The Week in Review
The United Nations warned on Sunday that we’re running out of time to deal with global warming. Tuesday was the IRS deadline for filing tax returns and a reminder that many profitable corporations – like GE and Verizon – have paid no federal income taxes in recent years. The Consumer Protection Financial Bureau warned on Monday that student loan interest rates are likely to go up in July. Sen. Bernie Sanders congratulated Vermont state senators on Wednesday for moving the state closer to becoming the first in the nation to require labels on genetically-modified food. And on Thursday, Sanders exposed the history of the Koch brothers’ pro-rich and anti-working people, anti-EPA, anti-education, anti-Medicare, anti-Social Security agenda.
Who Are the Koch Brothers? Billionaires Charles and David Koch are using the fortune that they inherited to fund campaigns by candidates who believe in tax breaks for the wealthiest people and corporations while favoring major cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and education. “They are helping to lead the war against working families,” Sanders said in an interview with Joy Reid on MSNBC. Their objective “is to move this country from a democratic society with a strong middle class to an oligarchic form of society in which the economic and political life of the nation are controlled by a handful of billionaire families,” Sanders wrote in a column that was first published on Thursday by The Huffington Post. Sanders unearthed a Libertarian Party platform for 1980, when David Koch was on the nominee for vice president. Back then, the party’s extremist views drew only 1 percent of the vote. Today, the same Koch-backed policies are all the rage in today’s right-wing Republican Party.
Read Sanders’ column in The Huffington Post
Read more about the Libertarian Party platform
Global Warming Greenhouse gases are rising faster than ever and governments are not doing enough to stop global warming, a United Nations panel warned in a report issued last Sunday. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said it is still possible to save the planet but much more must be done much sooner to curb the carbon and methane emissions that cause climate change. Sanders wants to put a fee on carbon emissions and end tax breaks for oil and coal companies. His ideas are backed by scientists and leading economists but blocked by Republicans in Congress.A New York Times article on the U.N. report blamed “congressional opposition” for thwarting President Obama’s effort to adopt “aggressive climate policies.” In fact, Sanders noted that many environmentalists question how aggressive the president has really been. And the senator said it’s simplistic to blame “congressional opposition” for blocking progress, when the problem really is the fierce opposition by “the fossil-fuel-funded Republican Party.” Not only do Republicans in Congress oppose efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but most of its members also reject the science describing the reality of climate change, Sanders wrote in a letter to the editor of the Times.
Tax Day Tuesday was the deadline for filing federal income tax returns. The April 15 deadline has come and gone in recent years with 1 in 4 of the largest and most profitable corporations in America not paying any federal income taxes. “Each and every year, millionaires, billionaires and profitable corporations are avoiding $100 billion in taxes by stashing their cash in the Cayman Islands and other offshore tax havens,” Sanders said. “Over the past five years, General Electric, Boeing, and Verizon paid nothing in federal income taxes, even though they made $78 billion in profits combined since 2008. We cannot allow that to continue.”
Read more about America’s Top 10 Corporate Tax Avoiders
Food Labels The Vermont Senate voted on Wednesday to require labels on food containing genetically-modified organisms. “I am very proud that Vermont is taking the lead in a growing national movement to allow the people of our country to know what is in the food they eat. GMO labeling exists in dozens of countries around the world and should exist in the United States,” Sanders said. “I will continue my efforts in Washington – against Monsanto and other multi-national food industry corporations – to pass national legislation on this issue. In the meantime, it is extremely important that Vermont and other states lead the way,” the senator added. Before the Vermont bill goes to Gov. Peter Shumlin, Senate and House negotiators must work out differences, but that process is expected to go smoothly because the Vermont House last year overwhelmingly passed a similar measure.
VA Hospitals Veterans ranked VA hospitals among the best in the nation with equal or better ratings than private hospitals, according to a survey by the American Customer Satisfaction Index. “I visit VA medical centers all over the country and the patients I meet routinely tell me how pleased they are with the quality of care they receive,” said Sanders, chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. “I want to thank the dedicated men and women of the VA who work day in and day out to ensure our veterans get the high-quality care they need and deserve.”
Student Loan Rates Rising Congress last summer passed a bill that tied interest rates for college student loans to financial market fluctuations. The law replaced what had been a 3.4 percent fixed rate for subsidized federal student loans with loans that started at 3.86 percent for this school year. The Obama administration and Republican supporters of the bill glossed over the fact that interest rates almost certainly would float upward. Now the chickens are coming home to roost. On Monday, the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau warned that interest rates will jump for the 2015-16 academic year, at least a year sooner than previously predicted. Meanwhile, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office on Monday estimated that the student loan program would generate an average annual profit for the government of about $12 billion through 2024. Beginning next year, CBO estimated that the average undergraduate borrower will pay 5.72 percent to borrow from the federal government. Graduate borrowers are likely to pay at least 7.27 percent and parents will pay 8.27 percent. Sanders was on the losing end of last July’s 81-18 Senate vote on the bill that set up the new student loan structure. “The idea of passing legislation that in a few years is going to make an already bad situation of student indebtedness even worse is absolutely absurd,” he said at the time.
