I could not, in good conscience, vote for the debt ceiling bill
by BERNIE SANDERS
Let’s be clear. The original debt ceiling legislation that Republicans passed in the House would have, over a 10-year period, decimated the already inadequate social safety net of our country and made savage cuts to programs that working families, the children, the sick, the elderly and the poor desperately needed.
The best thing to be said about the current deal on the debt ceiling is that it could have been much worse. Instead of making massive cuts to healthcare, housing, education, childcare, nutrition assistance and other vital programs over the next decade, this bill proposes to make modest cuts to these programs over a 2-year period. This bill will also prevent a global economic catastrophe by extending the debt ceiling until January 1, 2025 – when we will have to go through with this absurd process once again.
Having said that, on Thursday night I voted against the bill.
At a time when this country is rapidly moving toward Oligarchy, with more wealth and income inequality than we’ve ever experienced, I could not in good conscience vote for a bill that cuts programs for the most vulnerable while refusing to ask billionaires to pay a penny more in taxes. Wall Street and corporate interests may be enthusiastic about this bill, but I believe it moves us in exactly the wrong direction.
I could not, in good conscience, vote for a bill that makes it harder for working families to afford the outrageously high price of childcare, housing and healthcare while, by cutting IRS funding, actually make it easier for the wealthiest people and most profitable corporations in America to cheat on their taxes.
At a time when climate change is an existential threat to our country and the entire world I could not, in good conscience, vote for a bill that makes it easier for fossil fuel companies to pollute and destroy the planet by fast-tracking the disastrous Mountain Valley Pipeline. When the future of the world is literally at stake we must have the courage to stand up to the fossil fuel industry and tell them, and the politicians they sponsor, that the future of the planet is more important than their short-term profits.
At a time when we spend more on the military than the next 10 nations combined I could not, in good conscience, vote for a bill that increases funding for the bloated Pentagon and large defense contractors that continue to make huge profits by fleecing American taxpayers with impunity. Let us not forget that the Pentagon is the only federal agency that cannot pass an independent audit or account for trillions of dollars in spending.
At a time when the pharmaceutical industry is charging the American people, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs I could not, in good conscience, vote for a bill that does nothing to take on the greed of the big drug companies that are bankrupting Medicare and cancer patients while spending tens of billions of dollars on stock buybacks and dividends.
At a time when over 45 million Americans are drowning in student debt I could not, in good conscience, vote for a bill that eliminates the moratorium on student loan payments that has been a lifeline to millions of working-class families during the pandemic.
Deficit reduction cannot just be about cutting programs that working families, the children, the sick, the elderly and the poor depend upon. It must be about demanding that the billionaire class and profitable corporations pay their fair share of taxes, reining in out of control military spending, saving Medicare tens of billions on prescription drugs costs and ending billions of dollars in corporate welfare that goes to the fossil fuel industry and other corporate interests.
The Guardian for more
The Worsening Childcare Crisis
by BERNIE ANDER
Let me begin by making a few points.
First, I think that all of us pride ourselves as a nation that loves our kids.
We all understand that our children are the future of America.
But, we have a funny way of showing that love.
In America today, we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on earth and, as we’ll discuss today, we have a dysfunctional and broken childcare system.
Psychologists tell us that the years zero through four are the most important years of a human being’s life in terms of intellectual and emotional development. Yet, few can deny that the care we provide our youngest children is totally inadequate in almost all respects.
When we talk about our national priorities and what we value as a nation, I can think of no higher priority than the need to cherish and nurture our kids during their formative years of life and to make sure that we have the best and the most affordable childcare system in the world. But that clearly is not the case today.
In America today, childcare is outrageously expensive, we have nowhere near the slots that we need, and childcare workers are some of the most underpaid people in America.
Today, it costs about $15,000 a year, on average, to send an infant to childcare in our country and in DC it can cost, in some cases, $30,000 a year.
How can a working family, making $50,000 or $60,000 a year, afford to spend $15,000 or $30,000 on childcare?
According to a recent survey, 40 percent of parents in America have gone into debt due to the cost of childcare and nearly 30 percent have had to make the unacceptable choice of paying for childcare or paying their rent or mortgage on time.
That should not be happening in the United States of America, the richest country in the history of the world.
All over America, it is extremely difficult for a family to even find childcare because we don’t have enough slots in America for our children.
It has been estimated that half of our people live in a childcare desert – communities where there are either no childcare options at all or where children outnumber available childcare slots by three to one.
It is no great secret that parents all over this country as soon as they find out that they are pregnant immediately sign up for childcare. And even then many of them are put on waiting lists not knowing if a childcare slot will be available when their baby is born.
Further, the childcare crisis not only impacts little children and their parents, but it has a significantly negative impact on our economy. Bottom line: There are many hundreds of thousands of workers, overwhelmingly women, who would to join the workforce but cannot do that because there are no childcare slots for their kids. It is estimated that the childcare crisis is costing our economy over $120 billion each and every year.
Third point – and this is something that we cannot neglect: Some of the most important work that can be done in our society is caring for and educating our little kids.
Counterpunch for more