National Journal Interview-Transcript
National Journal Interview-Transcript
Q: As a member of the Veterans Affairs Committee, what concerns do you have about the soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan?
Sanders: I believe that the way the Bush administration has dealt with veterans is a national disgrace. Year after year, they have underfunded the needs of our veterans. They've thrown hundreds of thousands of so-called Category 8 [low health care priority] veterans off of the VA. They have, year after year, tried to raise prescription drug costs and enrollment fees. It is just not acceptable.
Now, that's how they have treated veterans in general. And on top of that what we're looking at now is 22,000 veterans coming back, wounded, in Iraq, and many more with post-traumatic stress disorder, and I do not believe that this administration is providing the resources to deal with that.
So we are just wrapping up -- it's down in legislative council right now -- comprehensive legislation that would deal with virtually all aspects of veterans' problems, including mandatory health care, ending the bar on Category 8 veterans, eliminating the veterans disability tax, reduce and ultimately eliminate the backlog on claims at the VA, increasing burial benefits and end the offset benefits for survivors. So, we've taken many of the concerns we've heard in Vermont and around the country. It's going to be in one legislation, and we'll go from there.
Q: Another issue you've worked on is the cost of prescription drugs. Do you support the measure that was passed in the House to require the federal government to negotiate for lower drug prices under Medicare?
Sanders: I think that's a very conservative approach. The idea that the VA, among others, is paying substantially less for the same drugs that the people in [the Medicare Part D program] will be paying for is absurd. Of course I support [the House bill].
The pharmaceutical industry is the most powerful lobby in Washington, and as a result of their efforts we pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. And they also wrote the Medicare Part D bill, so of course I support the government negotiating lower prices, and I'd go further than they did in the House.
The other thing we want to do immediately -- and I hope that it will get to the floor of the Senate fairly soon -- is prescription drug reimportation. I think Byron Dorgan [D-N.D.] has a good bill similar to bills I've introduced in the House. We also believe that when the government puts money into the research and development for a drug, that the companies should be obligated to provide reasonable pricing, if it's a drug the taxpayers have helped pay for to research and develop.
Q: Is the reimportation idea gaining support?
Sanders: Absolutely. I was the first member of Congress to take constituents over the Canadian border, so I've been on this issue for many, many years. If the vote were taken in the House today, it would probably pass two to one, so we'd win by 100 votes or more.... It took many years to get support in the Senate, but the votes are here now.... What happened -- the votes were there last time and [former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.] would not give us the vote, or at least allow a conference committee to come together. So the votes are here right now. We'll see if the Democratic leadership has the courage to really stand up to the pharmaceutical industry, but I certainly support that.
Q: You also serve on the Budget Committee. What, if anything, did you find encouraging in the president's budget proposal, and what did you find disappointing about it?
Sanders: I don't find very much encouraging from the Bush administration. I happen to think the Bush administration will go down in history as one of the worst administrations we've ever had. And they're doing incalculable harm to this country in almost every conceivable way. So there's not much that I see that President Bush does that is "encouraging."
His budget was a disgrace. Once again what he proposes is huge tax breaks for people who don't need it.... In the president's budget, among other things, he doesn't have enough funding to take care of our veterans or adequately fund special education or make it easier for middle-class families to send their kids to college or fund affordable housing -- we don't have enough money to do that. This is what he does have enough money to do: Under the president's proposal one family would receive $32 billion in tax breaks, when the president eliminates the estate tax.
So, the president's budget is an indication of priorities which reflect the wealthy and large corporations and ignore the needs of the middle class and low income people, as he always does. And as a member of the Budget Committee, I will help lead the effort against that budget. I want to see the Democrats have the courage to rescind tax breaks for the wealthiest 1 percent, to adequately fund health care, the needs of our veterans, education and the very pressing needs of the middle class.
Q: You sponsored an amendment to the minimum wage bill expressing the sense of the Senate on poverty. There has been a lot of attention lately on the gap between rich and poor and its effect on the middle class. Do you think that focus takes attention away from those in extreme poverty?
Sanders: It's not just the very poor. There's a study that came out [showing] the very poorest have become poorer and more of them. What the Bush administration has tried to do, with the help of a lot in the media, is to portray the economy as doing really great. In fact we had [Treasury Secretary Henry] Paulson before the Budget Committee a couple weeks ago and to my question he was telling me the economy [is] -- I believe the word was "marvelous," just "marvelous." And you wonder what world that these people live in. It is not marvelous for the middle class, the working families or lower-income people.
And the reality of America today is the middle class is shrinking; poverty is increasing. Since Bush has been the president, we've had more than 5 million people enter the ranks of the poor. And as you indicate the gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider. This is an issue, a moral issue, that we have got to deal with, otherwise we're going to become an oligarchy with a few people on top.
What you may or may not know is the person who had your job 25 years ago probably made more in real dollars than you do. And the question is: Why is that? Why? Why are real wages lower today for millions of workers than they were 30 years ago? And we've got to answer those questions, but we have to acknowledge those questions.
Q: Do you think the minimum wage increase will help alleviate that?
Sanders: The minimum wage is a small step. I mean, it is a moral outrage that the Republicans, who gave hundreds of billions in tax breaks for the rich, could not raise the minimum wage above $5.15 an hour. So this is just the beginning, in my view, a beginning to try and help low-income people and the middle class.
Q: What should the next step be?
Sanders: I think we have to focus on globalization and on trade. What I'm happy to say (although the media doesn't like it because they're very pro-free trade), I think the American people are catching on, and this election was a little bit about the fact that our current trade policies, whether it's with China, Mexico, whatever, have resulted in the loss of millions of good-paying jobs, a growing trade deficit. And this is an issue we've got to get a handle on. We've got to demand that corporate America start re-investing in the United States.
In my state we have lost 20 percent of our manufacturing jobs in the last five years -- one out of five -- and that's not radically different from the rest of the country. So we are losing good-paying jobs. I am worrying about outsourcing of information technology jobs. Anybody who has a computer can do the jobs that millions of Americans are now doing -- whether you're a radiologist, you're a lawyer, an accountant, a tax returner. And the corporations in this country are in the process of [doing this] and will accelerate [it]. We've got to deal with that issue; otherwise you're just going to have an expansion of poverty and the continued decline of the middle class....
I want to tell you about another bill we are going to introduce, which will probably end up with very few co-sponsors, but that is a comprehensive bill on media reform. Because I think that one of the major problems that we have is we're never going to be a vibrant democracy in which people are discussing the real issues facing them unless we address the growing corporate control over what the American people see, hear and read.
Q: You spent 16 years in the House, so you are accustomed to how things work in Washington. But so far, how has the Senate been a different experience?
Sanders: The House and the Senate [are] very different institutions. Not only are they different institutions, [but] I come from being a minority in the House to a majority, albeit a small majority, in the Senate. It's very different.
And you know, what people say is true: It's not just that I'm on five committees instead of two, not just that you have much easier access to the leadership than you do in the House, just by the nature of size. But it is a different institution in that a lot of the action takes place off the floor. To some degree what goes on the floor is simply a shadow of agreements that have been made off the floor. You don't have to go to the floor and bring together a whole big amendment thing. Things are done differently here and more quietly in a way, and you get results.
Q: Other than the Capitol building, what is your favorite place in D.C.?
Sanders: Now that is an interesting question. I have to tell you, what's very funny is that I came here 16 years ago to be in the House, and I've never had a car since I've been here. I think I may soon share a car with someone. But I don't get around a whole lot. I think Washington is a beautiful city, but I must say I end up spending most of my time on Capitol Hill in my office. I've been to the Smithsonian, you know, but I don't have anything profound to say.
Q: Maybe your new office will be your favorite place.
Sanders: Maybe my new office. We're very much looking forward to that.
http://nationaljournal.com/members/news/2007/03/0308insider.htm