June Democratic candidates debate in Miami FL: on Corporations

Bernie Sanders: Stand up against healthcare companies' billions in profits

The function of health care today from the insurance and drug company perspective is not to provide quality care to all. The function of the health care system today is to make billions in profits for the insurance companies. And last year, while we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs--and I will lower prescription drugs prices in half in this country--top 10 companies made $69 billion in profit. They will spend hundreds of millions of dollars lying to the American people, telling us why we cannot have a Medicare for all single-payer program.

I will tell you how we'll do it. We'll do it the way real change has always taken place, whether it was the labor movement, the civil rights movement, or the women's movement. We will have Medicare-for-All when tens of millions of people are prepared to stand up and tell the insurance companies and the drug companies that their day is gone, that health care is a human right, not something to make huge profits off of.

Source: June Democratic Primary debate (second night in Miami) Jun 27, 2019

Bernie Sanders: Nothing will change if we don't have the guts to fight

Nothing will change unless we have the guts to take on Wall Street, the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the military-industrial complex, and the fossil fuel industry. If we don't have the guts to take them on, we'll continue to have plans, we'll continue to have talk, and the rich will get richer, and everybody else will be struggling. Source: June Democratic Primary debate (second night in Miami) Jun 27, 2019

Joe Biden: Wall Street didn't build America; the middle class did

Q: Recently, as you were speaking about problem of income inequality in this country, you said we shouldn't "demonize the rich." You said, "Nobody has to be punished. No one's standard of living would change. Nothing would fundamentally change." What did you mean by that?

BIDEN: What I meant by that is, look, [that] Donald Trump thinks Wall Street built America. Ordinary, middle-class Americans built America. Too many people who are at the middle class and poor have had the bottom fall out under this proposal. We have to make sure the middle class have insurance that they can afford; where there's continuing education and they're able to pay for it; that they're able to breathe air that is clean. Look, Donald Trump has put us in a horrible situation. We do have enormous income inequality. And the one thing I agree on is we can make massive cuts in the $1.6 trillion in tax loopholes out there, and I would be going about eliminating Donald Trump's tax cut for the wealthy.

Source: June Democratic Primary debate (second night in Miami) Jun 27, 2019

Kamala Harris: Why haven't we asked how to pay for tax cuts to the top 1%?

Q: Do you think that Democrats have a responsibility to explain how they will pay for every proposal?

Harris: I hear that question, but where was that question when the Republicans and Donald Trump passed a tax bill that benefits the top 1 percent and the biggest corporations in this country? Contributing at least $1 trillion to the debt of America, which middle-class families will pay for one way or another. I am proposing that we change the tax code, so for every family that is making less than $100,000 a year, they will receive a tax credit that they can collect up to $500 a month. And on day one, I will repeal that tax bill that benefits the top 1% and the biggest corporations.

Source: June Democratic Primary debate (second night in Miami) Jun 27, 2019

Kirsten Gillibrand: Differentiate between capitalism (good) and greed (bad)

There's a big difference between capitalism and greed. All that we're trying to change is when companies care more about profits than about people. If you're talking about gun violence, it's the greed of the NRA and gun manufacturers that make progress impossible. It's the greed of the insurance companies and drug companies, when we want to get health care as a right and not a privilege. There need not be disagreement in the party because, in truth, we want healthy capitalism. Source: June Democratic Primary debate (second night in Miami) Jun 27, 2019

Bill de Blasio: Immigrants didn't create mess; the top 1% did that to you

We have to get under the skin of why we have this [immigration] crisis in our system. The way that American citizens have been told that immigrants somehow created their misery and their pain and their challenges, for all the American citizens out there who feel you're falling behind or feel the American dream is not working for you, the immigrants didn't do that to you.

The big corporations did that to you. The 1 percent did that to you. We need to be the party of working people, and that includes a party of immigrants. But first we have to tell working people in America who are hurting that we're going to be on their side every single time against those big corporations who created this mess to begin with. And remind people we're all in this together.

If we don't change that debate, that politics that's holding us back, we won't get all these reforms people are talking about. That's what we need to do as Democrats.