Bernie Sanders in Interviews during 2018-2020
On Crime:
OpEd: Ambiguous record on 1994 crime bill
Sanders defended his vote as a compromise that included a ban on assault weapons. He voted in favor of one amendment allocating more money for prison funding, though 49 Democrats voted against it, including now Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The amendment gave
$10.5 billion in grants to states for prison construction, one of the bill's most contentious legacies. As recently as 2006, Sanders' Senate campaign website cited his vote as the top example of his commitment to "tough on crime legislation."
Source: NBC News on 2020 Democratic primary
Jun 23, 2019
On Welfare & Poverty:
1980s USSR housing worse than U.S.'s, but they pay only 5%
New details emerged Friday about Sen. Bernie Sanders' infamous honeymoon in the Soviet Union back in the 1980s.Sanders' criticism [of the U.S.] reportedly included knocking the cost of housing and health care in the U.S. while blasting the U.S. for
interventions in other countries. During an hour-long news conference upon his return to the U.S., Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, seemed unrepentant. "The fact that we were willing to be critical of the U.S.--I think that made them
maybe more appreciative of our criticisms we made of their own society," he said. "We were saying, 'Yeah, in our country, we also have a housing crisis. Our housing in general is better than yours, but people are paying 40% of their income for housing.
The quality of your housing is not good, but we appreciate the fact that people are paying 5%. The quality of your health care is not good, but in the United States, believe me, we have enormous problems in terms of our health-care system.'"
Source: Fox News on 2020 Democratic primary
May 3, 2019
On Government Reform:
Citizens United is most disastrous decisions in history
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is backing an amendment to "abolish the Electoral College" introduced by Senator Brian Schatz, while Senators Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Bernie Sanders have signaled their willingness to address the Electoral College's
anti-democratic impact, as have former representative Beto O'Rourke and former housing secretary Juli n Castro. Possible presidential contender Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, says: "The Electoral College needs to go, because
it's made our society less and less democratic." Buttigieg sees that move as part of a democracy agenda that includes ending gerrymandering, extending voting rights, and, probably, amending the Constitution to reverse the damage done by the
Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision. (Sanders has already proposed amendments to overturn Citizens United, which he decries as "one of the most disastrous decisions in [the Court's] history.")
Source: The Nation, "Electoral College," on 2020 Democratic primary
Apr 22, 2019
On Health Care:
Medicare-for-all: no more private insurance plans
Senator Sanders reintroduced a "Medicare-for-all" bill, the idea that fueled his 2016 presidential run. As with its previous iterations, Sanders' latest bill would establish a national, single-payer Medicare system with vastly expanded benefits.
Sanders' plan would also prohibit private plans from competing with Medicare and would eliminate cost-sharing. New in this version is a universal provision for long-term care in home and community settings.
But many of the candidates--even official "Medicare-for-all" co-sponsors--are at the same time edging toward a more incremental approach, called "Medicare for America." This proposed Medicare for America system would guarantee universal
coverage, but leave job-based insurance available for those who want it. Unlike "Medicare-for-all," though, it would preserve premiums and deductibles, so beneficiaries would still have to pay some costs out-of-pocket.
Source: NPR, "Medicare-For-All," on 2020 Democratic primary
Apr 11, 2019
On Civil Rights:
Supports commission investigating reparations for slavery
At Al Sharpton's NAN convention, asked about a [slavery reparations] bill, Sanders told Sharpton that "if the House and Senate passed that bill, of course I would sign it."Sanders had been less committed to the idea of reparations in the form of
payment when asked about it on ABC's "The View." "I think that right now, our job is to address the crises facing the American people and our communities, and I think there are better ways to do that than just writing out a check," he said at the time.
Source: CNBC: 2019 National Action Network & 2020 Democratic primary
Apr 5, 2019
On Health Care:
State-by-state Medicaid expansion is a major step
As Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly urges lawmakers to expand Medicaid, Senate President Susan Wagle said, "The governor just called for the Senate to pass a bill that Bernie Sanders--a socialist--endorsed. And that's not going to happen in the Kansas Senate."
Kelly, who has made expansion her signature issue, said in the expansion debate the term "study" has come to mean "stall."The House vote to approve expansion in March attracted national attention. Sanders, a Democratic presidential candidate, called
it a "major step." But since then, the Senate hasn't taken action on the legislation.
If Kansas increases eligibility in the program, which provides health coverage to low-income individuals and individuals with disabilities, to 138% of the
federal poverty level, then the federal government will pay for 90% of the cost. For a family of four, that's $35,535 a year. The state's share of the cost of expansion has been estimated at somewhere between $34 million and $47 million a year.
Source: Wichita Eagle, "Medicaid," on 2020 Democratic primary
Apr 2, 2019
On Corporations:
Defend farmers & consumers from corporate middlemen
Sanders, for his part, published an op-ed in the Des Moines Register [and] denounced Bayer's Monsanto buyout, adding that "when we are in the White House, we are going to strengthen antitrust laws that defend farmers
from the corporate middlemen that stand between the food grower and the consumer, and have now become so big and powerful that they can squeeze farmers for everything they're worth."
Source: Mother Jones magazine on 2020 Democratic primary
Mar 30, 2019
On Corporations:
1976: I favor the public ownership of utilities & banks
Bernie Sanders advocated for the nationalization of most major industries, including energy companies, factories, and banks, when he was a leading member of a self-described "radical political party" in the 1970s, a CNN KFile review of his record
reveals. "I favor the public ownership of utilities, banks and major industries," Sanders said in one interview with the Burlington Free Press in 1976. In his career as a US Senator, Sanders has backed away from such ardent calls for nationalization.
Source: CNN KFile "1970s nationalization" on 2020 Democratic primary
Mar 14, 2019
On Corporations:
1970s: State should take over utilities without compensation
After moving to Vermont in 1968, Sanders became an active member of the left-wing Liberty Union Party. Sanders left the Liberty Union Party in 1977. When he launched his campaign for the Senate in 1971, Sanders said state utilities needed to be run by
Vermont on a nonprofit basis. If revenues exceed expenditures they could be used to fund government programs and lower property taxes. In 1976, Sanders went even further: calling for the state to seize ownership of Vermont's private electric companies
without compensation to investors. Sanders' rhetoric was strongest during his 1976 campaign for governor of Vermont. "I will be campaigning in support of the Liberty Union utility proposal which calls for the public ownership of Vermont's private
electric companies without compensation to the banks and wealthy stockholders who own the vast majority of stock in these companies," he said in a July 1976 press release. "I will also be calling for public ownership of the telephone company."
Source: CNN KFile, "Nationalization," on 2020 Democratic primary
Mar 14, 2019
On Corporations:
1976: Relocating businesses must pay; for public ownership
"We have got to deal with the fact that corporations do not have the right to disrupt the lives of their workers or their towns simply because they wish to move to earn a higher profit," Sanders said in a press release in August 1976. Sanders' plan would
10 years of taxes for the town."In the long run, the problem of the fleeing corporations must be dealt with on the national level by legislation which will bring about
the public ownership of the major means of production and their conversion into worker-controlled enterprises," he said.
Source: CNN KFile, "Nationalization," on 2020 Democratic primary
Mar 14, 2019
On Health Care:
1970s: For socialized medicine, public drug companies owned
"I believe in socialized medicine, public ownership of the drug companies and placing doctors on salaries.
The idea that millionaires can make money by selling poor people drugs that they desperately need for highly inflated prices disgusts me," he said.
Source: CNN KFile, "Nationalization," on 2020 Democratic primary
Mar 14, 2019
On Tax Reform:
1974: 100% tax over $1 million
During his 1974 Senate run, Sanders said one plan to expand government included making it illegal to gain more wealth than person could spend in a lifetime and have a
100% tax on incomes above this level. (Sanders defined this as $1 million dollars annually). "Nobody should earn more than a million dollars," Sanders said.
Source: CNN KFile, "Nationalization," on 2020 Democratic primary
Mar 14, 2019
On Tax Reform:
Raise income tax & fix estate tax: hardly Marxist ideas
Sanders' views correspond to only a small portion of the socialist program advocated by Karl Marx in his Communist Manifesto and are a far cry from Marx's vision of a stateless communist society he posits would follow.
Sanders would raise income taxes and lower the exemption on estate taxes from $5.4M to $3.5M, but he calls for something far less radical than the "abolition of all rights of inheritance".
Source: The Economist "Socialist?" on 2020 Democratic primary
Feb 1, 2019
Page last updated: Dec 01, 2021