Where do we go from here?

 

Yesterday, millions of us breathed a deep sigh of relief. Donald Trump is no longer president. Thank you all for the hard work you did to make that enormously important day possible.

But we have long known that our work would not end on Election Day or on Inauguration Day. In fact, our work is just beginning.

Joe Biden is entering the White House facing more crises than any president in modern history. We have a pandemic which has already claimed over 400,000 lives and is surging. We have an economic meltdown that has left millions unemployed, with many facing hunger and eviction. We have over 90 million who are uninsured or underinsured. Climate change is ravaging the planet, systemic racism eats away at the fabric of our society, and comprehensive immigration reform is long overdue — among many other issues that must be dealt with immediately.

Given all that we face, now is not the time to think small. It is time to think big, very big. With Joe Biden as president and Democrats controlling the House and Senate for the first time since 2010, we will be judged on what we deliver for the American people in their time of need. The people want action, not excuses.

And let me be very clear. I have zero doubt that unless we significantly improve the lives of the American people this year, Democrats will get wiped out in the 2022 midterm elections. That is what happened when Democrats had the House, the Senate and the presidency under Bill Clinton in 1994 and that is what happened under Barack Obama in 2010.

Politicians and media focus a great deal on drama, personality and conflict. That’s how they define politics. That is not my view. Politics is nothing more complicated than delivering policy that positively impacts the lives of working families.

So, let me be very clear as to what we have to do.

We must address the pandemic aggressively with a federally led emergency program to produce the quantity of vaccines that we need, and we must get those vaccines into people’s arms as quickly as possible. Further, utilizing the Defense Production Act, we must make certain that our medical personnel have all the protective equipment they need to do their jobs safely.

During this raging pandemic, we must also guarantee health care to all. We must also end the international embarrassment of the United States being the only major country on Earth not to provide paid family and medical leave to workers.

At the same time, we must help lead the world in ending vaccine apartheid. Just because a country is poor does not mean they should be the last in line to receive the vaccine.

Economically, we must make sure that all Americans have the financial resources they need to live with dignity. We must increase the $600 in direct payments for every working class adult and child that was recently passed to $2,000, raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, expand unemployment benefits and prevent eviction and homelessness.

Obviously, our job is to do everything we can to fight for these and other emergency proposals. If Republicans want to productively work with us as part of "regular order," we should welcome them. But we can not wait around for months for them to act. And if Republicans decide they do not want to work with us, then we should use every procedural tool necessary to pass these emergency provisions with a simple majority vote in the United States Senate, not 60 votes.

As the new chairman of the Budget Committee I am responsible for a procedure called Budget Reconciliation which allows the Senate to pass many enormously important provisions with just a majority vote. And this year we can do two Budget Reconciliation bills.

The first one must deal with the COVID-19 emergency. The second will deal with the major structural changes that our country desperately needs. This means, among other things, creating millions of good-paying jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and fighting climate change, constructing affordable housing and modernizing our schools.

It means making public colleges, universities, trade schools and Historically Black Colleges and Universities tuition-free and forcefully addressing the outrageous level of student debt for working families.

And it means making the wealthiest Americans and most profitable corporations pay their fair share of taxes. We cannot continue to allow hugely profitable corporations like Amazon to make billions of dollars and pay nothing in net federal income taxes. And billionaires cannot be allowed to pay a lower tax rate than working class Americans.

Beyond these issues we desperately need to fix our broken and racist immigration laws, reform our criminal justice system and make sure that every citizen of our country over 18 not only has the right to vote but can easily cast a ballot without the threat of voter suppression.

The hard truth is it’s not just Republicans who stand in our way. There may be some Democrats who oppose these basic human needs, even widely popular legislation to raise the minimum wage.

When Republicans controlled the Senate, they used budget reconciliation to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling and to pass trillions of dollars in tax breaks primarily to the top 1% and multinational corporations. We will use the same process, except we will do it to help the working people of this country instead, not powerful special interests.

We have got to be bold in terms of jobs, health care, nutrition, education, racial justice, immigration, criminal justice reform, housing, climate change, and many other important issues. We must continue our collective struggle to create a government that works for all of us, not just the 1%.

Thank you for adding your name today to show that you are part of that struggle.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

 

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