Gavel in hand, Bernie Sanders lays out an unabashedly liberal economic agenda
By
Mike DeBonis
Feb. 18, 2021 at 7:14 p.m. EST
Excerpts:
As the new chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Sanders has already played a key role in advancing President Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package, and he is now scheduling high-profile hearings on some of the nation’s most pressing challenges.
For the first, set for Thursday, Sanders has summoned the chief executives of some of America’s best-known companies to testify about the wages they pay their employees — speaking alongside some of their own front-line workers. The hearing’s title — “Why Should Taxpayers Subsidize Poverty Wages at Large Profitable Corporations?” — reflects how Sanders intends to use his new gavel to promote an unabashedly liberal economic agenda, one that breaks with the Budget Committee’s traditional focus on the nation’s long-term fiscal outlook.
Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats, said he sees his panel’s scope as touching on “every aspect of public policy — in fact, on every aspect of American life,” and he plans to focus on the plight of the working class amid growing inequality.
“They are living through an economic desperation the likes of which we have not seen since the Great Depression,” Sanders said in an interview. “So we are going to be a very active and aggressive Budget Committee, which is going to explore what’s going on with the working class and the middle class of this country and how we can successfully address the crises that they face.”
Other hearings are tentatively on the books: On March 17, Sanders is planning a hearing on income and wealth inequality, followed by a March 24 hearing on “making corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes” and an April 14 hearing on the costs of climate change.
It remains unclear whether the McDonald’s and Walmart executives Sanders has invited to next week’s hearing will appear. McDonald’s declined to comment, and representatives for Walmart did not respond to inquiries Thursday. One top executive who has agreed to testify, according to Sanders’s office, is W. Craig Jelinek of Costco, which is known for paying its workers higher-than-average wages and benefits. Costco also did not respond to a request for comment. Sanders said no matter who shows up, he is determined to highlight the ever-growing gap between the pay of top executives and their essential employees — and the effect those wages have on federal expenditures.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sanders-budget-pay-ceo/2021/02/18/95dffb00-71fd-11eb-93be-c10813e358a2_story.html
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