Bernie Sanders Issues Warning To Joe Biden About Economy: “Wages are not keeping up with inflation”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) sunk President Joe Biden on late night with Seth Meyers admitting that Americans are in “rough shape” and “wages are not keeping up with inflation.” (See Video Below)
SETH MYERS, NBC: So, I want to talk about the Inflation Reduction Act, which is a really incredible accomplishment considering it is a 50-50 Senate. Certainly very high hurdles to get anything passed, but it did come a little bit short of what your wants.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: I would say a lot short. Look, what we don’t talk about in Congress, and we don’t talk about in the media, is what’s going on with working families in this country.
The truth is that the middle class of this country is falling further and further behind. Wages are not keeping up with inflation.
You’ve got over 70 million people who have no health insurance or they’re underinsured. You’ve got 600,000 people who are homeless. You’ve got people who can’t afford prescription drugs. You’ve got people — kids can’t afford to go to college. Kids are leaving school deeply in debt, etc., etc., not to mention climate change.
So, I think what we have got to be honest about with the American people is say, look, we’ve got a rough, we’re in rough shape right now. This is the reality. And this is what we have to do to get out of it.
But I think, Seth, being honest with the American people, talking about the growing gap between the very rich and everybody else.
You’ve got three people in America who own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. You’ve got three Wall Street firms that have assets of $20 trillion, major stockholders, and hundreds and hundreds of companies throughout America.
We’ve got billionaires buying elections right now.
We’ve got to be honest with the American people about what’s going on, about who owns and controls the nation, and then have the guts to stand up to these powerful special interests and tell these greedy bastards they cannot have it all.
SETH MEYERS: During the back and forth and the amendments and negotiations, did you think to yourself, if we just had two more [Democratic] senators, or five more, ten more, what’s the difference?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Look, what the President wanted, what I wanted, what I think 48 members of the U.S. Senate, Democrats, wanted, is transformational change in this country. We wanted to make at least community college tuition-free.
We wanted to expand Medicare. You know, there are millions of elderly people in this country who can’t afford to go to a dentist, can’t afford hearing aids, can’t afford eyeglasses.
We wanted to go a lot further than the Inflation Reduction Act in transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel. We wanted to deal with the dysfunctionality of child care, make pre-K free for working families in this country. We wanted to build millions of units of affordable housing, putting people to work doing all of that.
In other words, what we wanted to do, Seth, is finally tell the American people that their government worked for them and not just billionaires. We were two votes shy, and I think those two votes are going to hurt us a whole lot.
SETH MEYERS: Now you have an election coming up. Is it much harder to make the argument that if you just give us two more, that it would have been if you had passed a more robust–
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: I think it is going to be harder, but what the message has to be is that we understand, we feel the pain that working families are experiencing, that elderly people are experiencing, give us the Senate plus two more and we are prepared to take on the special interests right now, who currently dominate what is going on in Congress.
What we should understand, is that while gas prices have soared, they have gone down considerably, the oil companies are making record-breaking profits.
When people go to the supermarket and see a high price of food, understand that you’ve got a handful of food companies that control the industry that are also making record-breaking profits.
So, I think what we have to deal with is this issue of corporate greed, of billionaire control of our political system, of concentration of ownership, and we have got to tell the American people that we’re going to fight.
And it’s not going to happen tomorrow, but the fight has got to be for a government that works for all of us and not just for the people on top.
And I’ll tell you something, Seth, if we are not successful in doing that, you’re going to see more and more people saying, I don’t believe in democracy.
Why are you telling me about the government? You could make a 30-second stupid ad on TV and yet I can’t afford to send my kid to college, send my kid to college, afford rent or buy a house. Don’t tell me about that crap, we want a strong man who is going to get things right and get the trains to run on time. And you saw that in Italy recently.
So it is not just an economic issue, it is a political issue in that we can lose our democracy unless you have a government that stands with the working class of this country and not just wealthy campaign contributors.
Transcript here.