Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, is running for the Democratic Nomination, as anyone who doesn't live under a rock knows by now. Lately, he's taken up more of the spotlight than Hillary Clinton. The media seems genuinely shocked that a self-proclaimed 'Democratic Socialist' could possibly be running for President. Of course, in the mainstream media, they always conveniently forget about the 'Democratic' part of the Democratic Socialist. Insinuating that Bernie Sanders doesn't believe in a Capitalist economy, the Corporate news media regularly inserts 'Socialist' after Sanders's name. This couldn't be farther from the truth.
It's sad that American Politics has gotten so Conservative, the NeoLiberal lines so dominates the Democratic Party that Americans can't even remember what real Liberal policies look like. Our Politics have become so twisted, so warped, that a truly Progressive agenda isn't recognizable. Yet, that's exactly what Bernie Sanders's agenda looks like. Liberal. Not Socialist.
Bernie Sanders recently sent out a letter to supporters explaining his policy positions. None of it suggests a Socialist is running for President. Let's analyze that agenda...
Overturning Citizens United:
Freedom of speech does not mean the freedom to buy the United States government. Oil companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, Wall Street bankers and other powerful special interests have poured money into our political system for years. In 2010, a bad situation turned worse. In a 5-4 decision in the Citizens United case, the Supreme Court opened the floodgates for corporations and the wealthy to spend unlimited and undisclosed money to buy our elected officials. The Supreme Court essentially declared that corporations have the same rights as natural-born human beings.
Our democracy is under fierce attack. Billionaire families are now able to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to buy the candidates of their choice. These people own most of the economy. Now they want to own our government as well. The Koch brothers, the second wealthiest family in America, plan to spend some $900 million in the coming 2016 election — more money than either of our major parties spent in the last election. That is not democracy. That is oligarchy. To restore our one person-one vote democracy, Congress must pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and move toward public funding of elections.
KEY ACTIONS:
*Introduced the Democracy Is for People amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.
*Voted for the DISCLOSE Act to shine a light on the exorbitant amounts of dark money in our politics.
*Promised that any Sanders Administration Supreme Court nominee must commit to overturning the disastrous Citizens United decision.
Overturning the Citizens United Decision is not an extreme position to take. Most Democrats have called the decision a 'Disaster'. A majority of Americans agree with this sentiment. 61% of Americans Oppose the Citizens United decision according to a 2014 study by Public Citizen, with 51% Strongly Opposed. Nothing about agreeing with the majority of Americans makes Bernie Sanders a radical.
Bernie states that he supports a Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United, a position that even many Democrats have taken. No fewer than 12 Constitutional Amendments have been introduced this year alone to attempt to Overturn Citizens United or to make it easier to regulate Corporate campaign donors. Hardly a fringe opinion then, even in today's Corporate Democratic Party.
Climate Change & The Environment:
The United States must lead the world in tackling climate change to make certain that this planet is habitable for our children and grandchildren. We must transform our energy system away from polluting fossil fuels and towards energy efficiency and sustainability. Millions of homes and buildings need to be weatherized and we need to greatly accelerate technological progress in wind and solar power generation.
Unless we take bold action to address climate change, our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are going to look back on this period in history and ask a very simple question: Where were they? Why didn’t the United States of America, the most powerful nation on earth, lead the international community in cutting greenhouse gas emissions and preventing the devastating damage that the scientific community was sure would come?
KEY ACTIONS:
*Introduced the gold standard for climate change legislation with Sen. Barbara Boxer to tax carbon and methane emissions.
*Led the opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline.
*Secured $3.2 billion in the economic stimulus package to fund grants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a program that has funded upgrades for more than 86,000 buildings and installed more than 9,500 solar energy systems.
Again, this is an example of Bernie Sanders working within the mainstream of the Democratic Party to introduce legislation supporting Environmental causes and regulating Corporations that dump billions of tons of Carbon Emissions into our atmosphere every year. Where exactly is this 'Radicalism' and 'Socialism' I keep hearing about?
Is it 'Socialistic' or 'Radical' to support legislation regulating emissions? Hardly, a Yale/Gallup Poll puts it at a wopping 71% of Americans who believe Global Warming is Occurring and 69% of Americans believe Global Warming is mainly caused by human activity. Again, hardly making it a fringe opinion. Well, he's got to give away his Socialistic opinions somewhere...
Income Inequality & Wealth Inequality:
The good news is that the economy today is much better than when President George W. Bush left office. The bad news is that despite improvements the 40-year decline of the American middle class continues. Real unemployment is much too high, tens of millions of Americans still lack health insurance, and more of our friends and neighbors are living in poverty than at almost any time in the modern history of our country.
Meanwhile, as the rich become much richer, the level of income and wealth inequality has reached obscene and astronomical levels. In the United States, we have one of the most unequal wealth and income distributions of any major country on earth. Our inequality is worse now than at any other time in American history since the 1920s. Today, the top one-tenth of 1 percent of our nation owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent combined. One family, the Walton family of Walmart, owns more wealth than the bottom 42 percent combined. In terms of income, nearly all of the new growth since the recession has gone to the top 1 percent.
At a time when millions of American workers have seen declines in their incomes and are working longer hours for lower wages, the wealth of the billionaire class is soaring in a way that few can imagine. If you can believe it, between 2013 and 2015, the 14 wealthiest individuals in the country saw their net worth increase by over $157 billion dollars. We live in the one of the wealthiest countries on earth, yet children go hungry, veterans sleep out on the streets and senior citizens cannot afford their prescription drugs. This is what a rigged economic system looks like.
or not...
With even Republicans now openly discussing Income and Wealth Inequality in America, Bernie Sanders is again well within the mainstream in addressing it. He dives headlong into the issue, proposing increased taxes on the wealthy to their pre-Reagan era levels.
Most Economists recommend higher taxes on the wealthy, pointing out that even an 80% Marginal tax rate on the wealthy would do little to affect income inequality, with further suggestions of higher rates on Capital gains, financial transaction taxes (something Bernie has indeed suggested), Estate taxes and inheritance Taxes as a further solution.
Furthermore, a Gallup Poll puts the number of Americans that say wealth distribution is unfair at 63%, with 52% saying they would support heavy taxes on the rich to change that. And seeing as Eisenhower increased the top marginal tax rates to above 90%, this puts Bernie Sanders well within the Liberal Economic norm.
Now, many people point to the Effective tax rates paid over our history to suggest tax rates haven't changed much over the years. This fails to capture the reality of what has happened to our tax policy in America.
While, effective tax rates matter, the shift in our Tax policies isn't in how much is collected, but from Who it is collected from and What it is spent on. Today's social spending levels are at their lowest point in nearly a century.
In decades past, the top earners paid the majority of taxes, most of which were redistributed through various policies to the poor. This made us a more equal society with a vast middle-class. Americans found it much easier to maintain a comfortable life. Access to a decent education expanded, retirees found themselves on firmer ground, and healthcare became affordable to the vast majority of Americans.
Today, we are living with the effects of a shift that has taken place over decades since the Reagan era. With the majority of today's Elites accumulating their vast wealth through Capital Gains and Dividends, which are taxed at high of 20%; most middle-class Americans end up paying more in taxes than their rich counterparts. This effectively turns the Progressive Tax scale on it's head. Now, wealth is continuously flowing up to the top earners.
As Bill Moyers and Michael Wiinship put it in a piece on Salon.com...
At their core, the New Deal, Fair Deal, and Great Society programs were aimed at assuring every child of a decent education, every worker a decent wage, and every senior a decent retirement; if that’s extreme, so are the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution.
Americans may want to believe what their told in the Corporate news industry, but the facts don't add up to Bernie Sanders being a 'Radical Socialist' on the 'Fringes' of the far Left. More like a Left-leaning Capitalist who believes, like most Americans, that there should be limits on what Corporations and Banks are aloud to get away with. Nothing about his policies are extreme. In fact, if put Bernie Sanders next to the Liberals of years past, Sanders would fit squarely in their camp.
The fact is, the extremists are the Neoliberals who want to further deregulate, and cut taxes and spending in the name of 'Free Markets' and the whims of the invisible 'hand of the markets' to choose who wins and looses in this great game of wealth collection.
None of which will do anything but further erode our middle-class to create a society of vast poverty with a hand-full of Super-Rich Oligarchs ruling from above for the benefit of a few. Only Bernie Sanders is willing to tackle these issues head-on.