President Barack Obama on Monday sent Congress a $4 trillion budget. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Budget Committee ranking member, welcomed a proposal to put millions of Americans to work rebuilding roads and bridges. January jobless numbers released on Friday put real unemployment at 11.3 percent. Wednesday brought good news that federal regulators will keep the Internet free and open. In a Senate floor speech on Thursday, Sanders warned that Republicans in Congress are trying to cut Social Security disability benefits. Pope Francis will address a joint session of Congress this fall, the Vatican confirmed on Thursday. Sanders hoped lawmakers will listen.

President Obama’s Budget The White House budget blueprint calls for more taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations and suggests investing in programs to help working families. Sanders liked the president’s $478 billion public works program for highway, bridge and transit upgrades. “By rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, we can create millions of good-paying jobs,” he said. The senator’s own five-year plan would invest $1 trillion in the effort and create or maintain at least 13 million decent-paying jobs.  The Labor Department on Friday said 11.3 percent of the workforce was unemployed in January.  That figure, up 0.1 percent, counts those forced to settle for part-time jobs and those who gave up looking for work. The conventional measure of unemployment ticked up to 5.7 percent last month.

College Affordability Sanders also praised Obama’s initiative to make community college tuition-free. “By making community college free, we can finally provide affordable access to higher education for working-class families," Sanders said, but he would go further. The first two years at any public college or university should be free, he said

Social Security Disability Benefits In the budget blueprint that President Barack Obama sent to Congress on Monday, the White House requested authority to shift funds from Social Security’s retirement account to the disability fund. Unless Congress goes along, the disabled and their children are in store for a 19 percent cut in benefits next year. The White House budget request seeks the same non-controversial bookkeeping measure that has happened 11 times before.  This year, however, the House of Representatives, on the first day of the new session of Congress, adopted a rule that severely restricts such transfers.  “This is a very bad idea,” he said. “Republicans are manufacturing a crisis where none exists.” A hearing on the disability program has been scheduled for next Wednesday by the Senate Budget Committee.

Net Neutrality Sanders welcomed the Federal Communications Commission proposal to fundamentally change the way it regulates high-speed Internet service. In an about-face, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed that the commission regulate broadband providers as a public utility. The move would protect a concept popularly known as net neutrality, the idea that Internet service providers should be a neutral gateway to everything on the Internet. The new approach came after a torrent of criticism including some 50,000 emails submitted through Sanders’ website objecting to an earlier FCC proposal to divide the Internet into fast and slow lanes. “This is a victory for consumers and entrepreneurs,” Sanders said of the latest proposal.

Pope Francis The first-ever speech to Congress by any leader of the world's Roman Catholics will occur on Sept. 24 during a trip that also will take the pontiff to the United Nations in New York and a massive rally for families in Philadelphia. “The pope has played an extraordinary international role since he was elected in speaking out about the growing gap between the rich and everybody else and the power large financial institutions exert over the American and world economies. I hope very much that Congress listens closely to the pope’s message,” Sanders said.

Solar Power Sanders on Monday announced that the U.S. Department of Energy awarded two Vermont groups a total of $2.4 million to help Vermont reach its ambitious goal of meeting 90 percent of its energy needs with renewable sources by 2050. 

Trade Deal Blackout  President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans are pushing another massive free-trade agreement that would reduce jobs and lower wages for American workers. Sanders discussed the agreement with Ed Schultz in an interview Thursday on MSNBC. In reaction to a report from Media Matters showing the trade deal has largely been ignored by network news, Sanders wrote a letter TV executives at NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX on Friday asking for an explanation. Read the letter here.