Before heading home for an August recess, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced a major health care bill cosponsored by Senators Obama, Clinton, Kennedy and other key senators. The president signed a housing rescue package that includes Senator Sanders' affordable housing trust fund. Republican senators blocked Sanders' bill to help people struggling to afford escalating home energy bills. "We will continue to fight for this," Sanders said. In what could be called a Bush baby tax, the White House announced that the budget deficit ballooned, bad news for future generations that will have to pay the tab. In Vermont, Comcast came under richly deserved fire.

Primary Health Care For All Legislation to expand a successful and cost-saving community health center program was introduced by Sanders. The Access for All America Act would provide primary health care at a significant savings. The measure also would address a critical shortage of primary care physicians by encouraging more students to enter medical professions. "This common-sense and cost-effective solution is an important way that we can begin to tackle the challenges our nation's health care system faces," said Senator Barack Obama. "Community health centers have succeeded in bringing primary care to millions of Americans and we should build on this progress," added Senator Hillary Clinton. Sanders, the chief sponsor, said the bill "would expand the highly successful and cost-effective Federally Qualified Health Center model to every corner of this country. The result would make certain that every man, woman, and child in this country has access to comprehensive primary care services." To learn more, click here.

Oil Prices A plan to help pay rising home energy bills stalled when Republican senators objected even to taking up the Sanders bill to double funds for home energy assistance. "It is disappointing to me that in very hot-weather states like Arizona and other Southern states, Republicans who should be demanding immediate federal assistance to protect the elderly and the sick are holding this effort hostage to their political agenda," he told the Arizona Republic. Filibusters also blocked consideration of a host of other proposals to bring down gas and oil prices. "We will continue to fight for this," Sanders said. By the way, Exxon and Shell on Thursday announced that they had posted another quarter of record-shattering profits. Thirty-six senators, including Sanders, on Thursday sent a letter to President Bush asking him to release 70 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The senators noted that the president can take this action immediately and it does not require Congressional approval. And they pointed out that in previous cases, releasing oil from the SPRO had an immediate positive impact on the price of oil and gasoline. To read more, click here.

Housing A U.N. World Habitat Award given to the Champlain Housing Trust is "a timely recognition of a worthy effort when affordable housing is such a critical issue in Vermont," according to The Burlington Free Press. The editorial noted Sanders' role in both the creation of the Champlain Housing Trust when he was the mayor of Burlington and a national program Sanders first proposed in 2001 when he was a member of the House. It said the Sanders provision in the mortgage bailout bill signed into law Wednesday closely follows the Vermont model. To read more, click here.

Comcast Outraged customers of the cable giant will get a chance to bring their complaints to a town meeting in Rutland hosted by Sanders on Aug. 14. He arranged the meeting after receiving complaints about Comcast's channel lineup changes. The largest cable television company in the state and the country dropped several channels from its basic and expanded cable service without replacing the channels or reducing the monthly price. "We think what is taking place is a rate increase," Sanders told the Rutland Herald. Comcast, by the way, posted a huge quarterly profit as it gained market share in phone and Internet services. Comcast reported a tripling what it calls "free cash flow." To read the Rutland Herald article, click here. To read the Reuters story on Comcast profits, click here..

Record Deficit As part of the mess George Bush has made of things, the president who inherited a big budget surplus will leave behind a record deficit. "President Bush's announcement that we'll have a $482 billion deficit this year is extremely disconcerting" said Senator Bernie Sanders. "After almost eight years of the Bush administrations' misguided economic policies, the president plans to leave office in 2009 with the largest federal deficit in American history. This deficit spending adds to our massive national debt, a burden the president has decided to pass on to the next president and future generations. We need a new direction. Sanders said, "It is high time to rethink a policy by which we're spending $10 billion every single month in Iraq at the same time as we're giving huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires." To read The Washington Post article on the deficit announcement, click here. To watch Sanders, click here.