Vermont Senator
Bernie Sanders
“I do believe we need a political revolution, where millions of people stand up and say, loudly and clearly, that our government belongs to all of us and not us a handful of wealthy campaign contributors.”
Campaign Platform: Immigration: · Wants to provide a “path to citizenship” for the 11 million illegal immigrants currently living in the U.S. Sanders also wants to employ humanitarian parole to “ensure the return of unjustly deported immigrants and unify broken families”. Working class: · Believes that in order to help the working class, America needs campaign finance reform, and promises to fight to reduce of the influence money has in politics. Will fight to overturn the Citizens United Ruling, which enables companies and the extremely rich to spend undisclosed and unlimited amounts of money on media advertisements designed to convince people to vote for or against a specific candidate). · Promises to make public college tuition-free for everyone by preventing the federal government from profiting off of student loans and by imposing a fraction-of-a-percent tax on Wall Street. · Over the next several years, Bernie proposes to raise the national minimum wage to $15 an hour. Climate change: · To combat climate change, he plans to end the subsidies benefiting fossil fuel companies and ban their lobbyists from operating in the White House. He also plans to cut US carbon pollution by 40% by 2030, and has called for the installation of 10 million solar roofs by the year 2020. Guns and Violence: · Promises to close Guantanamo Bay and abolish the use of torture. Criticisms: Has been criticized for his mixed record on gun control legislation- specifically, Hillary Clinton has slammed his controversial vote in 2005 to protect authorized gun sellers and manufacturers from legal liability if their gun is used in a crime. Wants to upgrade Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) to a single-payer insurance system where a single public agency organizes health care for everyone. But, seeing as the Republicans currently run the House and Obama was barely able to pass The Affordable Care Act when Congress was majorly Democrat, many are skeptical as to whether or not this will actually happen.