Thom Hartmann: And greetings my friends, patriots, lovers of democracy, truth and justice, believers in peace, freedom and the American way. Thom Hartmann here with you. Live today from Colorado’s progressive talk, AM760 in Denver and we even have a studio audience, say hello! (Hello from audience). There we go. And it’s Friday, the first hour of our Friday show, always, Senator Bernie Sanders, Brunch with Bernie. Senator Sanders, welcome.
Bernie Sanders: Good to be with you, Thom.
Thom Hartmann: Great to have you with us, Bernie. And by the way, Bernie’s website, Sanders.Senate.gov, be sure to check it out. And are you in DC today, Bernie?
Bernie Sanders: No I’m in Burlington.
Thom Hartmann: Burlington, Vermont.
Bernie Sanders: Came in late last night.
Thom Hartmann: Bernie, we, the economy, you know, frankly, I think should have been front and center for the last 2 years of the Obama administration. People are really starting to pay attention to it and there’s a lot of politics behind it. Your thoughts on that?
Bernie Sanders: There sure is. And the news that we have just heard increase in poverty, decline in median family income, more people losing their health insurance, is obviously a disaster. And this should remind everybody about the damage that these crooks on Wall Street have perpetrated against the American people. They have recovered, the good news I guess for our friends in Wall Street is that bonuses are coming back. The largest financial institutions that were bailed out by the American people are profitable again. But meanwhile the middle class collapses, poverty increases.
The one point that I wanted to make this morning which is not talked about enough, is you know Thom when you talk about what goes on in the world you always look at winners and losers. You know, here in New England we worry about the Red Sox and the Celtics. And you say well who won the game? When you look at the economy it is appropriate to see who is winning the game.
And when you look at the world that way what you find is not only that the United States has the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country, but that the gap between the very rich and everybody else is growing wider. In 2007, this is a statistic not widely reported. The top 1% of income earners, the richest 1%, took in 23 and ½ % of all of the income earned in the United States. You got that?
Thom Hartmann: Yeah and that’s up from about 8 or 9 % back when Reagan came into office.
Bernie Sanders: Exactly, that is exactly right. In the 1970s, that number was about 8%. So over that period of time what you saw is that the average male worker is actually earning less today than he was earning 30 years ago. Women are earning a little bit more but the middle class shrinks. People are working incredibly more hours. Every middle class family that you know, husband and wife, have got to work. People are not working 40 hours a week, they’re working 50 or 60 hours a week.
But at the end of that there has been a huge shift in income from lower income people, from the middle class to the top. Very few people. Now it’s not only that the top 1% earn 23 and ½ % of all the income, which is a phenomenal number, really quite amazing when you think about it. The top 1/10 of 1% took in 11% of total income in 2007. top 1/10 of 1%.
Thom Hartmann: That’s like 13,500 families as I recall? Something in that neighborhood.
Bernie Sanders: Well it’s 1 out of 1000 people.
Thom Hartmann: That’s about 100 thousand. Wow.
Bernie Sanders: 1 out 100 families earn 11% of all income. So what you’re seeing in many ways is from an economic perspective the United States moving to ward an oligarchy where very, very few have tremendous economic power. Middle class losing ground, poverty increasing.
And it’s not only economics, it’s politics. Because what we are also seeing, these people, on top will make huge amounts of money whether it’s the Koch family or many other millionaire or billionaire families, they’re not putting their money under the mattress. What they are doing increasingly is investing that money, as you indicated a moment ago, into think tanks, but also directly into politics. Some of them run for office and are willing to spend you know millions and millions of dollars on their own campaign.
But more significantly, many of them prop up candidates and right now as a result of the disastrous Citizen’s United supreme court decision, they, without having to disclose who they are, and people are seeing this all over America now, they’re pumping tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars into radio and TV ads with all kinds of phony names, Citizens for a Better America, and all these guys are, these are billionaires, these are oil companies, these are the most powerful special interests protecting their friends and opposing those people who are trying to stand up to them.
And I want people also to remember, things are tough now, the economy is in very bad shape, no question about it. Has the president and the democratic leadership been as bold and aggressive as they should be? To my mind, they have not. But let’s not forget A: what Obama inherited when he took office. And that is an economy which was not only shedding 700 thousand jobs a month but over Bush’s entire 8 year period. After 8 years, you know what his job creating record was? He lost 600 thousand private sector jobs in 8 years. Can you believe that?
Thom Hartmann: Yeah in fact all the job increases were government jobs or…
Bernie Sanders: Government jobs, yeah.
Thom Hartmann: Basically the wars.
Bernie Sanders: Exactly. The war, homeland security, mostly that. All government jobs. And then, furthermore, it is very clear what the republicans are trying to do now. And their strategy is obviously to oppose every initiative that Obama has brought forth. Whether it’s an initiative even supported by the businesses. For example, just yesterday in Washington we managed, with two republican votes, 61 votes, to pass a program to help small businesses in this country who desperately need affordable loans so they can expand and create jobs. And the expectation is that that program alone will create some hundreds of thousands of jobs through small businesses. All of the business community, conservative business community wanted that passed. We barely, we got two republican votes. One from Voinovich of Ohio, one from LeMieux of Florida. You know what, both those guys are leaving the senate, they’re not running for reelection.
Thom Hartmann: Right so they feel like they can do the right thing.
Bernie Sanders: They can do the right thing. And but, Mitch McConnell was able to hold all the others in check. You know you may have read that Senator DeMint just the other day said what he wants to bring about is grid lock in Washington and I think he kind of…
Thom Hartmann: I think he’s been doing it for the last year and a half.
Bernie Sanders: That’s right, I mean he made a mistake by saying it but that’s of course what they intend to do. Now I want people to remember. People are angry, they’re frustrated, and I share that frustration and we’ve got to be more aggressive and I have some thoughts and I’m sure listeners have thoughts, about how we can be more aggressive in creating jobs. But when you get back to the republican agenda it’s the same old, same old failed policies. They want to give more tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.
Now we’re dealing right now with an issue that will certainly be voted on within a couple of weeks and that is what do we do about Bush’s tax breaks. I believe that given the desperate situation of the middle class you have to maintain those tax breaks for the middle class. But I’ll be damned if it makes any sense at all to give huge tax breaks to the top 2% which would amount to 700 billion dollars over a ten year period and on average for those people making a million dollars a year or more, you know what their average tax cut would be if the republicans got their way on this? You know what it would be Thom?
Thom Hartmann: I don’t remember.
Bernie Sanders: A hundred thousand bucks.
Thom Hartmann: Bernie by the way, I think it is brilliant that you are using, when referencing tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires which are really not tax cuts, we are borrowing that money, to call it tax breaks and in fact I’m even starting to call it tax giveaways or tax handouts to the millionaires and billionaires. We need to relanguage this and you need to get the democrats to do that and stop referring to these as tax cuts, because they’re not.
Bernie Sanders: No that’s right. But the economic reality is, top 1% has seen their percentage of income in this country just explode. 1% now earns over 23% of all income. Under Bush, the top 400 families saw like a doubling in their income. Just a huge increase. And our republican friends think that the major priority facing this country is to give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. That is frankly just an incredibly dumb idea.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah, to say the very least. Senator Bernie Sanders with us, it’s our Brunch with Bernie hour. Thom Hartmann here, live with you from Colorado’s progressive talk, AM760. We’ll be right back, stick around.
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Thom Hartmann: Welcome back, happy Friday, TGIF, all that kind of stuff. And happy holidays to you. Happy Yom Kippur if that is your holiday and Shabbat Shalom, Juma Mubarak, TGIF, whatever it may be. It’s our Brunch with Bernie hour, Senator Bernie Sanders taking your calls, live today from Burlington Vermont. He of course is the independent senator from Vermont and Bernie, ready to pick up calls?
Bernie Sanders: Let’s do it!
Thom Hartmann: Okay, Mike in Placencia, California. Am I pronouncing that right, Mike?
Mike: Yes, you are.
Thom Hartmann: You are on the air with Bernie.
Mike: Good job.
Thom Hartmann: Thank you.
Mike: Good morning, Senator.
Bernie Sanders: Good morning, Mike.
Mike: Well it’s actually afternoon, I think where you are.
Bernie Sanders: That’s correct.
Mike: I don’t have a question, I have a suggestion and I wrote to the president about this and emailed him and I have not received a response. But anyhow, what I’d like to propose is that the federal government set up something like an employment agency and that would match the employers needs with job seekers needs. And in this way there are a lot of jobs out there that are available but people don’t know about them.
Bernie Sanders: Well my, that’s a good point. And I can tell you that the better state employment services around the country are trying to do exactly that. I know in Vermont I dropped into one a number of months ago. And what they do is keep in constant contact with employers who need workers and get that work out to the unemployed. But one of the problems that we have as a nation is there are good jobs available and yet people don’t have the training available for those jobs. Often high tech jobs. So if your point is that we have to make sure that people get trained for the existing jobs that are out there rather than jobs that no longer exist, I think k that’s exactly correct.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah. Renee in Charlotte, north Carolina, you’re on the air with Senator Bernie Sanders.
Renee: Yes, I have a question. This is something that has puzzled me for a very long time. Now if I know about a crime and I don’t report it I can be guilty of being an accessory after the fact which is a crime. Now in 1913 the Federal Reserve was established, they didn’t call it a national bank because they knew the people were against it so Paul Warburg came up with this federal reserve and it was snuck through on Christmas break, I mean a conspiracy actually. And so the thing is, what I don’t understand is, that the constitution is against this, which is the supreme law of the land and we have how many thousands of people who have taken an oath to uphold the constitution since then, yet this has been allowed to continue for almost 100 years, sucking the wealth out of this nation, doing a job that could be done for, without…
Thom Hartmann: Renee is there a question in there?
Renee: Yes. How is it that this has been allowed to continue, because it’s against the constitution.
Bernie Sanders: Well, Renee, here’s my view on that. People say it’s against the constitution, you know, regulating Internet or regulating television is also not in the constitution. The constitution evolves. Now the argument should be, Renee, I think, not that the constitution did not mention a central bank, the constitution did not mention hundreds of things which we do and need to do. We didn’t have automobiles when the constitution was written. The question is what role does the Fed play in our society? Is it transparent? Do people know what’s going on? Are they responding to the needs of the middle class and working families or to large financial institutions and the wealthy and how do we make a central bank work more effectively in terms of creating jobs and of protecting ordinary people. So Renee, my argument, I disagree with you in the sense that I know some conservatives think well it’s not in the constitution, but again the world has changed. And there is language in the constitution that allows government to respond to the needs of today and not just way back when.
Thom Hartmann: But let’s at least audit this thing.
Bernie Sanders: Oh at the very least. No what I would say to Renee is she may or may not know we passed for the first time in history, as part of the Wall Street Reform Bill, I passed language along with Ron Paul of Texas, language which will audit the Fed over the last three years when they were lending out trillions of tax payer dollars to huge financial institutions for zero, at zero or very low interest rates. The language that we put in there also will explore, just horrendous in my view, conflicts of interest between the Fed and Goldman Sachs and AIG and some of these other large institutions. So I think we’ve made progress in trying to bring some transparency to the Fed. I think you’re, but I don’t agree with you that the answer is simply to abolish the Fed tomorrow. But thank you for calling, Renee.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah. And we just got the call logs from Tim Geithner, our treasury secretary, and found that he met more often with the chairman of Goldman Sachs than he has with Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid.
Bernie Sanders: So the issue here, and we could have a good debate about the role of a central bank, most countries have central banks, but certainly there needs to be a good debate on it and there needs to be a lot more transparency. and that’s very, very important.
Thom Hartmann: Yep. Mike, in Detroit. We’ve got a minute to the break, Mike. You’re on with Senator Bernie Sanders.
Mike: Hi Senator Sanders, you know I hear you blame a lot of the problems in America like jobs on the republicans. But my question is why isn’t anybody being adult enough to say what the real problem is. And that is more people know who Snooki is, who Paris Hilton is than who the representatives are. You know jobs could be solved in a week if people would say I’m only going to buy products made in America. But Americans just don’t care and no one is discussing that as the issue and addressing it.
Bernie Sanders: Well you know Mike, I certainly would agree with you that the media tells us that what happens to Paris Hilton and other celebrity gossip is more important than the economy of the United States. But that’s not an accident also. I mean you’ve got to think about who owns the media, whether the media is really interested in focusing on the issues facing working people. Thom, maybe we’ll talk about that in a moment after the break.
Thom Hartmann: Okay, we’ll pick it up. We’re with Senator Bernie Sanders, it’s our Brunch with Bernie hour here on the Thom Hartmann Program and we’re broadcasting live from Colorado’s progressive talk AM760 and big thanks to Matt, Lee, Kenny and especially Kate who is here engineering the program. We’ll be right back. Stick around.
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Thom Hartmann: And welcome back it’s the Tom Hartmann Radio Program. Our Brunch with Bernie Hour, Senator Bernie Sanders on the line with us. And Bernie you wanted to wrap up your answer to the last question?
Bernie Sanders: Yeah. Mike in a sense raised an important tissue but I think he’s blaming the wrong guys. He’s basically saying you know the American people are more interested in celebrity gossip than they are in rebuilding the economy. But I would say to Mike that those things don’t happen by accident. You’ve got to take a hard look at who owns the media. Who are the people who are driving the discussion. Why is it that there are certainly a lot more attention paid to the Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt relationship than there is to wealth and income inequality in America. How often do we talk about that on television, how often do we talk about our disastrous trade policy in which corporate Americans throw millions of people out on the streets as they move to China.
So what I would say to Mike, if you’re telling me that public consciousness in this country is low, you’re right. But I think it’s not right to blame the average person for that. We’ve got to understand why that is so and I think in many ways what the big money interests are trying to do is deflect attention away from the real issues that impact working families. The economy. Why is it for example that in many European countries kids go to college virtually free? Because those governments, those societies, think that that is important. In this country, of course, 30, 40, 50 thousand bucks and that’s the choice that we make. And people can’t afford to send their kids to college. You have that kind of discussion. So mike, your point is well taken but I think your blaming the wrong people.
Thom Hartmann: Great. Our next questioner is part of our studio audience, here live with us in Denver. Bud, you’re a regular listener to AM760 and you’re in our studio audience. You have a question for Senator Sanders?
Bud: Yeah I do. Bernie, what is the real reason the democrats in the senate have not called the republicans bluff when they threaten to filibuster? It just seems like that’s al they have to do is just threaten and we back off and either do nothing or give them what they want.
Bernie Sanders: Bud, that’s, I share that concern and trust me that’s an issue that I raise virtually every week you know, in democratic caucuses. I’m an independent who caucuses with the democrats. I think a number of reasons. Number one, what the democratic leadership takes seriously, you can’t fault them for this, is the need to pass legislation to address the crises facing this country. For example, just last night we finally passed the small business bill which will provide 30 billion dollars of loans to small businesses which we think will create hundreds of thousands of jobs. It took week after week after week after week. Now and I can go on, extending unemployment insurance. Month after month against republican filibusters.
Now I happen to agree with you that at the end of the day what we should be doing is picking an issue, I think tax cuts are a perfect example whether we give tax breaks to billionaires or whether we protect the middle class and invest in our infrastructure and create jobs. And keep these guys there. Let the American people see how obstructionist the republicans are. Let’s, and lets have that lengthy debate. So I share that frustration.
The answer I think the democratic leadership would give you is look somebody’s got to pass healthcare reform, somebody’s got to deal with Wall Street greed. Somebody’s got to bring forth a stimulus package, we can’t just shut down the congress and have a long debate. So that’s the answer they would give you. I think that they have not been as aggressive as they should be in exposing the republican obstructionism and challenging them on these filibusters.
Thom Hartmann: Billy in Phoenix, Arizona. You’re on the air with Senator Bernie Sanders.
Billy: Hi senator Sanders, hi Thom. I just want to echo something Thom talked about on numerous occasions, listening to the show. And that is that we have no, the infrastructure, the high speed railroad, I think that would be a fantastic answer to bringing the economy back around to some degree. You know we have the bullet trains that they have in Europe and in Asia also that can go across country you know and then splinter off down south and up north and so and so forth that have put a lot of people to work. Like Thom says, put a trillion dollars in, over the lifetime of it you’re going to bring back five trillion. I mean these are things that need to be addressed and nobody is talking about them.
Bernie Sanders: You’re absolutely right but some of us are talking about it. And in fact as I think I mentioned earlier, what I would like to see is instead of giving 700 billion dollars in tax breaks to the top 2%, I think at least half of that money should be invested precisely in the areas that you’re talking about. Improving our rail belts, rail beds so that we can join the rest of the industrialized world with high speed rail. Improving subways in large cities, improving our airports, improving our roads, improving our bridges. Investing in our water systems, our waste water plants. Broadband, we’re far behind many other countries around the world in having universal broadband.
So the, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, not exactly a very sexy name for an organization, but what these guys tell us is we need 2.2 trillion in the next five years to bring our infrastructure to the place where it should be. And when we do that, you create millions and millions of jobs because investing in infrastructure is the best way, one of the best ways, that I know, I think every billion dollars invested in roads and bridges for example, creates something like 47 thousand new jobs. So you’re absolutely right, that is certainly what we should be doing. I would also throw in there transforming our energy system which is something we need and could also create.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah. And unfortunately, the republicans are blocking all of it.
Bernie Sanders: Absolutely. The republicans, apparently, don’t really care that our infrastructure deteriorates and is just going to get worse year by year and makes us a less competitive nation by allowing that to happen.
Thom Hartmann: And in fact most of our spending on infrastructure stopped with the election of Ronald Reagan. It’s just a tragedy. Darrell in Montclaire, New Jersey, you’re on the air with Senator Bernie Sanders.
Darrell: Hey Thom, hey Senator Sanders. Senator Sanders, I want to be just like you when I grow up and I hope there’s some other senators who feel the same way. Listen I have traveled all over the place, I lived in Japan for a lot of years. And I’ve got to tell you, most people in this country have no idea that we are falling way behind in infrastructure. They have no idea just how far behind. I mean you travel through Asia, you go to Hong Kong, you go to China, you go to Japan. I mean I was traveling to Shinkansen from Tokyo to Osaka 20 years ago, you know. And we still don’t have a legitimate high speed rail system here. When are they, and the last comment is people need to realize that even with the instructionism, so much has happened. The president and the democratic leadership have accomplished a lot, most people can’t even remember Lilly Ledbetter and that was just two years ago, there’s so much that’s happened. So we really need to keep some perspective and not allow the naysayers and you know the progressive movement, people who want all or nothing, to think that that’s the only way to go. That’s not the way to govern, you know…
Thom Hartmann: Darrell, you got a question in there somewhere?
Bernie Sanders: I think I got the thrust of it…
Thom Hartmann: Okay, thank you Darrell.
Bernie Sanders: The point is, again, very well taken. We have accomplished a lot. I’ll give you an example. In my own state, and I think, the state of Vermont, and I think around the country, we have invested 50 million dollars in improving our rail systems. It mean that our trains are going to go a lot faster than was formerly the case. Our rail beds are in very bad shape. This is true all over the country. Is that enough? No. Is it a start, yes.
In terms of energy. In Vermont we have invested many, many millions of dollars in energy efficiency, saving energy and in sustainable energy. A step forward, much more needs to be done. In terms of broadband. Many communities in the state of Vermont can’t get good quality, can’t get broadband at all. We just got a huge grant from the stimulus package which I hope is going to, in a couple of years, provide universal broadband in the state of Vermont. Be a huge boost for us economically, for our students, for healthcare as well. So what the caller is saying is let’s not minimize, let’s not say oh nothing has happened. There have been some significant breakthroughs in a number of areas.
My criticism is that it hasn’t been enough. We haven’t been aggressive. Yes we have invested in the infrastructure. Stimulus packages created 2 and ½, 3 million jobs, including a lot of jobs rebuilding our infrastructure. But we have to be bolder. We have to be more aggressive. We have to put more people to work and we’ve got to do it in a faster way.
Thom Hartmann: Absolutely. Rob in Mt. Iron, Minnesota. Rob, you are on the air with senator Bernie Sanders.
Rob: Good morning. Senator Sanders, Thom, thank you for the time. Mr. Sanders, there’s a new agency being set up out there that Mr. Dodd claims that he wants to defund because Elizabeth Warren is going to be in the set up phase. I don’t know all exactly what it’s supposed to do or the exact name of the agency, but it must be something very, very, very important. Could you give us a dime store explanation of what’s going on and what it’s goal is?
Bernie Sanders: Yes, Rob.
Thom Hartmann: We have a minute, Bernie.
Bernie Sanders: Okay. As part of financial reform, an agency roughly called the Financial Products Consumer Bureau, a bureau designed to protect ordinary American from being ripped off by credit card companies, mortgage companies, and large financial institutions. And the bait there, obviously, is who is going to be heading this agency, or be in a position to set up this extremely important agency. I have supported very, very strongly from day one Elizabeth Warren, who is a professor of law at Harvard Law School who has done a brilliant job in representing the American people in a number of capacities. For whatever reason, and I can’t speak to this. I like Chris Dodd, he’s a colleague of mine, but Chris Dodd is dead wrong in what he has been saying. The President, if he brought Elizabeth’s name before the senate, would never get 60 votes. We would lose our ability to serve. So what the president ha done is given her another title but he has done the right thing. IN my view, the appointment of Elizabeth Warren to that position is probably the best appointment that the president has made up to date.
Thom Hartmann: Absolutely, totally agree too. It’s our Brunch with Bernie hour. Our national town hall meeting with Senator Bernie Sanders every week here on the first hour of Friday on the Thom Hartmann Radio Program and TV program. We’ll be right back with more of your calls.
**Commercials**
Thom Hartmann: It’s our national town hall meeting with Senator Bernie Sanders, Brunch with Bernie on the Thom Hartmann Program. Sanders.senate.gov, Bernie’s website. He’s got a great newsletter there and a lot of really, really good news, actually. It’s a good news site. Bernie, you wanted to say something?
Bernie Sanders: Sure, I did. I think, what I hope people understand, and this issue has come up on several questions today, is the republicans are essentially playing a show game. And the show game is they are doing everything they can to deflect attention away from their record and their policies.
They want to go back to more tax breaks for billionaires and the trickle down economic theory which may sound fine but it failed. It doesn’t work. Every time they have tried it, it ends up making the rich richer, running up the deficit and not doing well in terms of job creation. They want to do more unfettered free trade. Well that has been a disaster for American workers. We’ve lost millions of good paying manufacturing jobs because companies have shut down, thrown workers out on the street, moved to China, bring their products back to this country. That hasn’t worked.
They want to talk about deregulation. I don’t use that term, that’s what their buzz word is. Get government off the backs of business, that’s deregulation. And if anyone hasn’t learned what deregulation has done on Wall Street, we got government off the backs of our good friends on Wall Street, it turns out that they were crooks, concerned only about their selves, incredibly greedy, incredibly reckless, drove this economy into a terrible recession. That’s what republicans believe. Get government off the backs of Wall Street and of the large corporations.
And when they give tax breaks to billionaires, and then tell you they want to deal with the deficit and the national debt, their only approach then can be massive cut backs in other programs for the middle class and working families. They want to raise the social security retirement age to 70. They want to make sure that it is harder for working families to get Pell grants so they can send their kids to college, etc., etc.
That’s the issue that we’re focused on right now. The republican record was a disaster, in my view the democrats have made some progress, have not done enough, need to be more aggressive. But it would be a huge mistake for this country to go back to the people who caused this crisis in the first place.
Thom Hartmann: David in Chicago, Illinois, you’re on the air with Senator Bernie Sanders.
David: Hi Senator Sanders, thank you for looking out for the average working person that has to get up every day to go to work to earn a paycheck.
Bernie Sanders: Thank you.
David: The earlier caller talked about a national database of job ads and I’d like to take that idea further. As a tech worker, I’ve seen the gaming and loop holing of high rank practices when it comes to guess work or Visas and with the gaming and loop holing of green cards, and I think forcing companies to authenticate that there’s a real job, there’s a real salary and that American citizens are put at the front of the line, just like we track any transaction over 10 thousand dollars in the banking industry, would go a long way to tighten up the recruiting, the gaming and loop holing of recruiting I see in the high tech industries.
Bernie Sanders: You are absolutely right. And I want to tell you that’s an issue we have focused on with some, in fact we got an amendment passed in the budget committee a couple of years with regard to that. What the caller is talking about, programs like the H1B program, which is a high tech program. And companies theoretically are supposed to go out and say are there American engineers, are there American scientists, are there American professionals who could do it. They don’t. Very often what they do is do a very cursory search for American workers and they run to foreign countries, bring those people in at lower wages than they would pay American workers. We are focused exactly on that.
I’ll give you an example. Not high tech. Here in the state of Vermont which is you know certainly one of the great ski areas in the United States of America. Many, many people ski, many of them are good skiers. Some of our ski resorts have gone abroad to bring in ski instructors. You know, give me a break. It’s just not true. We have to first, as the caller said, make sure that those jobs are made available to American workers.
Thom Hartmann: Liz in Valley Glen, California, you’re on the air with Senator Bernie Sanders.
Liz: Oh good morning it’s a real honor. In conjunction with what you had spoken about earlier about giving tax breaks to the very rich? What we really need to do is call it welfare for the rich, the super rich and the mega rich. And I think the whole conversation needs to be rephrased. The other thing is, any company who wants a contract from the government, should be an American company. This whole business of Halliburton reincorporating in Dubai and getting our money, why? If they can’t pay taxes in this country, and support the infrastructure, they shouldn’t be getting any tax money. The other thing is, in conjunction with that, any government contract, the company, these, the products should be made in America. Aren’t we concerned about our security? Why are we getting computer chips from China when they’re implanting who knows what in the chips or plane parts...
Thom Hartmann: Okay I think we’ve got it. I think we’ve got your list, Liz.
Bernie Sanders: Liz, I think you hit it right on the head. Liz, I agree with you. I agree with everything you said. You’re exactly right. And the issue, in terms of making sure that products that the government buys are made in the United States becomes a real national security issue. When Liz indicated, I’ve seen this, and many military people are concerned about it. How can you be dependent on foreign countries for military supplies and doesn’t that put you in a weak national security position? And the answer is yes, and I think Liz is exactly correct.
Thom Hartmann: Bernie, we just have 45 seconds left. It would be a disservice to a listener to put them on. So let me just hand this over to you to wrap up this hour about how we can take America back, what we need to be doing.
Bernie Sanders: Well I think, I think, you know as Thom and I talk about all of the time, we just cannot throw our hands up in the air and say we’re discouraged, we’re tired. The stakes are much too great and we are taking on people who have incredible wealth, incredible power, and their greed is such that that is simply not enough. Some of these guys have billions of dollars, they need even more. So these are tough times for our country, and I think what we have got to do is work as hard as we can, every single day, making sure that the folks the we are electing are going to stand up for working families and the middle class. And that we’ve got educate, I think we’ve got to organize, I think we have to put as much pressure as we can, not only on the republicans, but on the democrats as well, to stand up for ordinary Americans.
Thom Hartmann: There you go. Senator Bernie Sanders. Oh by the way, Bernie, I keynoted the Fighting Bob Fest last weekend and they all asked me to say hi to you and send you their love.
Bernie Sanders: Okay, that’s great.
Thom Hartmann: They loved it when you were there. Bernie thanks so much for being with us today.
Bernie Sanders: Thank you, bye bye.
Transcribed by Suzanne Roberts, Portland Psychology Clinic.
