It was the worst decade for middle-class families in half a century. The poverty rate last year was the highest in a decade and a half. The number of Americans without health insurance topped 50 million. That was the stark statistical portrait drawn by the Census Bureau on Thursday of a country racked by recession. Senate Republicans, incredibly, are pushing a bill filed Monday to give more tax breaks to the richest 2 percent of Americans. Senator Bernie Sanders wants to use the revenue instead to reduce red ink and invest in rebuilding America's roads and bridges and railways. In a major victory for consumers, Elizabeth Warren on Friday was tapped to set up a new financial consumer protection bureau. Sanders called it President Obama's "best appointment ever."

Elizabeth Warren Tapped to Oversee Consumer Protection Bureau Bernie was among the first to call Warren the best choice to stand up to the big banks and Wall Street.  Nearly 14,000 of you signed Bernie's petition supporting Warren. The new bureau created by the Wall Street reform law will write and enforce rules for mortgages, credit cards, student loans and debt collection. Warren wrote in a post on the White House blog that the purpose of the bureau is to ensure that people should be able to read their credit card and mortgage contracts and "know the deal."  "I've known Elizabeth for many years. She`s smart. She`s tough. She`s prepared to take on Wall Street," Sanders told MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan. To watch, click here or below.

Middle Class Shrinks as Poverty Rises The percentage of Americans struggling below the poverty line in 2009 was the highest it has been in 15 years, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. The worst recession since the 1930s has eroded the typical household's income significantly, the new Census data also showed. Years of stagnant wage growth that made the past decade the worst for American families in at least half a century. In Vermont, the poverty rate went up to 9.4 percent, a 1.4 percent increase over 2008. Middle-class families saw their incomes go down last year by $800 from where they were in 2006. To read more, click here.

End Tax Breaks for the Rich "While poverty is increasing and the middle class is declining, it is incomprehensible to me that Senate Republicans are pushing for more tax breaks for the rich," Sen. Sanders said. "Senate Republicans should not be allowed to hold middle class tax cuts hostage in order to give more tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires - especially when the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider."  Senate Republicans were poised to filibuster tax cuts for the middle class if the top 2 percent of taxpayers - those in families with incomes of more than $250,000 - are excluded.  To Sen. Bernie Sanders, that's absurd. His proposal: don't extend the tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and use half the $700 billion that would be generated over the next decade for deficit reduction and half to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and create good-paying jobs.  To listen to Sanders discuss taxes, budget deficits and other issues during an interview on Vermont Public Radio's "Vermont Edition," click here. To take the senator's latest online poll, click here.

Health Insurance Partly because people thrown out of work during recession also lost their health insurance coverage, the number of uninsured Americans rose by 4.4 million to 50.7 million last year, the largest annual jump since the government began collecting comparable data in the 1980s. The Census Bureau said there were 62,000 Vermonters who lacked health insurance in 2009, or about one in every 10 people in the state.

Help for Small Businesses The Senate on Thursday approved a small-business bill to boost the sluggish economy and create jobs. Sanders was in the 61-to-38 majority in favor of the measure that would create a $30-billion small-business lending fund and provide $12 billion in tax breaks to help companies invest and hire. The bill now heads to the House for a final vote.  It's expected to pass and be sent to President Obama for his signature.