September 7, 2012 - Full Show: Challenging Power, Changing Politics
The conventions are over — now it’s time for some thinking outside the box. So Bill welcomes to his studio Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who’s been an independent in Congress for 21 years — longer than anyone in American history. Sanders talks about jobs, the state of our economy, health care, and the unprecedented impact of big money on the major political parties.
Moyers & Company Show 135: Challenging Power, Changing Politics from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.
“What you are looking at is a nation with a grotesquely unequal distribution of wealth and income, tremendous economic power on Wall Street, and now added to all of that is big money interests, the billionaires and corporations now buying elections,” Sanders tells Bill. “I fear very much that if we don’t turn this around, we’re heading toward an oligarchic form of society.” read more>>> * * * Full Transcript>>>
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SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: Look, you got in-- this is an example where the president has got to go to every state in this country and say, "We can create jobs rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure." And then he has to remind people that when Clinton left office and Bush came in, we had a $236 billion surplus.
And I happen to believe that Paul Ryan and his friends are total and absolute hypocrites on the deficit issue. They voted for two wars, didn't pay for it, gave a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the rich, didn't offset it. Passed a Medicare Part D prescription drug program, written by the insurance companies, $400 billion over a ten-year period, didn't pay for it. Now, after all of that, they think we have to cut Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid.
Might add, Bernie could have added the 'no child left behind' legislation, passed and not funded, as well as little to no extra funding for the Veterans Administration as to just the Veterans of these two wars, which the present Administration, not Congress, has actually accomplished but still grossly underfunded, along with much more we already know about!
After Bernie Bill talks to the 'green party' candidates running for President and Vice President, that's the problem with the greens in this country, when they had the ability to grow from the bottom up and educate what they stand for they failed. They started running for the brass ring at the top and like the still (R) Paul, they speak what they think many others want to hear. Paul recruits for a once dying ideology, and is successful in young minds who eventually drop from, while not labeling himself as one, thus political grifting and not offering anything but fringe third party noise!