This is a pivotal moment in modern American history. The entire legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society programs that we have fought for, supported and expanded – the programs that make life more secure for not only the poor, but for the middle class in America – is under savage attack. I want to take this opportunity to give you a brief update of what’s going on in Washington, what I’ve been focusing on, and how we’ve got to work together to defeat the growing right-wing Republican attacks against the working families of our country.
NO TO THE REPUBLICAN BUDGET
The Federal Budget is not just a bunch of numbers. It speaks to what our country stands for, what our national priorities are, and where we want to go in the future. HR 1, the Republican budget plan which recently passed the House of Representatives, may well be the most unfair and devastating attack against the middle class and working families that has ever been passed in Congress. While the rich get richer, the middle class collapses and poverty increases, the Republicans move toward deficit reduction by making savage cuts to life-and-death programs that working people desperately need. Meanwhile, they continue huge tax breaks to the richest people in this country who are already paying the lowest effective tax rate on record.
Here are just a few of the cuts that the Republicans make in HR 1:
· While 50 million Americans are now lacking health insurance they slash $1.3 billion in funding for Community Health Centers, denying primary health care to 11 million patients.
· While college education is already unaffordable for much of the middle class, they Slash Pell Grants by $5.7 billion, reducing or eliminating Pell Grants for 9.4 million low-income college students.
· While working families are unable to find decent quality, affordable childcare, they slash Head Start by 20 percent, eliminating the program for 218,000 children and forcing 55,000 layoffs.
· While many seniors and people with disabilities are today waiting far too long to get their claims processed, they slash $1.7 billion from the Social Security Administration, meaning long delays for seniors and disabled Americans.
· While poverty is increasing in our country, they slash the Community Services Block Grant program by $405 million, reducing the ability to get emergency food, housing and heating assistance out to 20 million seniors, families with children and the disabled.
· While the price of oil is soaring, they slash $400 million in funding for the home heating assistance program (LIHEAP), making it harder for seniors, the disabled, and families with children to heat their homes in the winter.
· While millions of Americans are suffering from environmentally caused illnesses, they slash funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by 30 percent, including a $1.4 billion cut from provisions that keep our air and water clean.
· While we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, they slash the WIC program by 10 percent. This program provides special supplemental nutrition for pregnant women, infants and children.
And, on and on it goes. These are just a few of the proposed cuts that the Republicans want.
As Vermont’s senator, I intend to do everything I can to defeat the grotesquely unfair Republican budget, which moves toward deficit reduction almost entirely through cuts borne on the backs of the weak and vulnerable, and asks nothing from the wealthy and powerful. On March 10th I introduced legislation which would impose a 5.4% surtax on all household income above one million dollars. The legislation also eliminates tax loopholes which enable oil companies to, in some cases, avoid having to pay any federal corporate income taxes.
STAND WITH WORKERS UNDER ASSAULT BY REPUBLICAN GOVERNORS
As you know, the budget fight has also been extended to the states. In Wisconsin and elsewhere, Republicans have mounted an unprecedented attack against working Americans and organized labor. I have been heartened by the massive response by working families throughout the country as they mobilize to stop these frontal assaults on the well-being of the middle class. As with the situation here in Washington, we’ve all got to stand together.
DEFEND SOCIAL SECURITY
Social Security has been one of the most successful programs in American history. Over the last 75 years, Social Security has significantly reduced poverty among seniors and, most importantly, has never once failed to pay out every nickel owed to any eligible recipient – all at a very modest administrative cost.
Despite all that you may have heard from politicians and pundits, Social Security is NOT going bankrupt. In fact, Social Security today has a $2.6 trillion dollar surplus and can pay out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 27 years. From that point forward, it will be able to provide 75-80 percent of all benefits. Further, because Social Security is funded by the payroll tax, it has not contributed one penny to the federal deficit.
Many Republicans want to destroy Social Security for two reasons. First, as part of their hatred of government they do not believe that the U.S. government should be in the business of providing retirement benefits for the elderly, or support for the disabled, widows and orphans. Second, they understand that their friends on Wall Street can make billions by administering retirement accounts if Social Security is ended.
This week, I will be introducing legislation which will defend Social Security and make it much harder for those who want to privatize it, cut benefits or raise the retirement age to succeed in those efforts.
Let me conclude by thanking you for your support of progressive politics. If there has ever been a time for progressives and working people to stand together and take on the powerful special interests who have so much power over the economic and political life of this country, now is that time. Please be involved in any way you can. Please fight for economic, social and environmental justice.
Please get involved in the political struggle to elect those candidates who stand with ordinary Americans, and not the Big Money interests. Let’s stand together.
Sincerely,
Senator Bernie Sanders
Senator Sanders is up for re-election in 2012. I will be sending him a few dollars to help his campaign. If you believe in economic justice and the right of ordinary American workers to a decent standard of living, a safe working environment, and fair treatment, then I urge you to give a few dollars also. It is imperative that Senator Sanders remain in the Senate.
If you can donate, you can send a check to:
Friends of Bernie Sanders
P.O. Box 391
Burlington, Vermont
05402
Or you can go to this website. I don't often ask people to donate to a campaign, but Bernie is special and we need his voice in Washington.
All dollars are not equal. Some of the funding in the proposed cuts actually generate jobs and support the economy. Even the so called 'entitlement programs' such a LIHEAP send money back into the economy. How does our economy derive any stimulation from Foriegn Aid?
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