Bernie Sanders on the Issues: 2016 Presidential Candidate Officially Launches Campaign
Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, announced he would run for president on the Democratic ticket. He gave a rousing speech to thousands of supporters in Burlington, outlining his plans for the U.S.
Sen. Sanders is a self-proclaimed social democrat and is a staunch progressive. His campaign, though it may not have enough oust a heavyweight like Hillary Clinton, can push the Democratic favorite farther away from the center and towards the left.
His speech, delivered in front of Lake Champlain to around 5,000 supporters, lays out a different path for the nation, one much more resonant with leftists and progressives around the country. His main points focused on income inequality, the economy, campaign reform, climate change, education, and increasing social aid.
"Today, with your support and the support of millions of people throughout this country, we begin a political revolution to transform our country economically, politically, socially and environmentally," Sen. Sanders said.
"Enough is enough. This great nation and its government belong to all of the people, and not to a handful of billionaires, their Super-PACs and their lobbyists," he claimed the nation says.
Sen. Sanders said his campaign would focus on the people rather than pandering to the wealthy or emphasizing politicians. He will talk one-on-one about the issues and not devolve the argument to petty squabbles.
"As someone who has never run a negative political ad in his life, my campaign will be driven by issues and serious debate; not political gossip, not reckless personal attacks or character assassination," he explained.
One of the core issues in Sen. Sanders' campaign is economic inequality, which spans various areas such as the wealth gap, election finance reform, Wall Street reform, and raising wages.
Latinos place increased importance on this last issue: Raising the minimum wage. A Pew Research Center report from late 2014 found 84 percent of Latinos favored raising the minimum wage compared to 73 percent of the overall population.
Sen. Sanders advocated raising the base wage to $15 per hour and applauded Los Angeles for its recent decision to do so in the coming years.
"Our goal as a nation must be to ensure that no full-time worker lives in poverty," he said, adding that women should be paid the same as men while calling for for paid sick leave and guaranteed vacation time.
Lamenting the collapse of the American middle class, Sen. Sanders criticized how the nation had turned to benefit only the wealthiest while leaving the rest behind.
"There is something profoundly wrong when, in recent years, we have seen a proliferation of millionaires and billionaires at the same time as millions of Americans work longer hours for lower wages and we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on earth," he said.
Companies under a Sanders administration will not hide their incomes in offshore accounts or outsource jobs abroad.
He called for a new tax system that "is fair and progressive, which makes wealthy individuals and profitable corporations begin to pay their fair share of taxes."
Another issue Sen. Sanders champions is climate change, which has gone mostly untouched in among the Republican and Democratic candidates.
Although among Latinos climate change or global warming is not too important, gaining only 2 percent in a 2014 Latino Decisions survey, it still is more important than to non-Latinos.
A New York Times poll conducted with Stanford University and Resources for the Future found Latinos were more worried to some degree about climate change (67 percent) compared to 50 percent among whites. A greater number of Latinos also believed the U.S. government should be doing more about climate change.
Sen. Sanders believes the same and pledged to enact a carbon tax to lessen the nation's dependency on fossil fuels. He also plans to increase the use of sustainable energies such as wind, solar, geo-thermal and bio-mass.
Aside from advocating various reforms, Sen. Sanders has made a good point on increasing jobs while also rebuilding the country's infrastructure. He touted a bill he introduced that spends $1 trillion over five years to build and fix roads, bridges and other infrastructure.
"This legislation would create and maintain at least 13 million good-paying jobs, while making our country more productive, efficient and safe," he explained, promising that as president he would see this bill become law.
Although he did not mention it, construction jobs attract Latinos. One in four construction workers are Latino, according to a 2013 employment report by the National Council of La Raza. However, they mostly make up the lower positions.
One topic of particular interest to Latinos is education. The 2014 Latino Decisions survey found 21 percent of Latinos thought education reform and schooling a priority for the community. It ranked third after the immigration reform and jobs.
Sen. Sanders pledged to make public college education free and lower student loan interests. He also advocated reinforcing social safety nets and called for a single-payer health care system to cover the remaining millions of uninsured Americans.
While Sen. Sanders has touched upon various topics of interests for Americans and progressives in particular, he did not pander to a particular group. He did not touch the topic of immigration, a huge issue for Latinos, but rather focused on class disparities.
As Latino unemployment remains higher than the general population's the economy and jobs continue to be a prominent issue within the Latino community.
Watch the full speech:
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