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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBernie Sanders: Trump Infrastructure plan a "scam that gives massive tax breaks to large companies"
By Bernie Sanders
Our infrastructure is collapsing, and the American people know it. Every day, they drive on roads with unforgiving potholes and over bridges that are in disrepair. They wait in traffic jams and ride in overcrowded subways. They see airports bursting at the seams. They see the need for a modern rail system. They worry that a local levee or dam could fail in a storm.
During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump correctly talked about rebuilding our countrys infrastructure. But the plan he offered is a scam that gives massive tax breaks to large companies and billionaires on Wall Street who are already doing phenomenally well. Trump would allow corporations that have stashed their profits overseas to pay just a fraction of what the companies owe in federal taxes. And then he would allow the companies to invest in infrastructure projects in exchange for even more tax breaks. Trumps plan is corporate welfare coming and going.
More: http://bit.ly/2geGDBp
dhol82
(9,351 posts)Come on people. How long did it take Bernie to realize that Trumpco was a lying sack of shit?
He was all for the infrastructure plan. He believed the Orange fuck hat. Really?
Glad that his eyes have been opened - finally.
madokie
(51,076 posts)and I'm not sure where you came up with that
dhol82
(9,351 posts)Guess he finally woke up and said, oops.
Arazi
(6,829 posts)He's on fire against Trump
ehrnst
(32,640 posts)babylonsister
(170,963 posts)It mentions the infrastructure as well as other areas he was willing to work with him. It's been all over how he wanted to work with Trump, particularly on infrastructure. It seems Bernie has now learned the truth of the matter, hopefully.
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)Program. I look at that as a signal that he would work on policies Sanders supports.
Of course he is going to call it as he sees it on policy like the OP.
kcr
(15,300 posts)but I have never seen Trump give any indication that he would support anything of the type that Sanders would push. Trump is not a progressive. He has never run a progressive campaign. His hot air about supporting the working people is part of his argle bargle word salad campaign. He never presented clear, goal oriented plans outlining what he'd like to do regarding infrastructure. The only stuff he was ever frighteningly clear on was his White Nationalism.
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)And the bad far outweighs the good.
There are policies I favor no matter who enacts them so if Trump were to increase tariffs by about 45% which I think one was one of the few policies Sanders signaled that he would assist on which Sanders opposed NAFTA, CAFTA, PNTR with China as well as TPP.
Not that I buy it coming from Trump who imports Chinese steel as well as other things which his excuse was that is the law is written which he took advantage of and says so himself.
When Sanders made his statement post election he also signaled he would oppose his racist policies.
serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him, Sanders said.
To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him, he added.
https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2016/11/09/in-first-post-election-comments-bernie-sanders-presents-donald-trump-two-paths-going-forward
SammyWinstonJack
(44,129 posts)virtualobserver
(8,760 posts)everyone should be "kumbaya" with that.
pnwmom
(108,925 posts)jimlup
(7,968 posts)he always knew that. By saying he would support Trump in presenting a real infrastructure program he is in a stronger position NOW to say that it ISN'T a real infrastructure program.
Continued Bernie bashing is just naive.
Dorian Gray
(13,469 posts)supporter, so I don't have any reason to jump in here, other than the idea that he was a Trump supporter is laughable.
He's always contended that HRC was a better choice than Trump.
It's some of his supporters who were immovable.
This isn't a surprise or a come to jesus moment.
ismnotwasm
(41,921 posts)But hey--Trump is planning on trashing that pesky TPP! So not only will profits go overseas, it will go there with old trade deals!
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)I was against long before Trump entered the primary.
ismnotwasm
(41,921 posts)leftofcool
(19,460 posts)Bodhi BloodWave
(2,346 posts)I have very strong doubts that Trump will raise the minimum wage, but *IF* he were to do so without harmful strings attached then i am all for Bernie working with him on that issue(As bernie said, its not enough but it is better then whats currently the minimum wage (and will help many people if only a bit ))
Cosmocat
(14,543 posts)Called the house of Representatives which is held by lunatic right wingers.
We will see a national minimum wage increase when we see national adoption of gay marriage rights, or to set a time line, when hell freezesvover.
boston bean
(36,186 posts)frazzled
(18,402 posts)Which made an incontrovertible case that Bernie and all right minded legislators must listen to.
Demsrule86
(68,352 posts)such a regressive infrastructure package.
otohara
(24,135 posts)I always knew he was...
sheshe2
(83,355 posts)I am sure BS was on top of it and had it in the fast track. Oh wait, that was two years ago.
TeamPooka
(24,156 posts)Equinox Moon
(6,344 posts)Thank you Bernie for working so hard for all of us!
Demsrule86
(68,352 posts)Orsino
(37,428 posts)With the complicity of the MSM, FBI and Putin, it seems...but which president are our Congresscritters supposed to work with? Was Sanders supposed to boycott the Senate, stay home, and let the GOP do whatever it wants with us?
think
(11,641 posts)http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/chuck-schumer-donald-trump-231672
http://fortune.com/2016/11/10/elizabeth-warren-donald-trump-speech-afl-cio/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/howard-dean-donald-trump_us_582dda53e4b030997bbdd637
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)It's one of the reasons I'm taking this place not terribly seriously right now. The folks who are 100% committed to this narrative of "we wouldn't have lost the election if only Hillary hadn't had any primary challengers".
Demsrule86
(68,352 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)it's an inane and all too predictable attempt at deflection, is what it is. And it's not working, it's not convincing anyone, and it's not even doing anything productive to improve our situation.
But if it makes you feel better, enjoy telling yourself it anyway.
Demsrule86
(68,352 posts)I have my opinion, and you have yours...I warned during the primary that this would happen...the parallels to 1980 were clearly there... I only hope we can put this party together again in time to stop Trump. This should be every sane decent person's most important goal. I have heard that Bernie has not joined the Democratic party. I hope in the future, he will refrain from commenting on the Democratic Party as he is not a member.
Tom Rinaldo
(22,911 posts)In 2016 there were many who wanted Hillary treated as if she already were an incumbent Democratic President. She wasn't however, and attempts to act as if she was helped to create the crisis we are all in now. Hillary Clinton had been out of everyday politic for 8 years. She spent 4 years away from domestic policies as Secretary of State. Then she immediately turned her time and attention to Wall street for funding. Ir was an open question whether she was sufficiently in touch with the current electorate to be an effective candidate for President. Just like it was with Jeb Bush on the Republican side. But the Democratic Party establishment did what it could to grease the skids for a Clinton candidacy rather than embrace the valid role of the primary process, unwisely, and it got caught doing so on top of everything else.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Only in a situation when you have an incumbent President do you see that sort of thing.
TwilightZone
(25,342 posts)Comparing her to Jeb Bush is one of the more laughable comparisons I've seen this entire election cycle. Congrats.
Tom Rinaldo
(22,911 posts)Jeb also hadn't campaigned for years and had not been submerged in retail politics for as long. But more to the point he represented both the establishment and the past to many voters at a time when that increasingly was becoming a disadvantage - down to sharing the family name of prior presidents.
Hillary did get two million more votes than Trump and she should be president. But she got more votes than Donald Trump for god's sake - that shouldn't be viewed as a great accomplishment. Percentages of Democratic turn out dropped from 2012 - or she would be president elect.
Demsrule86
(68,352 posts)and refuse to concede when you could not win... caused us to lose the election. He should never have run. Sanders also treated Clinton disrespectfully by refusing to concede. His campaign set up protests at the convention! Why? Also, with comments he has made recently,he may cost us future elections. I wish he would fight Trump half as hard as he fought Hillary and the Democratic Party. I care about progressive policy and this primary fiasco may cost us all the good things we have fought so hard for since Roosevelt including Medicare and Social Security.
Tom Rinaldo
(22,911 posts)If you need scapegoats pin it on Comey, Hillary would have won without that letter to Congress. Or how about Anthony Weiner? If he wasn't dicking around there would have been no renewed investigation weeks out from the election. But since you went there, allow me to join in...
First off Hillary was not a hell of a lot sooner in conceding in 2008 than Bernie was in 2016. And her chances of winning had already been dead for weeks prior to her doing so. But at root you are blaming the messenger, and not putting any responsibility on Hillary for the loss of the White House and all that will follow. In reality any serious blows Bernie landed on Hillary happened prior to the New York primary - and he was still very much in the race at that point although she was a strong favorite. Hillary landed some pretty hard blows on Obama too during her losing effort in 2008 - but Bernie did not run a viscous campaign against Hillary. Remember "I'm tired of hearing about your god damned emails"? It seems your basic premise is that everyone should have simply gotten out of Hillary's way and just let her have the nomination on a silver platter.
You remain willfully blind to facts that were blindingly clear a year ago. Hillary was a deeply unpopular candidate with the electorate then too, before she felt seriously threatened by Bernie. There was little public enthusiasm for her outside of selected activist ranks. She could not draw major crowds. She was distrusted by the public all along, more so than Donald Trump ever was. Independents never warmed to her, and they are the biggest voting block in America. And that killed her this year Sanders did extremely well with Independents throughout the campaign, Sanders became the most trusted national politician in America. Sanders was consistently matching up better against Trump than did Hillary, since before the NH primary.
And about those god damn emails. Ultimately Hillary brought that on herself, she can't shift the blame to anyone else regarding that. And they killed her - that's what most of the "Lock Her Up " chants were about at Trump rallies. You know how Trump got enough strategic votes to win the electoral college (or at least close enough that a hack could put him over)? Republicans who hated Hillary and/or distrusted her turned out to vote against her. She was the motivation that allowed so many Republicans to come home to Trump. That's on top of the fact that she never did find a way to appeal to rust belt voters, or even make much of an effort to do so. For Christ's sake if Bernie did nothing else for Hillary than deliver a stiff wake up call about where and why her candidacy was inadequate. - that should have been favor enough. But no, Hillary counted on the same old Obama coalition turning out for her - which had already peaked in 2008 and receded some by 2012. Even though she knew from day one that she had serious popularity problems with youth - a key pillar of that coalition.
Hillary never even visited Wisconsin, and she scrambled to add events in Michigan and Pennsylvania at the last minute. She never honed a strong populist message on economics - she included a few lines about it in her stump speech and almost all her ads were targeted at Trump's character with a few talking about her life long commitment to kids. Hillary was focused on winning the votes of white moderate Republican women in the suburbs instead of the displaced working class. That didn't work out as well as she planned on.
We ran a generally unpopular candidate for president who epitomized the status quo in a strong change election ear and you are looking for scapegoats to blame her loss on? OK, start with Hillary. She made two fatal errors in judgement that doomed her. One involved using her personal emails to run State business. But that alone was survivable, had she gone transparent on it early - but she didn't. She mastered the art of parsing words as well as her husband did when the Monica scandal first flared for him. And she chose not to reveal that not only did she use her own email account for state business, but she maintained her on private server also. Hillary kept that secret until it got uncovered ad blew up in her face during the last of countless Republican fishing expeditions against her. If there was one person on the planet who could have predicted how relentless Republicans would be going against her, it was Hillary Clinton. And she left that for them to find rather than getting out in front of it herself when trouble first started brewing. And that opened up the door for the FBI to start to investigate her in the middle of her presidential election campaign.
If you don't think it was an insane liability to Hillary to be out there running for President while there was an open FBI investigation to determine whether there was a basis for prosecuting her, I don't know what world you live in. I'll be blunt. Hillary could have taken her chances with revealing the existence of her private server when her email issue first emerged, but she chose to roll the dice instead. She gambled that it would never be revealed and she almost won that gamble. It was only the last in a long series of Republican Congressional inquiries that finally turned it up. I can understand her deciding to play those odds, but she lost. Once the FBI got involved she was putting the whole nation at risk of exactly what will now happen, by refusing to bow out of the race. She could have done so in time for other Democrats besides Bernie and Martin to run - but she chose to push her way through it instead. We all know the results. The truth is she was reckless with her emails, and by hiding her personal server she managed to push off an FBI investigation of her to the worst time frame possible.
The other fatal judgement flaw? Hillary became Secretary of State when the Great Recession hit. In that post she could not dabble much in domestic issues, but she had a front row seat to how thoroughly the middle class got wasted by it. Anger over it kept festering and boiling. All of the recovery that followed went to the top tenth of one percent of Americans. So what did Hillary do when she left the SOS position and began planning a presidential run. She hit up all of her friends and connections on Wall Street for every penny she could pull in. All quite legal I'm sure. No proof of any quid pro pros quos, but the optics were astonishingly bad. She and Bill entered the top one tenth of one percent exactly while the recovery was funneling truck loads of money to that tiny sub set of Americans - and no one else. It's not like they needed all that money they raised from Wall Street concerns, they were already filthy rich by average American standards. That was her choice. It made sense to her at the time. I think it showed both how terribly out of touch she was to think that was a good warm up to running president in 2016, and it showed horrible judgement for a Democratic politician with national ambitions to do so. Bernie didn't make her do it. She could have plotted a very different course and be President Elect today.
Red Oak
(697 posts)Thank you
dae
(3,396 posts)more shrill about Bernie as each day passes.
nolabels
(13,133 posts)Geebus, losing on a technicality for the second time in twenty years is not a good reason to bend yourself out of shape
That particular Gumby was on the money and shall I say it, reflective. Their "echo chamber" has as much in common with reality as DC insiders.
Excellent post
alarimer
(16,245 posts)It's Hillary's establishment baggage that cost her, not the primary. The fact is the Democratic Party only pays lip service to progressive ideas anymore. And that is what cost the election. Because the Party is in the pocket of Wall Street and Silicon Valley.
Beartracks
(12,761 posts)==============
Demsrule86
(68,352 posts)I certainly hope that Bernie does not consider the Democratic party as opposition akin to the Republican Party.
Beartracks
(12,761 posts)el_bryanto
(11,804 posts)There's the truth that you could verify and prove for example. Proving if Bernie had stayed out of the election would have led to a Clinton victory seems like a hard thing to prove. But then again I think if we had nominated Bernie Sanders he might well be on his way to the white house, and I'm guessing you won't see that as the truth either.
Bryant
apcalc
(4,461 posts)Bernie or Hillary....why argue that?
Putin made all this moot. He wants Trump.
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)... there's not going to be much left for anything else.
To the extent Trump makes any decisions himself (he doesn't have any apparent knowledge of or interest in world affairs or economics) I think he's just going to stick his fist in the till and steal.
There was an uncorroborated report his first conversation with one world leader was to demand permitting issues for a foreign Trump hotel be cleared up immediately. He has announced no plans to divest himself of foreign properties or investments.
I think it's going to be one scheme after another to line his own pockets and enrich his family. It's all about him, and money is the way he keeps score.
DinahMoeHum
(21,737 posts)DirkGently
(12,151 posts)SunSeeker
(51,378 posts)Initech
(99,915 posts)tandem5
(2,072 posts)Bernie, whatever you're smokin' I want some!
TheFrenchRazor
(2,116 posts)is that the super rich just aren't rich enough? that's exactly what TRump and his supporters think.
Maru Kitteh
(28,303 posts)Perhaps, sir, you might have done less to stir baseless, intractable, irrational hatred for our nominee in the first place. Maybe you could have been less egotistical and let go of your pride; and perhaps worked harder to ensure the most brutally obvious race-baiting, misogynistic, detestable person to ever run, did NOT win the office.
I supported Sanders' contribution to the platform and was HAPPY about it. I feel now his resentful reflex of disdain for anyone with more knowledge/authority/experience than he had colored his thoughts about Hillary from the beginning. He wanted airtime for the ideas he has been pushing in speeches for 40 years.
I think ego prevented him from giving his full effort to the ticket that could carry his platform forward and stop Trump tyranny.
As he is not a Democrat, and he has called for the diminishment of women and minorities in our party, his voice should wither and fade. The sooner, the better.
murielm99
(30,657 posts)Thank you.