30 March 21
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FOCUS: Bernie Sanders | The Rich-Poor Gap in America Is Obscene. So Let's Fix It - Here's How
Bernie Sanders, Guardian UK
Sanders writes: "The United States cannot prosper and remain a vigorous democracy when so few have so much and so many have so little."
While working people toil, the richest have never have it so good. It’s time to fight back – our democracy depends on it
he United States cannot prosper and remain a vigorous democracy when so few have so much and so many have so little. While many of my congressional colleagues choose to ignore it, the issue of income and wealth inequality is one of the great moral, economic and political crises that we face – and it must be dealt with.
The unfortunate reality is that we are moving rapidly toward an oligarchic form of society, where a handful of billionaires have enormous wealth and power while working families have been struggling in a way we have not seen since the Great Depression. This situation has been exacerbated by the pandemic.
Today, half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck, 500,000 of the very poorest among us are homeless, millions are worried about evictions, 92 million are uninsured or underinsured, and families all across the country are worried about how they are going to feed their kids. Today, an entire generation of young people carry an outrageous level of student debt and face the reality that their standard of living will be lower than their parents’. And, most obscenely, low-income Americans now have a life expectancy that is about 15 years lower than the wealthy. Poverty in America has become a death sentence.
Meanwhile, the people on top have never had it so good. The top 1% now own more wealth than the bottom 92%, and the 50 wealthiest Americans own more wealth than the bottom half of American society – 165 million people. While millions of Americans have lost their jobs and incomes during the pandemic, over the past year 650 billionaires have seen their wealth increase by $1.3tn.
The growing gap between the very rich and everyone else is nothing new.
Over the past 40 years there has been a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class and working families to the very wealthiest people in America.
In 1978, the top 0.1% owned about 7% of the nation’s wealth. In 2019, the latest year of data available, they own nearly 20%.
Unbelievably, the two richest people in America, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, now own more wealth than the bottom 40% of Americans combined.
If income inequality had not skyrocketed over the past four decades and had simply stayed static, the average worker in America would be earning $42,000 more in income each year. Instead, as corporate chief executives now make over 300 times more than their average employees, the average American worker now earns $32 a week less than he or she did 48 years ago – after adjusting for inflation. In other words, despite huge increases in technology and productivity, ordinary workers are actually losing ground.
Addressing income and wealth and inequality will not be easy, because we will be taking on some of the most powerful and well-financed entities in the country, including Wall Street, the health insurance industry, the drug companies, the fossil fuel industry and the military-industrial-complex. But it must be done. Here is some of what Congress and the president can do in the very near future.
We must raise the minimum wage from the current starvation wage of $7.25 an hour to a living wage of at least $15 an hour. A job should lift workers out of poverty, not keep them in it.
We need to make it easier, not harder, for workers to join unions. The massive increase in wealth and income inequality can be directly linked to the decline in union membership in America.
We need to create millions of good-paying jobs rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure – our roads, bridges, wastewater plants, sewers, culverts, dams, schools and affordable housing.
We need to combat climate change by fundamentally transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels towards energy efficiency and renewable energy which will also create millions of good paying jobs.
We need to do what virtually every other major country does by guaranteeing healthcare to all people as a human right. Passing a Medicare for All program would end the absurdity of us paying twice as much per capita for healthcare as do the people of other countries, while tens of millions of Americans are uninsured or under-insured.
We need to make certain that all of our young people, regardless of income, have the right to high quality education – including college. And that means making public colleges and universities tuition free and substantially reducing student debt for working families.
And yes. We need to make the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations in America start paying their fair share of taxes.
Growing income and wealth inequality is not just an economic issue. It touches the very foundation of American democracy. If the very rich become much richer while millions of working people see their standard of living continue to decline, faith in government and our democratic institutions will wither and support for authoritarianism will increase. We cannot let that happen.
30 March 21
It's Live on the HomePage Now:
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FOCUS: RootsAction | Urging Biden to Halt Use of 'Reckless' Rhetoric About Putin, National Organizations Call for 'Constructive Bilateral Talks'
RootsAction
Excerpt: "Twenty-seven national organizations issued a joint statement Tuesday decrying the recent negative salvoes between President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin and urging the Biden administration to “stop participating in such reckless rhetorical exchanges."
Groups signing the statement included Demand Progress, Just Foreign Policy, Justice Democrats, Our Revolution, Progressive Democrats of America, RootsAction.org, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Veterans for Peace, Win Without War, and World Beyond War.
“We are deeply alarmed by the recent negative exchanges between leaders of the two countries with more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads in their arsenals,” the statement says. “As Americans, we urge the Biden administration to stop participating in such reckless rhetorical exchanges and to instead vigorously pursue nuclear-arms negotiations with the Russian government.”
The statement urges Biden to “make good on his stated commitment” in a Feb. 4 speech that pledged “diplomacy is back at the center of our foreign policy.” With tensions rising among the two nuclear superpowers, the organizations said, “the need for constructive bilateral talks to address the clear and present dangers of the nuclear arms race has never been more apparent.”
Pia Gallegos, chair of the RootsAction board, said: “With vast nuclear arsenals on hair-trigger alert, Washington and Moscow have unimaginable power to destroy human life. President Biden has a profound duty to decrease the chances of a global nuclear holocaust. We must insist on a consistently diplomatic approach. Instead of engaging in holier-than-thou rhetoric, Biden should be constructively engaging with Russia as a partner to safeguard human survival.”
“The grassroots progressive base of the Democratic Party has zero interest in a bellicose foreign policy towards Putin or Russia,” said Alan Minsky, executive director of Progressive Democrats of America. “What people want is a safer world with international cooperation, which will allow all of us to rebound more quickly from the public health and economic catastrophe of the past year. We have no patience for Cold War saber-rattling, let alone nuclear brinkmanship.”
Below is the full text of the joint statement and a list of the signing organizations.
As national organizations that advocate for diplomacy, arms control, disarmament and peace, we are deeply alarmed by the recent negative exchanges between leaders of the two countries with more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads in their arsenals. As Americans, we urge the Biden administration to stop participating in such reckless rhetorical exchanges and to instead vigorously pursue nuclear-arms negotiations with the Russian government. The need for constructive bilateral talks to address the clear and present dangers of the nuclear arms race has never been more apparent. With great urgency, we call upon President Biden to make good on his stated commitment that “diplomacy is back at the center of our foreign policy.”
Signing organizations
Action Corps
American Committee for U.S.-Russia Accord
Backbone Campaign
Blue America
Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security
Center for Citizen Initiatives
Demand Progress
Environmentalists Against War
Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space
Historians for Peace and Democracy
Just Foreign Policy
Justice Democrats
Muslim Delegates and Allies Coalition
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
NuclearBan.US
Other98
Our Revolution
People for Bernie
Progressive Democrats of America
RootsAction.org
Union of Concerned Scientists
U.S. Palestinian Community Network
Veterans for Peace
Win Without War
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, U.S.
World Beyond War
Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation
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