Op-Ed: Rebuild the Middle Class
Op-Ed
Source: Bennington Banner
By Sen. Bernie Sanders
The United States is in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. Workers in Vermont and throughout the country continue to lose their jobs, homes, pensions and ability to send their children to college.
Since December of 2007, more than 8 million Americans have lost their jobs; a staggering 16.5 percent of the American work force is either unemployed or under-employed, and over 6 million Americans have been out of work for more than six months, the highest on record. Today, about a quarter of all American children are dependent on food stamps, one in nine families cannot make the minimum payment on their credit cards, and 120,000 Americans are declaring bankruptcy each and every month.
As we attempt to fight our way out of this deep recession, it is important to understand that the economic pain our country is experiencing today did not just begin when the financial sector nearly collapsed over a year ago. While Wall Street's recklessness and greed precipitated the immediate economic crisis, the decline of the middle class has been going on for many years, accelerating over the last decade.
As The Washington Post reported last month, "The past decade was the worst for the U.S. economy in modern times It was, according to a wide range of data, a lost decade for American workers There has been zero net job creation since December 1999 Middle-income households made
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less in 2008, when adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1999 -- and the number is sure to have declined further during a difficult 2009."
Last September, USA Today reported that, "The incomes of the young and middle-aged have fallen off a cliff since 2000, leaving many age groups poorer than they were even in the 1970s."
In order to strengthen and expand the collapsing middle class during these very difficult economic times, there are a number of important steps that I am fighting for and that Congress and the president will have to make.
We need to fundamentally change the way Wall Street does business so that it invests in the job-creating productive economy instead of the casino-style gambling that led to the largest taxpayer bailout in American history. Financial institutions that are "too-big-to-fail" need to be broken up so that they no longer pose a threat to the entire economy. Big banks that received a taxpayer bailout need to increase lending to credit-worthy small businesses at affordable rates. And we need to establish a national usury law to stop lenders from ripping off the middle class by charging outrageously high interest rates and fees on credit cards that would make a loan shark blush.
The United States will not succeed in the global economy if our infrastructure continues to crumble. We can create millions of good-paying jobs by rebuilding our roads, bridges, schools, water systems and public transportation. It should be a wake-up call to us all that a newly emerging country like China is far ahead of us in terms of high-speed rail.
Every year, we waste approximately $350 billion by importing oil from Saudi Arabia and other foreign countries -- $350 billion every year! The United States can create good-paying jobs by moving away from fossil fuels and foreign oil, and into energy efficiency and such sustainable energies as wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass. A green energy policy will also keep us out of "wars for oil," clean up our environment, and substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Vermont is a national leader in energy efficiency. We must now become a national leader in sustainable energy.
We need to fundamentally rewrite our trade policy in order to rebuild our manufacturing capabilities. As every Vermonter knows, it is increasingly difficult to find products "made in the U.S.A." We cannot have a vibrant economy and a strong middle class if we are importing the vast majority of the products that we consume.
The need to address our health care crisis is not just a personal issue for the many who are uninsured and for the famlies of the 45,000 who died last year because they did not get to a doctor when they should have. At a time when we spend almost twice as much per capita as any other nation, the health care crisis is also an economic impediment to businesses that are trying to compete internationally.
Last, but not least, we must invest in education so that we have the most capable workforce in the world. It is not acceptable that hundreds of thousands of bright young people do not go to college because of financial reasons while many others leave college deeply in debt.
Making these difficult challenges even harder is the reality that we now face record breaking deficits as a result of the Bush administration's refusal to pay for what they spent - including two wars, tax breaks for millionaires, an expensive prescription drug program and the Wall Street bailout. As we begin changing our national priorities and investing in the needs of the middle class and our kids, it is imperative that we move toward a more progressive form of taxation and take a very hard look at the waste that exists in every agency of government, including the Pentagon.
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