Bernie Sanders

Do you know how much money these guys in the pharmaceutical industry have spent over the last 20 years on lobbying and campaign contributions? $4.5 billion.

I mean, you know, you have a Republican Party which is a right-wing extremist party right now which is owned by the pharmaceutical industry.

The X bill is saying, finally, for the first time in the modern history of this country, that the United States government is going to stand up and address the long neglected issues facing working people, and that we`re going to fund it by…

$3.5 trillion is not enough.

What the President is doing is taking a look at the crises facing America and saying you know what, whether it's high cost of prescription drugs, healthcare, whatever it is, we are going to address those crises rather than give more tax…

We are facing a massive crisis in terms of climate change.

We need to make sure that our young people get the training that they need, get the college credits they need in a way they can afford it.

Does anyone deny that our childcare system is a dysfunctional mess? No.

What we are trying to do right now, in the United States Senate, in the house is pass the most consequential piece of legislation in the modern history of this country.

I think a lot of people in America are losing faith in government.

I think the truth is that California does not need a right-wing Governor -- Republican Governor.

I think Governor Newsom has done a good job under very difficult circumstances, and I think what you're seeing in California, and all over this country is a lot of anger and frustration.

We're going to change that. So it will be paid for.

There is a sense of urgency. And the sense of urgency is that we live in a country today with the wealthiest people and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally well. While working class people are struggling all over this country.

I say to Jeff Bezos, why are you spending millions trying to defeat an effort on the part of workers here who want nothing more than decent wages, decent benefits, decent working conditions?

I would urge my Republican colleagues to read the recent IPCC report. And if they did, they would find that it is now unequivocal that climate change is caused by human activity. We are seeing what climate change is doing with our own…

What I want, and I believe Members of the Committee want, and certainly the American people want, is to create a Nation in which the people in the United States can live long, healthy, happy, and productive lives.

This reality of today is a moral and economic failing.

What we are discussing today, and this is such an important point, is poverty is like that.

The real outrage, it seems to me, and this is above and beyond the culprit, the horrors of the COVID pandemic, is that not all of our society is seeing a decline in life expectancy.

If you are wealthy in America, you will live many, many more years than if you are poor.

The truth is that our life expectancy, how long our people live, trails behind many other industrialized countries.

What I hope this legislation will do is restore the faith of the American people that the government can represent ordinary Americans, not just the wealthy and the powerful and their lobbyists.

We cannot pass a piecemeal because to do it through regular order, you need 60 votes. We’re not going to get one Republican vote.

This is probably the most consequential piece of legislation since the 1930s.