Let's Fight for a Progressive Agenda

By Senator Bernie Sanders

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Progressive America Rising
via HuffPost

http://progressivesforobama.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-economic-platform-for-popular-front.html

The Economic Platform for a Popular Front vs. Finance
Capital & the Right

Sept 29, 21012 - There are two major economic and
budgetary issues which Congress must address in the
lame-duck session or soon afterward. First, how do we
reverse the decline of the middle class and create the
jobs that unemployed and underemployed workers
desperately need? Second, how do we address the $1
trillion deficit and $16 trillion national debt in a
way that is fair and not on the backs of the elderly,
the children, the sick or the poor?

Both of these issues must be addressed in the context
of understanding that in America today we have the most
unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major
country on earth and that the gap between the very rich
and everyone else is growing wider. Today, the top 1
percent earns more income than the bottom 50 percent of
Americans. In 2010, 93 percent of all new income went
to just the top 1 percent. In terms of wealth, the top
1 percent owns 42 percent of the wealth in America
while the bottom 60 percent owns just 2.3 percent.

In my view, we will not make progress in addressing
either the jobs or deficit crisis unless we are
prepared to take on the greed of Wall Street and
big-money interests who want more and more for
themselves at the expense of all Americans. Let's be
clear. Class warfare is being waged in this country. It
is being waged by the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adeslon,
Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and all the others who want to
decimate working families in order to make the
wealthiest people even wealthier. In this class war
that we didn't start, let's make sure it is the middle
class and working families who win, not the
millionaires and billionaires.

In terms of deficit reduction, let us remember that
when Bill Clinton left office in January of 2001, this
country enjoyed a healthy $236 billion SURPLUS and we
were on track to eliminate the entire national debt by
the year 2010.

What happened? How did we go from significant federal
budget surpluses to massive deficits? Frankly, it is
not that complicated.

President George W. Bush and the so-called "deficit
hawks" chose to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, but
"forgot" to pay for those wars -- which will add more
than $3 trillion to our national debt.

President Bush and the "deficit hawks" provided huge
tax breaks to the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans --
which will increase our national debt by about $1
trillion over a 10-year period.

President Bush and the "deficit hawks" established a
Medicare prescription drug program written by the
pharmaceutical and insurance industries, but they
"forgot" to pay for it -- which will add about $400
billion to our national debt over a 10-year period.

Further, as a result of the greed, recklessness, and
illegal behavior on Wall Street, this country was
driven into the worst recession since the Great
Depression which resulted in a massive reduction in
federal revenue.

And now, as we approach the election and a lame-duck
session of Congress, these very same Republican
"deficit hawks" want to fix the mess they created by
cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and
education, while lowering income tax rates for the
wealthy and large corporations. Sadly, they have been
joined by some Democrats.

The fiscal crisis is a serious problem, but it must be
addressed in a way that will not further punish people
who are already suffering economically. In addition, it
is absolutely imperative that we address the needs of
23 million Americans who are unemployed or
underemployed.

What should working families of this country demand of
Congress in response to these crises? Let me be
specific:

First, at a time when the effective tax rate for the
rich is the lowest in decades, we must repeal the Bush
tax breaks for the top 2 percent which will reduce the
deficit by $1 trillion over the next 10 years.

Second, we must recognize that Wall Street caused the
economic crisis, and that it has a responsibility to
reduce the deficit. Establishing a 0.03 percent Wall
Street speculation fee, similar to what we had from
1914-1966, would dampen the dangerous level of
speculation and gambling on Wall Street, encourage the
financial sector to invest in the productive economy
and reduce the deficit by $350 billion over 10 years.
Importantly, this fee, like similar levies in many
other countries, would not apply to ordinary investors,
retirees or parents saving to send their kids to
college. Rather, it would apply to Wall Street
investment houses, hedge funds and speculators who sell
credit default swaps, derivatives and operate other
risky financial schemes that nearly brought down the
entire economy.

Third, we have got to prohibit offshore tax shelters.
Each and every year, the United States loses an
estimated $100 billion in tax revenues due to offshore
tax abuses by the wealthy and large corporations. The
situation has become so absurd that one five-story
office building in the Cayman Islands is now the "home"
to more than 18,000 corporations. According to a recent
report by James Henry, a former chief economist at
McKinsey, the wealthiest people in the world are hiding
between $21 trillion to $32 trillion in offshore tax
havens to avoid paying taxes. About a third of this
amount, according to one estimate, is from wealthy
Americans. The wealthy and large corporations should
not be allowed to avoid paying taxes by setting up tax
shelters in Panama, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the
Bahamas or other tax haven countries. Cracking down on
these tax evaders could reduce the deficit by about $1
trillion over the next decade.

Fourth, at a time when we have almost tripled military
spending since 1997 and spend nearly as much on the
military as the rest of the world combined, we must
reduce unnecessary and wasteful spending at the
Pentagon. According to a number of experts, the
Pentagon today cannot account for hundreds of billions
of dollars in its budget. Even Sen. Tom Coburn
(R-Okla.), perhaps the most conservative senator in
this country, believes that we could reduce defense
spending by $1 trillion over a 10-year period while
ensuring that the United States continues to have the
strongest and most powerful military in the world.

Fifth, we have got to eliminate tax breaks for
companies shipping American jobs overseas. Today, the
United State government, despite our losing over 55,000
factories in the last 10 years, continues to reward
companies that move U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas
through loopholes in the tax code. Eliminating these
loopholes would raise more than $582 billion in revenue
over the next ten years and bring jobs back home to
America.

What else? Ending corporate welfare for big oil, gas
and coal companies; requiring Medicare to negotiate
with the pharmaceutical companies for lower drug
prices; taxing capital gains and dividends the same as
work; establishing a progressive estate tax; and
eliminating waste, fraud and abuse at every agency in
the federal government would reduce spending by more
than $350 billion and raise a significant amount of
revenue without harming the middle class.

Taking these steps would reduce the deficit by more
than $5 trillion.

Finally, and importantly, with these kinds of savings
we could invest aggressively in rebuilding our
crumbling infrastructure, transforming our energy
system away from fossil fuels and restoring our
manufacturing base. That investment could create
millions of decent paying jobs, make our country more
productive and help us lead the world in addressing the
crisis of global warming.

Despite what virtually all Republicans and some
Democrats want, we must not balance the budget on the
backs of a collapsing middle class or the poorest
people in our society.

Despite what virtually all Republicans and some
Democrats want us to ignore, we must create the
millions of jobs working families still desperately
need.

The American people have been very clear, in poll after
poll, that they do not want to cut Social Security,
Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' needs, education and
other vitally important programs. They also have been
clear that they do want the wealthy and large
corporations to start paying their fair share of taxes.
This agenda, the agenda of the American people, is what
I will be taking into the lame-duck session. I ask for
your support.

Follow Sen. Bernie Sanders on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/SenSanders

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