All but one Republican voted to block a Senate bill to make millionaires pay the same tax rate as middle-class workers on Monday. The next day, a new Labor Department report showed the gap between the highest and lowest paid workers growing wider. Is America becoming an oligarchy? Listen to Sen. Bernie Sanders discuss that important question on Friday's Thom Hartmann Program.

Postal Service The Senate set the stage for consideration in the coming week of legislation to modernize the U.S. Postal Service and avert service slowdowns and massive job losses. Senators on Monday had voted 74-22 to advance the Postal Service bill. "The vote clears a hurdle in the effort to save rural post offices, mail processing plants and the jobs of tens of thousands of postal workers," Sanders said. Improvements to the measure such as safeguards for overnight mail delivery and rural post offices were added to the bill by "a group of senators, led by Sanders," according to Congressional Quarterly.

American Oligarchy Senate Republicans on Monday blocked legislation to make millionaires pay at least the same tax rate as small businessmen, nurses, teachers, police officers and others. "The United States has become a land where the richest people and largest corporations are doing phenomenally well while the middle class collapses and poverty increases," Bernie said. "This is not what democracy looks like. This is what oligarchy and plutocracy look like." 
Watch Thomas Roberts interview the senator on MSNBC »

Citizens United A Washington summit meeting in the Capitol brought together people in the growing nationwide grassroots movement to undo a Supreme Court ruling that opened the floodgates for corporate campaign spending. Sanders' Saving American Democracy Amendment would overturn the ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In Montpelier on Thursday, the Vermont House followed action last week in the state Senate calling on Congress to start the process of amending the Constitution to reverse the ruling.  
Watch a video from the summit »

Nuclear Regulatory Commission A Nuclear Regulatory Commission member should not be appointed to a second five-year term because of her record on safety issues, Sanders said on Thursday. The senator cited Kristine Svinicki's vote to extend the operating license for the problem-plagued Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor one week after the Fukushima disaster. He also renewed concerns about commission foot dragging on safety measures recommended by a panel of experts in the wake of the reactor meltdowns in Japan. Sanders is a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which has jurisdiction over the five-member commission.

Nuclear Subsidies  At a time when the nation is facing a $15.6 trillion national debt, the nuclear power industry is propped up with billions of dollars in government subsidies. "Many in Congress talk of getting 'big government off the back of private industry.' Here's an industry we'd like to get off the backs of the taxpayers," Bernie said in a column written with Ryan Alexander of Taxpayers for Common Sense. 
Read the column first published by The Guardian »