"I'm worried a lot," Sen. Bernie Sanders told radio host Thom Hartmann

...on Friday during a discussion about how congressional Republicans want to undo the New Deal and Great Society. There were signals late in the week that Senate Democrats were unable to come together behind a budget blueprint that would pare deficits by pairing spending cuts with more revenue, including Sanders' suggestion of a surtax on millionaires. Also on Capitol Hill, Congress put a spotlight on Big Oil profits and rising gasoline prices. Sanders introduced a bill to provide better health care at less cost. And there was a lot of eye rolling at a hearing on health care where Sanders and Sen. Rand Paul squared off.   

Gas Prices  — As gas prices hovered near $4 a gallon, a Senate committee grilled senior executives of the five biggest oil companies Thursday about whether they really need tax incentives the nation cannot afford. Sen. Sanders wrote a letter to President Obama demanding that federal regulators crack down on speculation in the oil market.  "That's what these guys do; they are greedy and they rip off people," Sanders said. 
Watch the story on WPTZ-TV »

Budget Negotiations  — Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad circulated a 2012 draft budget that reportedly combines spending cuts with revenue increases, including a surtax on millionaires. Capitol Hill newspapers said the movement was intended to draw support from Sanders, a Budget Committee member who earlier proposed his own millionaires surtax. "Bernie just changed the terms for the better," Richard Eskow wrote.
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‘I'm the Deficit Hawk'  — Sen. Jeff Sessions' claimed on Wednesday that Sanders was "the Senate's most powerful advocate for bigger government." But it was Sessions and his Republican colleagues who supported unfunded expenditures for the war in Iraq, tax breaks for the wealthy, a Wall Street bailout and a prescription drug program rigged to pump up drug company profits. Sanders voted against them all. "I'm the deficit hawk," Sanders thundered in a speech on Thursday. "You guys are the big spenders."
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Setting Priorities  — Sanders on Thursday laid out details for what he said would be a "fair and progressive budget." Instead of balancing the budget on the backs of the sick the poor, the young and the old, he said more than $383 billion over the next 10 years would come from a millionaire surtax. A fee on Wall Street speculators that would yield another $100 billion a year. Some $580 billion over 10 years would be saved by ending tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. A responsible estate tax would generate $330 billion over 10 years. Another $736 billion would come in the next decade taxing capital gains and dividends the same as ordinary income. And $40 billion over a decade would be saved by ending tax breaks and subsidies for big oil and gas. Another $100 billion a year would be saved by ending abusive and illegal offshore tax shelters. We could raise up to $500 billion over 10 years by establishing a currency manipulation fee.
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Debt Ceiling  — After attending a White House meeting Wednesday on raising the debt ceiling, Sen. Bernie Sanders said President Obama and Congress should not cave in to Republican demands for trillions of dollars in spending cuts. "Many of us are sick and tired of seeing this country being blackmailed. We're tired of bullying."

Single Payer  — Sanders  announced on Tuesday that he introduced legislation to provide health care for every American through a Medicare-for-all type single-payer system. Rep. Jim McDermott filed a companion bill in the House. The measures would provide better care for more patients at less cost by eliminating private insurance companies that rake off billions of dollars in profits. "Now is the time for the United States of America to join the rest of the industrialized world," Sanders said.
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Health Centers Save Money  — Non-emergency visits to hospital emergency rooms cost taxpayers billions of dollars a year, money that could be saved by expanding community health centers and other primary health care services, according to testimony at a Senate hearing on Wednesday.  
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Are Doctors Slaves?  — "Is health care a right?" Sen. Sanders asked a witness at the health committee hearing on Wednesday. The question sent Sen. Rand Paul into a discourse about slavery and conscription and midnight police raids at the homes of physicians.
See for yourself »