In a new op-ed, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) touted the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to act on the climate crisis, reform the tax code, and provide support for a struggling working class.
“The biggest win for the working class in generations is within reach,” Sanders wrote about the bill in The Guardian.
With the wide and growing disparities between the lowest earners in the U.S. and the top 1 percent, Sanders emphasized that “now is the time” for the bill. While billionaires are able to exploit tax loopholes and low statutory tax rates to dodge taxes, sometimes entirely, millions of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck, the senator pointed out.
Sanders also pointed out that the bill is timely and sorely needed because of the acceleration of the climate crisis. Climate change is largely unmitigated in the U.S. and, even as just the last weeks have shown, it’s already having deadly effects and threatening the fabric of our society. “We must stand up to the greed of the fossil fuel industry, transform our energy system and lead the world in combating climate change,” Sanders said.
The Democrats’ reconciliation bill aims to tackle climate and socioeconomic issues at once. The $3.5 trillion is less than Sanders had originally proposed, but he’s said that it’s still enough to get everything he wants done, just for a shorter length of time. Democrats like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York) have hailed the bill — if it passses — as the most consequential bill for the working class since the New Deal.
Sanders had a big hand in crafting the bill. It’s because of his original proposal of $6 trillion that the bill is as large and ambitious as it is, Democratic senators have said in praise. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) called him the “human embodiment of shifting the Overton Window” on the reconciliation bill and more.
The Vermont senator wrote that the $3.5 trillion figure was reached after compromise with others in the Democratic caucus and the Budget Committee, which he chairs. He also pointed out that no Republicans will vote for the bill, which is a safe prediction.
The bill, he said, will “end the days of billionaires not paying a nickel in federal income taxes” by raising taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals. It’s an opportunity for using hoarded wealth to uplift the middle and lower classes, he wrote, saying “Under this proposal, no family making under $400,000 a year will pay a nickel more in taxes and will, in fact, receive one of the largest tax cuts in American history.”
Meanwhile, the middle and lower classes will receive a wide swath of benefits. The reconciliation bill will further extend $300 a month child tax credits, which is estimated to cut child poverty in half. Under the bill, community college will be free and pre-kindergarten will be available for every child with a universal pre-K program.
The bill takes steps to uplift the working class, Sanders pointed out. It establishes universal paid medical and family leave, “end[ing] the international disgrace of the United States being the only major country on Earth” to not guarantee such benefits. As the senator previously announced, the bill will also include provisions of the much anticipated PRO Act, which contains consequential provisions to make it easier for workers to organize and unionize.
The Democrats’ bill, which they plan to pass with a simple majority in the Senate, will also address the climate crisis with proposals like a Civilian Climate Corps and a clean energy standard; it proposes expansions to Medicare and funding for affordable housing; and opens pathways to citizenship for immigrants.
The pandemic has exaggerated nearly all of the issues that Democrats are aiming to address in the reconciliation bill, but Republicans are against nearly all of its proposals. Many of the provisions in the reconciliation bill are in fact items that GOP members have negotiated out of Joe Biden’s original infrastructure packages.
But there isn’t time to work around Republican objections, Sanders said in the op-ed. “The future of working families is at stake,” he concluded. “The future of our democracy is at stake. The future of our planet is at stake.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We are presently looking for 231 new monthly donors in the next 2 days.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy