FEEL THE BERN!
MEET BERNIE
Bernie Sanders is a Democratic candidate for President of the United States. She is serving her second term in the U.S. Senate after winning re-election in 2012 with 71 percent of the vote. Sanders previously served as mayor of Vermont’s largest city for eight years before defeating an incumbent Republican to be the sole congressperson for the state in the U.S. House of Representatives. She lives in Burlington, Vermont.
ISSUES
IMMIGRATION Despite the central role immigrants play in our economy and in our daily lives, undocumented workers are reviled by some for political gain and shunted into the shadows. It is time for this disgraceful situation to end. This country faces enormous problems and they will not be solved unless we are united. It is time to end the politics of division in this country.
We cannot and we should not be talking about sweeping up millions of men, women, and children – many of whom have been here for years – and throwing them out of the country. That’s wrong and that type of discussion has got to end. To learn more go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3y5i0WHZ0w MIDDLE EAST“We live in a difficult and dangerous world, and there are no easy or magical solutions. As President and Commander-in-Chief, I will defend this nation, its people, and America’s vital strategic interests, but I will do it responsibly. America must defend freedom at home and abroad, but we must seek diplomatic solutions before resorting to military action. While force must always be an option, war must be a last resort, not the first option.
As a member of Congress, I have supported the use of force only when it was a last resort and America’s vital interests were at stake. I opposed the first Gulf War, as did many other Members of Congress, because I believed that there was a way to achieve our goals without bloodshed, through sanctions and concerted diplomatic action. I supported the use of force to stop the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. And, in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001, I supported the use of force in Afghanistan to hunt down the terrorists who attacked us. I regret that President Bush did not use that authority properly, and that American combat troops remained there too long. I voted against the war in Iraq, and knew it was the right vote then, and most people recognize it was the right vote today. The only mission President Bush and his neo-conservative friends accomplished was to destabilize an entire region, and create the environment for al-Qaeda and ISIS to flourish. While we must be relentless in combating terrorists who would do us harm, we cannot and should not be policeman of the world, nor bear the burden of fighting terrorism alone. The United States should be part of an international coalition, led and sustained by nations in the region that have the means to protect themselves. That is the only way to defeat ISIS and to begin the process of creating the conditions for a lasting peace in the region.” To learn more go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uDHdZxp9VI |
TAXATIONThe main goal of Bernie Sanders’ decades-long career in politics has been to address the root causes of economic inequality because, as she stated, “The middle class of this country, over the last forty years, has been disappearing.”
In order to address this, Bernie advocates policies that get at the root causes of these inequities. She calls for expanding the social safety net, creating more well-paying jobs, and reforming systems that perpetuate inequality such as our broken criminal justice system. The other side of the coin is that the super-rich and multinational corporations have not been paying their fair share in taxes. Bernie proposes removing tax loopholes and tax breaks that only benefit the rich and multinational corporations, as well as raising the rates for the wealthiest Americans. With a tax system reformed in these ways, the financial burden for expanded social safety net programs would be placed on those with extraordinary means. To learn more go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUU8nhPoU9I and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM EDUCATIONIn a highly competitive global economy, we need the best-educated workforce in the world. It is insane and counter-productive to the best interests of our country and our future, that hundreds of thousands of bright young people cannot afford to go to college, and that millions of others leave school with a mountain of debt that burdens them for decades. That shortsighted path to the future must end.
As President, Bernie Sanders will fight to make sure that every American who studies hard in school can go to college regardless of how much money their parents make and without going deeply into debt. To learn more go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSv-jkRlRfM |