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. And Jumma Mubarak or Shabbat Shalom or TGIF or whatever it may be for you, that means it’s Friday which means it is Brunch with Bernie. Our first hour, Senator Bernie Sanders with our national town hall meeting taking your calls on pretty much any topic you want. Our telephone number 866-987-THOM. And also 866-745-2667. You can call and get in line to talk with senator Sanders for our national town hall meeting. First, Bernie? Senator Sanders, welcome.
Bernie Sanders: Good to be with you Thom.
Thom Hartmann: Great to have you. I understand you just came back from a steel workers meeting, in Vegas?
Bernie Sanders: I did. You know on Wednesday I spoke at the convention of the United Steelworkers of America in Las Vegas. And I’ll tell you, you come back really inspired. They had about 3,000 people there from all over the country and these are people doing exactly the things that have to be done. They’re representing their fellow employees, trying to get decent wages for workers, they’re organizing the unorganized, they’re reaching out to fellow workers all over the world. They’re focusing on the real issues that affect the middle class in this country. And it was just very gratifying to me. I had a great time and just am very appreciative for what Leo Gerard and the steelworkers, Rich Trumka was there, president of the AFL-CIO. He gave a great speech, Bob Herbert who used to write for the New York Times gave a great speech. So you know it just tells you hat could happen when working people stand together and fight for a progressive agenda for their kids and for their grandchildren.
The issues that I focused on had to do with the need that while deficit reduction is obviously a huge issue and we have got to deal with that issue but we’ve got to deal with it in a fair and responsible way, not balancing the budget on the backs of elderly people and sick people and children and working families. But that we’ve got to ask the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations, many of whom are paying lower effective tax rates than they did decades ago.
Even more important than the serious problem with deficit reduction is the job situation. And the reality is, as I’m sure many of our listeners know is that real, REAL, unemployment is not 9.1%. Real unemployment is 16%. If you include those people who have given up looking for work, those people who are working part time who want to work full time. And then you throw in there, millions of people today Thom, who, often older workers, you know you’re 55 years of age and you’re making significantly less than you did when you were 35. And just think about how that feels. Economically you’re moving in the wrong direction. Your pension has been reduced or maybe taken away. You’re paying more for healthcare benefits.
So when you look at the economy in that sense, you look at the economy of a freeze on federal workers’ wages for two years which is just a signal to every employer in America to say hey well President Obama is not raising wages for workers then you’re not going to get it either. And then you look at COLA for social security people and disabled vets. Last two years they have gotten no COLA benefits. So you’ve got a really bad economic situation. And, you know, as bad as it’s been since the great depression. And I think we’ve got to focus on that. And I think we’ve got to be bold. I noticed the president is talking about jobs but I think we’ve got to be a lot bolder than what he is talking about. And three, at least, there are three areas that I’m going to be focusing on.
Number one, in almost every state in the country, certainly in my state of Vermont. We need to do a heck of a lot of work rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. And anyone who is driving right now, you’re going over a pot hole, you may be going over a bridge which needs repair or a tunnel that needs repair. If you’re on a subway right now the odds are that the subway in our largest cities needs significant improvements. Certainly our rail system is nowhere near where the rail system is in Europe or in Japan, increasingly in China. And the fact is that if you look at a country like China. China invests almost four times our rate, they spend about 9% of their GDP annually, on infrastructure. On rail alone, the Chinese invested 186 billion from 2006 to 2009 and within two years in China they’re going to open up 42 new high speed rail lines that can go up to 200 miles per hour. What are we doing?
Thom Hartmann: We have none of that.
Bernie Sanders: And there are those people, absolutely none of that. Our republican friends want to disinvest in infrastructure. They are conceding the global economy to the Chinese. Then you have, so you can create a huge number of jobs. That’s probably the fastest way that you can create jobs. So it’s infrastructure, it’s building schools public transportation, water systems, serious problems with water. We don’t talk about it very much but both clean water, waste water, we’re losing huge amounts of water through using old pipes. I mentioned, I think on this program, I talked to a mayor in the state of Vermont. A guy in Rutland Vermont they still have water pipes built during the Civil War era. And that’s not uncommon. So you have to invest in those things. We need engineers to help us do that. But we can move significantly forward in creating millions of jobs by rebuilding our infrastructure. And when you do that you make our country more productive, and more competitive in the global economy. And now is the time to do that.
Second of all, we are sitting, right now we have the technology to significantly, significantly transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions to energy efficiency and to sustainable energy. I was talking to somebody who knows a lot about this a couple of weeks ago, and what he was telling me, in my state of Vermont, this is not untypical, in fact Vermont does a better job I think than any other state in the country in terms of energy efficiency. But he said that the overwhelming majority of homes and buildings in the state of Vermont, if they were weatherized, we could cut back on fuel bills and the amount of fuel that we use by 20 or 30%. So think about how much fuel we could save. right now we’re spending about 350 billion dollars a year importing oil from Saudi Arabia and other countries. Think about the jobs that you create making our homes, our schools, our office buildings, our factories more energy efficient. A lot of jobs right there. And then we begin to move to sustainable energy. Wind, solar, geothermal, biomass. Make sure that those products are manufactured in the United States. There’s a lot of job opportunity in those areas. But once again, our republican friend want to cut back on sustainable energy. They’re conceding that whole economic sector to the Chinese who are investing huge amounts of money in wind and solar.
Thom Hartmann: And meanwhile the, I believe it was the New York Times yesterday, was reporting that they found Radioactive tritium found in river near Vermont Yankee plantradioactive Tritium in the river in Massachusetts?
Bernie Sanders: Right, in the Connecticut River, right where, in Vermont we are working, actually we are hoping to be the very first state in the country to shut down a nuclear power plant that does not want to be closed down. There have been some that have been shut down. But the owners of that company are called Entergy of Louisiana. They want to keep it and I think the people of Vermont do not want to keep it and some of us are trying to see that at the end of 40 years that license is not renewed.
And then the third area where I think we have, you know maybe the most significant of them all, is to take a very, very, very hard look at our disastrous trade policies. And here’s an example, Thom. And I know you talk about all the time, where the split between Main Street America, working class America and the media elite and congress and the White House, is just incredible. In Washington they keep talking about unfettered free trade and continuing the policies of NAFTA and CAFTA and permanent normal trade relations with China and how wonderful it would be. We’ve got a new trade agreement coming up, negotiated by George W. Bush that Obama wants to push through with South Korea, Columbia and Panama. Just, you know, to my mind a disaster. It continues the process of losing jobs in this country and sending them abroad. But those are the areas I think, some of the areas we’ve got to focus on if we’re going to rebuild the middle class.
Thom Hartmann: And I hope President Obama is listening. Senator Bernie Sanders with us, it’s our Brunch with Bernie hour. Check out his website, Sanders.Senate.Gov.
Transcribed by Suzanne Roberts, Portland Psychology Clinic.
