Bernie Sanders: Where do we go from here?

[xchrom]

http://www.nationofchange.org/bernie-sanders-where-do-we-go-here-1326463934

It's no se­cret that the peo­ple of our coun­try are angry and frus­trated with Wash­ing­ton and their gov­ern­ment. They cor­rectly per­ceive that we face enor­mous prob­lems: a col­laps­ing mid­dle class, in­creased poverty and a grow­ing gap be­tween the very rich and every­one else; sky-high un­em­ploy­ment; 50 mil­lion Amer­i­cans with­out health in­sur­ance; a de­te­ri­o­rat­ing in­fra­struc­ture; the con­tin­ued loss of our man­u­fac­tur­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties; the on­go­ing mort­gage and stu­dent loan crises, and the plan­e­tary chal­lenge of global warm­ing. And on top of all of that, we have a $15 tril­lion dol­lar na­tional debt. The Amer­i­can peo­ple want ac­tion. They want their gov­ern­ment to start rep­re­sent­ing the 99 per­cent, not just the top 1 per­cent. With that goal in mind, let me say a few words about some of the is­sues that I will be work­ing on when Con­gress re­con­venes in Jan­u­ary.

With more than 23.7 mil­lion Amer­i­cans un­em­ployed or un­der­em­ployed, 15 per­cent of our work­force, we must be ag­gres­sive about cre­at­ing the mil­lions of new jobs we des­per­ately need. It is sim­ply not ac­cept­able that high school or col­lege grad­u­ates are not able to find work as they try to begin their ca­reers. It is hor­rific that mil­lions of older work­ers, who were look­ing for­ward to se­cure re­tire­ments, find them­selves un­em­ployed and fac­ing the pos­si­bil­ity that they may never again have a job.

One of the fastest ways to cre­ate jobs is to re­build our crum­bling in­fra­struc­ture - roads, bridges, rail­roads, air­ports, water sys­tems, waste­water plants and aging schools. While we spend 2 per­cent of our GDP on in­fra­struc­ture, China spends 9 per­cent and Eu­rope spends 5 per­cent. We also need to make sure that Ver­mont and all of rural Amer­ica gets the qual­ity broad­band and cell phone ser­vice that we de­serve in order to be able to com­pete in the 21st cen­tury. When we re­build and im­prove our in­fra­struc­ture we not only cre­ate a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of jobs, we make our coun­try more ef­fi­cient and pro­duc­tive. I will con­tinue to fight for a sub­stan­tial fed­eral in­vest­ment in in­fra­struc­ture.

[City Lights]

1. I like the way Bernie thinks.

[glowing]

2. My mom lives in rural VT.

The state wants to go paperless for filing tax returns, however many in the state don't have access to affordable, highspeed Internet. Cable won't even bother running lines into town because the cost is more than they make up with monthly billings... And the one dish/ satellite service charges $100.00 per month for Internet. I pay that much for both cable with high-def DVR boxes in 2 rooms along with high-speed line (which we operate in a wifi manner).

They don't even have cell connection in most places, when I go up to visit, I'm cut off from the world. It's crazy. And politicians-- seriously, sometimes the stupid just burns!!!