Tag: Bernie Sanders
Sanders Pulls in $1.5 Million Following Announcement
$1.5 million
Amount Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign online in the 24 hours after he announced his candidacy, the Washington Post reports. “The donations came from a broad base of supporters — some 35,000 donors who gave an average of $43.54 a piece, according to the Sanders campaign.”
Why Sanders Is Running for President
We’re looking at a system where our democracy is being owned by a handful of billionaires.
— Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), quoted by ABC News, on why he’s running for president.
Bernie Doesn’t Want to Talk About Hillary
You’re not going to be the sixteenth writer who asks me about Hillary, are you? I know you would not do that. You want to ask me about the state of the economy, unemployment, poverty. You would not ask me about my views on Hillary Clinton.
— Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), quoted by Bloomberg.
Sanders Admits to Being a Curmudgeon
My wife always reminds me I depress everybody so much that I need to pass out tranquilizers.
— Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), quoted by the Boston Globe, joking about his curmudgeonly demeanor.
Sanders Complains About Hillary Clinton’s ‘Anointment’ as Prez
She has accomplished a lot of very positive things in her career, but I’m not quite sure that the political process is one in which we anoint people.
— Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), in an interview with Yahoo News, critical of the seeming coronation of Hillary Clinton for president.
Sen. Sanders’ Bill to Tax Millionaires Has Surprising Precedent
One of the first things Ronald Reagan did upon becoming governor of California in 1967 was ram a $1 billion tax increase — about $5.5 billion today — through the state legislature. The additional revenue was needed to balance Reagan’s first state budget, which included a deficit as well as a huge increase in government spending.
At the time, Reagan’s tax increase was the largest ever levied by a state — and it hit Californians right in the middle class:
Reagan campaigned in 1966 on cutting government, but his first budget exceeded [his predecessor Democratic Gov.] Pat Brown’s by half a billion dollars. “Taxes should hurt,” Reagan said, and they certainly did – especially for the middle class. The billion dollar tax increase to pay for that big increase in government spending was sweeping: the sales tax jumped from three cents to five; bank, corporation and inheritance taxes went up half a percentage point to six percent; liquor taxes rose from $1.50 a gallon to $2; cigarette taxes leaped from three cents a pack to 10; and the maximum income tax rose from seven to 10 percent.
In 1968, Democrats were able to stop another Reagan tax increase — this one on food, utility bills and services like haircuts. In 1971, he raised taxes on banks and corporations.
Despite the current mythology about Reagan, he was even more tax happy as president, raising taxes at least seven times during his eight years in office, including the largest corporate tax hike then to date.
