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Bernie Sanders: Let's Spend $5.5 Billion to Employ 1 Million Young People
The Employ Young Americans Now Act is the sort of legislation that would have struggled even in a Democratic Congress. In a Capitol controlled by Republicans, it might as well propose taxing churches to pay for sex reassignment surgeries on a moon base. The legislation, introduced by Michigan Representative John Conyers, would create a $5.5 billion fund, $4 billion earmarked for the employment of people between 16 and 24, $1.5 billion for job training grants. There are no pay-fors. It would ask a Congress that is dead-set against "big government" to employ people, with the help of big government.
Yet the bill's Senate sponsor is Vermont's Bernie Sanders. That matters quite a lot in June 2015. On Thursday morning, Sanders joined Conyers on a visit to the H.O.P.E. Project in southeast Washington. The presidential candidate toured a small but busy office, located above a strip mall, that had successfully trained 375 people in the IT field, and seen 315 of those people get jobs that paid an average of $42,000—far above the median income locally. Ninety-three percent of graduates were African-American, and when Sanders entered a computer room—pausing to greet every student—the only white faces belonged to journalists and staffers. The room was crowded with TV cameras and iPhones, some pointed at four words on the wall: "HARVARD OF THE HOOD."
"In America now we spend nearly $200 billion on public safety, including $70 billion on correctional facilities each and every year," said Sanders from the front of the room. "So, let me be very clear: in my view it makes a lot more sense to invest in jobs, in job training, and in education than spending incredible amounts of money on jails and law enforcement."
Sanders got darker, decrying the size of America's prison population, imagining a world in which people got jobs instead of jail sentences." According to the NAACP, from 1980 to 2008, the number of people incarcerated in America quadrupled from roughly 500,000 to 2.3 million people," he said. "If current trends continue, one in three black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime. This is an unspeakable tragedy."
After Sanders finished, and after Conyers said the candidate was "even better as a senator" than as a congressman, H.O.P.E. founder Raymond Bell introduced "superstar" program graduates.
more: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-06-04/bernie-sanders-let-s-spend-5-5-billion-to-employ-1-million-young-peopleYet the bill's Senate sponsor is Vermont's Bernie Sanders. That matters quite a lot in June 2015. On Thursday morning, Sanders joined Conyers on a visit to the H.O.P.E. Project in southeast Washington. The presidential candidate toured a small but busy office, located above a strip mall, that had successfully trained 375 people in the IT field, and seen 315 of those people get jobs that paid an average of $42,000—far above the median income locally. Ninety-three percent of graduates were African-American, and when Sanders entered a computer room—pausing to greet every student—the only white faces belonged to journalists and staffers. The room was crowded with TV cameras and iPhones, some pointed at four words on the wall: "HARVARD OF THE HOOD."
"In America now we spend nearly $200 billion on public safety, including $70 billion on correctional facilities each and every year," said Sanders from the front of the room. "So, let me be very clear: in my view it makes a lot more sense to invest in jobs, in job training, and in education than spending incredible amounts of money on jails and law enforcement."
Sanders got darker, decrying the size of America's prison population, imagining a world in which people got jobs instead of jail sentences." According to the NAACP, from 1980 to 2008, the number of people incarcerated in America quadrupled from roughly 500,000 to 2.3 million people," he said. "If current trends continue, one in three black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime. This is an unspeakable tragedy."
After Sanders finished, and after Conyers said the candidate was "even better as a senator" than as a congressman, H.O.P.E. founder Raymond Bell introduced "superstar" program graduates.
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That is epic. 
