In the News

PBS News For perspective on COVID relief and the congressional agenda we turn to Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who chairs the Senate’s budget committee. He joins Judy Woodruff to discuss the minimum wage, the Republican response to President Biden’s agenda, and the need for federal aid for local and state governments during the pandemic. You can watch the

By: Alexander Bolton; The Hill Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says Democrats should “ignore” the recent ruling of the Senate parliamentarian and is vowing to force the Senate to vote this week on an amendment to set the federal minimum wage at $15 an hour. Sanders on Monday declared he would not back down on his signature wage initiative after

By: Dominic Rushe; The Guardian US taxpayers should not be “forced to subsidize some of the largest and most profitable corporations in America”, Bernie Sanders told a Senate hearing on Thursday. As Congress debates the first rise in the minimum wage in over a decade, the Vermont senator said he had “talked to too many workers in this country who, with tears

By: Jack Johnson; Common Dreams U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday blasted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for shipping spare doses of the Covid-19 vaccine to allies thousands of miles away while leaving millions Palestinians in the occupied territories largely without access to the life-saving shot. “As the occupying power, Israel is responsible for the health of all the people

By: Alex Gangitano; The Hill Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Tuesday voted against Tom Vilsack to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), making him the first senator who caucuses with the Democrats to vote against a Biden Cabinet nominee. Sanders joined six Republicans in opposing Vilsack, who ran the agency for all eight years of the Obama administration. “I like Tom and I’ve known him

By: Juliana Kaplan; Business Insider The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) — the government’s official budget scorekeeper — has said that the Raise the Wage Act of 2021 would have a sizeable impact on the budget. That means it may be able to clear the hurdle of the Byrd Rule and be passed through reconciliation. The letter came in response to Sen.