away from Canada.

But you talked about the Canadian tax system. You lauded certain provisions of that.

And everybody who has studied the issue understands that if you wanted to go forward with a cost-effective health care system...

During the Bush years, we saw substantial tax reductions given to the wealthiest people in this country, and yet we had perhaps the worst record of job performance at any time since Herbert Hoover.

If you are talking about international competitiveness, not to talk about wages, not to talk about environmental protection, not to talk about trade policy, they are all lumped together.

Health care is a huge burden on our economy. No one disagrees with that.

Social Security is especially vital to women and people of color, men increasingly reliant.

I want to add the idea that when we think about cutting back on education--whether it is childcare, primary school, or college--we are simply cutting off our noses to spite our faces. The Senator is aware that where, at one time in this…