Election days come and go. But the struggle of the people to create a government which represents all of us and not just the one percent - a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice - that struggle continues.
We need leadership in this country, which will improve the lives of working families, the children, the elderly, the sick and the poor. We need leadership which brings our people together and makes us stronger.
Wall Street is greedy, reckless and they operate illegally. That's fine. But what do you do?
Difficult times often bring out the best in people.
Let us wage a moral and political war against the billionaires and corporate leaders, on Wall Street and elsewhere, whose policies and greed are destroying the middle class of America.
For many, the American dream has become a nightmare.
Finally, let us understand that when we stand together, we will always win. When men and women stand together for justice, we win. When black, white and Hispanic people stand together for justice, we win.
Democratic socialism means that we must reform a political system that is corrupt, that we must create an economy that works for all, not just the very wealthy.
The goal of real healthcare reform must be high-quality, universal coverage in a cost-effective way.
Yes, we become stronger when men and women, young and old, gay and straight, native-born and immigrant fight together to create the kind of country we all know we can become.
Democratic socialism means that we must create an economy that works for all, not just the very wealthy.
When I talk about democratic socialist, I'm not looking at Venezuela. I'm not looking at Cuba. I'm looking at countries like Denmark and Sweden.
After all, Wall Street is clearly the most powerful lobbying force on Capitol Hill. From 1998 through 2008, the financial sector spent over $5 billion in lobbying and campaign contributions to deregulate Wall Street.
Citizens in a democracy need diverse sources of news and information.
If we are serious about moving toward energy independence in a cost-effective way, we should invest in solar energy. If we are serious about cutting air and water pollution and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we should invest in solar energy.
For every $1 billion we invest in public transportation, we create 30,000 jobs, save thousands of dollars a year for each commuter, and dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions.
We need an energy revolution by breaking our dependence on fossil fuels, polluting fuels... I am very, very confident our small state will lead this. We will be noticed by the country and the world.
I am a socialist; of course I am a socialist. To hold a vision that society can be fundamentally different, to believe that all people can be equal - that is not a new idea.
The cost of college education today is so high that many young people are giving up their dream of going to college, while many others are graduating deeply in debt.
In my view, a corporation is not a person. A corporation does not have First Amendment rights to spend as much money as it wants, without disclosure, on a political campaign.
The U.S. constitution is an extraordinary document. In my view, it should not be amended often.
The Postal Service is a vitally important institution for the American people. It must be saved.
Capitalism does a number of things very well: it helps create an entrepreneurial spirit; it gets people motivated to come up with new ideas, and that's a good thing.
Ted Kennedy will go down in history as one of the giants of the U.S. Senate and one the most accomplished legislators in American history.
Let us wage a moral and political war against war itself, so that we can cut military spending and use that money for human needs.
Comcast rents modems directly to consumers, thereby competing directly with companies like Zoom. It has every reason to make Zoom modems more expensive or even to drive companies like Zoom out of business.
It is time for Congress to save the Postal Service, not dismantle it.
Every day we are paying more for energy than we should due to poor insulation, inefficient lights, appliances, and heating and cooling equipment - money we could save by investing in energy efficiency.
As a result of the digital age and the decline of first-class mail, there is no question that the Postal Service must change and develop a new business model.
Do the elected officials in Washington stand with ordinary Americans - working families, children, the elderly, the poor - or will the extraordinary power of billionaire campaign contributors and Big Money prevail? The American people, by the millions, must send Congress the answer to that question.
Together, together, my friends, we have begun a political revolution to transform America, and that revolution, our revolution, continues!
When we talk about the healthcare crisis in America we've got to also be talking about the dental crisis and how to address it.
Social Security is a promise that we cannot and must not break.
Establishing a 0.03 percent Wall Street speculation fee, similar to what we had from 1914-1966, would dampen the dangerous level of speculation and gambling on Wall Street, encourage the financial sector to invest in the productive economy and reduce the deficit by more than $350 billion over 10 years.
When a mother goes to the store and purchases food for her child, she has the right to know what she is feeding her family.
It has become clear that the function of a private health insurance is to make as much money as possible. Every dollar not paid out in claims is another dollar made in profits for the company.
While Donald Trump believes in huge tax breaks for billionaires, he believes that states should actually have the right to lower the minimum wage below $7.25. What an outrage!
At the current $5.15 an hour, the federal minimum wage has become a poverty wage. A full-time worker with one child lives below the official poverty line.
In any democratic, civilized - even non-democratic nations, if you are a nation, it means to say that in our case, if there's a hurricane in Louisiana, the people of Vermont are there for them. If there's a tornado in the Midwest, we are there for them. If there's flooding in the East Coast, the people in California are there for us.
Unemployment insurance, abolishing child labor, the 40-hour work week, collective bargaining, strong banking regulations, deposit insurance, and job programs that put millions of people to work were all described, in one way or another, as 'socialist.' Yet, these programs have become the fabric of our nation and the foundation of the middle class.
If a financial institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.
There are very powerful and wealthy special interests who want to privatize or dismember virtually every function that government now performs, whether it is Social Security, Medicare, public education or the Postal Service.
The Federal Reserve has a responsibility to ensure the safety and soundness of financial institutions and to contain systemic risks in financial markets.
I think the American people in many cases want to transform our energy system.
Before Social Security existed, about half of America's senior citizens lived in poverty.
Let's be honest, dental care in America is extremely expensive, period.
Look, if you have somebody who doesn't have health insurance, who doesn't have a doctor or dentist, and in order to deal with their cold or flu or dental problem, they go to an emergency room - in general, that visit will cost ten times more than walking into a community health center.
Clinton understands that climate change is real, is caused by human activity and is one of the great environmental crises facing our planet. She knows that we must transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and move aggressively to energy efficiency and sustainable energy.
As a single-payer advocate, I believe that at the end of the day, if a state goes forward and passed an effective single-payer program, it will demonstrate that you can provide quality health care to every man, woman and child in a more cost-effective way.
In Finland, where 80 percent of workers belong to unions, all employees enjoy at least 30 days paid vacation, and the gap between the rich and poor is far more equitable than in the United States.
Legislation must be passed which undoes the damage caused by excessive de-regulation. That means reinstalling the regulatory firewalls that were ripped down in 1999.
I come from a rural state. People drive 50, 100 miles to and from work every single day. That is true all over America.
If we are going to reverse the race to the bottom, workers must have the right to engage in collective bargaining.
It used to be that I was known as 'the longest-serving independent in the history of the United States Congress,' which is true. Now I'm a 'self-professed democratic socialist.' Things change when you run for president.
I think the overwhelming majority of the American people know that we have got to stand together, that we're going to grow together, that we're going to survive together, and that if we start splintering, we're not going to succeed in a highly competitive international economy.
The Koch brothers, through the expenditure of billions of dollars and the creation and support of dozens of extreme right organizations, have taken fringe extremist ideas and made them mainstream within the Republican Party.
Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit.
Hillary Clinton understands that if someone in America this country works 40 hours a week, that person should not be living in poverty. She understands that we must raise the minimum wage to a living wage.
The Blunt Amendment would have allowed any employer who provided health insurance, or any insurance company, the right to deny coverage for contraception or any other kind of procedure if the employer had a 'moral' objection to it.
In 49 countries around the world, including all of Europe, people have the opportunity of knowing whether or not they are eating food which contains genetically engineered ingredients. In the United States, we don't.
The bottom line is that when Senator Inhofe says, 'Global warming is a hoax,' he is just dead wrong, according to the vast majority of climate scientists.
Hillary Clinton will nominate justices to the Supreme Court who are prepared to overturn Citizens United and end the movement toward oligarchy that we are seeing in this country.
From the beginning, the HIV/AIDS pandemic has presented very difficult challenges.
If you don't believe this election is important, if you think you can sit it out, take a moment to think about the Supreme Court justices that Donald Trump would nominate and what that would mean to civil liberties, equal rights, and the future of our country.
I am a socialist, and everyone knows it.
I don't believe there's a red state in America where people believe you should cut Medicare, Social Security and veterans' benefits rather than doing away with corporate tax loopholes.
These are the same people who believe, in some cases, the federal government should not play any role in providing health care to our people or protecting the environment.
Who do you think controls the Republican Party? Big money controls the Republican Party. This is where their campaign contributions come from.
In cold weather states like Vermont, where the weather can get to 20 below zero, home heating assistance is critically important. In fact, it is a life and death issue.
What the Ten Million Solar Roofs Act does is provide consumer rebates for the purchase and installation of solar systems.
You know, I think many people have the mistaken impression that Congress regulates Wall Street. In truth that's not the case. The real truth is that Wall Street regulates the Congress.
In terms of job creation, every billion dollars invested in the physical infrastructure creates 47,000 new jobs.
The minimum wage in Denmark is about twice that of the United States, and people who are totally out of the labor market or unable to care for themselves have a basic income guarantee of about $100 per day.
If the goal of health-care reform is to provide comprehensive, universal health care in a cost-effective way, the only honest approach is a single-payer approach.
When I talk about democratic socialist, I am talking about Medicare, a single payer health care system for the elderly. And in my view, we should expand that concept to all people. I believe that everybody in this country should be entitled to health care as a right.
I have introduced a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and make it clear that the Congress and state legislatures do have the ability and the power to regulate and get corporate funding out of political campaigns.
You go to Scandinavia, and you will find that people have a much higher standard of living, in terms of education, health care and decent paying jobs.
What being a socialist means is... that you hold out... a vision of society where poverty is absolutely unnecessary, where international relations are not based on greed... but on cooperation... where human beings can own the means of production and work together rather than having to work as semi-slaves to other people who can hire and fire.
Every working family in America knows how hard it is today to find affordable childcare or early childhood education.
You know, let me be very clear. I supported Barack Obama originally.
Here is what the practical impact of Citizens United means. What Citizens United means is that corporations call hundreds of millions of dollars into television ads, radio ads, and other forms of advertising to defeat those candidates who stand up and take them on.
Danes pay very high taxes, but in return enjoy a quality of life that many Americans would find hard to believe.
As a member of both the energy and environment committees, I am constantly astounded by how many of my colleagues prefer to focus on what the government can do for the nuclear or coal industries rather than why the government should support clean and sustainable energy.
While commentators on Fox and right-wing radio have the backing of Rupert Murdoch, a major Republican contributor, and other conservative corporations, progressives understand that their position is extremely vulnerable.
To be honest with you, I worry about concentration of ownership in media, where you have a handful of media conglomerates largely controlling what we see, hear and read.
I'm not much into speculation.
One in four corporations doesn't pay any taxes.
Progressives know there is something very wrong when a nation divided politically has one major network operating as a propaganda arm of the Republican Party and 90 percent of talk radio is dominated by right-wing extremists.
In 1940, then-Senator Harry Truman headed up a Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. In the course of World War II, more than $15 billion in unnecessary and fraudulent defense spending was identified.
I see a future where getting to work or to school or to the store does not have to cause pollution.
What Wall Street and credit card companies are doing is really not much different from what gangsters and loan sharks do who make predatory loans. While the bankers wear three-piece suits and don't break the knee caps of those who can't pay back, they still are destroying people's lives.
Hillary Clinton is listening to the scientists who tell us that - unless we act boldly and transform our energy system in the very near future - there will be more drought, more floods, more acidification of the oceans, more rising sea levels.
In 2008, Goldman Sachs only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department.
Washington is dominated by big money.
Two-thirds of the directors at the New York Fed are hand-picked by the same bankers that the Fed is in charge of regulating.
I'm not a Democrat, I'm an Independent, but I caucus with the Democrats.
The Fed has got to become a more democratic institution that is responsive to the needs of the middle class, not just Wall Street CEOs.
Good environmental policy is good economic policy.
Our job is to do two things - to defeat Donald Trump and to elect Hillary Clinton. It is easy to boo, but it is harder to look your kids in the face if we are living under a Trump presidency.
While Donald Trump is busy insulting one group after another, Hillary Clinton understands that our diversity is one of our greatest strengths. Yes. We become stronger when black and white, Latino, Asian-American, Native American - when all of us stand together.
