Bernie Sanders: We need serious talk on serious issues

[Donkees]

January 9, 2017

By Bernie Sanders

Editor's Note: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders will be taking part in a town meeting on CNN at 9 PM Eastern on Monday, January 9. Sanders, an independent from Vermont and a former candidate for president, is serving his second term in Senate. The views expressed in this commentary are his own.

Excerpt:

In my view, the media spends too much time treating politics like a baseball game, a personality contest or a soap opera. We need to focus less on polls, fundraisers, gaffes and who's running for president in four years, and more on the very serious problems facing the American people -- problems which get relatively little discussion. I hope that's what our town meeting on CNN tonight will accomplish.

There are a lot of important questions to talk about, including:

How do we stop the movement toward oligarchy in our country in which the economic and political life of the United States is increasingly controlled by a handful of billionaires?

Are we content with the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality that we are experiencing? Should the top one-tenth of 1 percent own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent? Should one family in this country, the Waltons of the Walmart retail chain, own as much as the bottom 40 percent of our people? Should 52 percent of all new income be going into the pockets of the top 1 percent?

While the very rich become much richer, are we satisfied with having the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on earth? Can a worker really survive on the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour? How can a working-class family afford $15,000 a year for childcare? How can a senior citizen or a disabled veteran get by on $13,000 a year from Social Security?

What can be done about a political system in which the very rich are able to spend unlimited sums of money to elect candidates who represent their interests? Is that really what democracy is about? Why, in the year 2017, do we still have state governments trying to suppress the vote and make it harder for poor people, young people and people of color to participate in the political process?

Why is the richest country in the history of the world the only major country not to provide health care to all as a right, despite spending much more per capita? Why are we one of the very few countries on earth not to provide paid family and medical leave? With the five major drug companies making over $50 billion in profits last year, why do we end up paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs?

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/09/opinions/serious-questions-bernie-sanders-opinion/index.html