Middleboro Review: Bernie Buzz: The Billionaire Agenda

Friday, April 25, 2014

Bernie Buzz: The Billionaire Agenda


	Take the poll:Do you agree or disagree with the Koch brothers’ billionaire agenda?

The Koch brothers – the second wealthiest family in America worth at least $80 billion – for decades operated in the shadows of American public life while pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into front groups promoting what Bernie has called the “billionaire agenda.” It is not well known, but David Koch was the 1980 Libertarian Party candidate for vice president and helped fund that party. He campaigned on a platform that called for ending all limitations on campaign spending, abolishing taxes on the wealthy and profitable corporations, shutting down Medicare and Medicaid, repealing Social Security, terminating the Postal Service and doing away with the minimum wage. “They want to repeal every major piece of legislation over the past 80 years that protects the middle class, the elderly, the children, the sick and the most vulnerable in our country,” Bernie said.

	Watch Bernie and Ed Schultz discuss the Koch brothers

	READ THE 1980 LIBERTARIAN PLATFORM

The American Middle Class is Collapsing

Since the recession, almost all of the economic growth in the United States is going to a small slice of households with the biggest incomes. In fact, Canadians have overtaken the American middle class, according to an international database analyzed by The New York Times. “Most Americans understand that there is something profoundly wrong with our economy today when 95 percent of all new income goes to the top 1 percent,” Bernie said. The fact that a 685-page book by French economist Thomas Picketty is the No. 1 best seller on Amazon “tells people in Washington that this is an issue of enormous consequence. Americans are profoundly disgusted with this kind of wealth and income inequality.”

	Read more


	Earth Day

	Another Earth Day came and went on Tuesday. This year’s observance fell nine days after a United Nations panel issued a report warning that greenhouse emissions are rising faster than ever. This Earth Day marked 1,379 days since a Republican in Congress last mentioned Earth Day in the Congressional Record, according to National Journal, and 1,894 days, by Huffington Post’s count, since Congress passed the last major environmental legislation in 2009. Bernie is the chief sponsor of a bill to tax carbon and methane emissions. He also has proposed legislation to end subsidies for oil and gas companies. Both bills have faced fierce opposition by Republicans who have made the environment a partisan issue. “Not only does the Republican Party oppose efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but most of its members also reject the science describing the reality of climate change,” Bernie wrote in a letter to the editor of The New York Times.