Bernie Sanders, our favorite socialist senator and only socialist senator but still our favorite anyway, has a terrific new economic plan to save America, and it’s so crazy it just might work! Except, of course, that it will never work, because sadly, our Senate is filled with a whole bunch of senators who are not Bernie Sanders, and do not ask the kinds of questions he asks, such as, for example: Are we prepared to take on the enormous economic and political power of the billionaire class or do we continue to slide into economic and political oligarchy? Hahahaha, that’s an adorable rhetorical question to which we all know the real answer is, “How high would you like us to jump, Mr. Koch?
I spend a good deal of time castigating Republicans for wanting to tear things down without a plan to rebuild anything. They’re good at bitching and moaning about how the evil Emperor Obama has kicked the Constitution in the balls and is destroying America, though they can’t tell us HOW he’s violating the Constitution. As a very wise man once told me, if all you do is complain about problems without proposing solutions, you’ll eventually lose all credibility…not that Republicans possessed a overabundance to begin with.
That said, Democrats haven’t exactly been falling all over themselves with “Big Picture” ideas for how to make American better. Enter Bernie Sanders, the Senate’s honey badger…and as we all know, honey badger don’t give a %$@#, right? Except that Sanders really does, and outside of Elizabeth Warren, he’s the only Democrat to actually put forward an economic plan with substantive ideas. Of course, the fact that his plan might be on life support from the outset due to Republican intransigence and sloth is distressing…but certainly not an excuse for overlooking it.
Like Warren, Sanders is willing to decry the power and influence of the oligarchy, and he’s willing to put his money where his mouth is. His plan is simple, elegant, and achievable if approached sensibly:
Invest in our crumbling infrastructure with a major program to create jobs by rebuilding roads, bridges, water systems, waste water plants, airports, railroads and schools.
Transform energy systems away from fossil fuels to create jobs while beginning to reverse global warming and make the planet habitable for future generations.
Develop new economic models to support workers in the United States instead of giving tax breaks to corporations which ship jobs to low-wage countries overseas.
Make it easier for workers to join unions and bargain for higher wages and benefits.
Raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour so no one who works 40 hours a week will live in poverty.
Provide equal pay for women workers who now make 78 percent of what male counterparts make.
Reform trade policies that have shuttered more than 60,000 factories and cost more than 4.9 million decent-paying manufacturing jobs.
Make college affordable and provide affordable child care to restore America’s competitive edge compared to other nations.
Break up big banks. The six largest banks now have assets equivalent to 61 percent of our gross domestic product, over $9.8 trillion. They underwrite more than half the mortgages in the country and issue more than two-thirds of all credit cards.
Join the rest of the industrialized world with a Medicare-for-all health care system that provides better care at less cost.
Expand Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and nutrition programs.
Reform the tax code based on wage earners’ ability to pay and eliminate loopholes that let profitable corporations stash profits overseas and pay no U.S. federal income taxes.
Of course, Sanders’ plan will NEVER work. In fact, it will probably never even see the light of day in he Republican-controlled Senate. Why? Because it’s so thoroughly sensible…and because it tramples on the established business interests of the oligarchy, who will only tolerate change when it accrues to their bottom line.
The sad thing is that there’s absolutely nothing controversial about Sanders’ plan. He’s not proposing that we invest in the goal of putting a man on Mars by 2020. He’s not advocating for the vast redistribution of wealth in an effort to create a perfect Marxist social order. What he’s talking about is creating an America firmly rooted in, and committed to, the 21st century global economy.
The problem with Washington, and with American politics generally, is that it refuses to tolerate people with vision and ideas. If John F. Kennedy were in the Senate today, he’d be laughed out of Washington as a pie-in-the-sky dreamer with his head in the clouds. There’s simply no room for those possessed of common sense, a desire to do the right thing, and the recognition that they were sent to Washington by their constituents for a reason…and it wasn’t to continue feeding the pig that is the oligarchy.
We’re truly poorer for the fact that the only two Senators willing to fight for the American people are Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders…and it’s sad that only Sanders has stepped up and outlined an economic plan designed expressly to move America into the future. Unfortunately, the oligarchy won’t easily tolerate threats to their hegemony and bottom line, and because of that neither will the Congressmen they’ve purchase.
WE DESERVE BETTER.
