The unemployment rate last month fell to 7.8 percent, the lowest level in about four years, the Labor Department reported Friday. Has President Obama backed off his 2008 promise to oppose any cuts in Social Security benefits? Sen. Bernie Sanders said it was "very distressing" to hear the president say in Wednesday's debate that his position is similar to Mitt Romney 's.  A new report prepared for Sanders catalogues efforts by Republican state lawmakers and governors to make it harder for millions of people to vote. And it was “all aboard” The Vermonter on Friday for a faster, smoother ride.

Jobs U.S. employers added 114,000 jobs in September and unemployment declined to the lowest level since Obama was sworn into office. The good news was tempered by the fact that what Sanders calls the real unemployment rate - counting those forced into part-time jobs and others who stopped looking for work - remained unchanged at 14.7 percent. It is important to remember that just four years ago the economy was hemorrhaging 700,000 jobs a month, Sanders said. Obama deserves credit, the senator added, for turning around the deeply troubled economy that he inherited from President Bush.

A Stimulus Success A 190-mile stretch of railroad tracks across Vermont was upgraded so about half an hour was shaved off the time it takes Amtrak's Vermonter train to travel between Vernon and St. Albans. Sanders joined Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on Friday to mark the completion of the $59 million project funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the much-maligned economic stimulus. Later Friday, during his weekly one-hour appearance on The Thom Hartmann Program, Sanders cited the Vermont railroad project. "That is exactly what we have to do all over this country, not only in rail but in roads and bridges and airports. We have a crumbling infrastructure. If you want to put people to work, invest in infrastructure."

Social Security President Obama during Wednesday's debate minimized his differences with Mitt Romney on Social Security. "We've got a somewhat similar position," Obama said. The president has abandoned his clear opposition during his first White House campaign to any cuts in Social Security.  Sanders called the president's shift "very distressing." "It was very distressing not only because it is extremely bad public policy and will cause serious damage to a whole lot of vulnerable Americans. It was also bad because he's going against what the vast majority of the American people want," Sanders told The Hill.  Read the article

Presidential Debate Mitt Romney's proposals to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid while giving tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires are unacceptable to seniors and working families, Sanders told Thomas Roberts on MSNBC. "In terms of the essence of what he stands for, he's going to protect the wealthy at the expense of virtually everybody else. From a policy point of view, from an honesty point of view, Romney was a failure" in Wednesday's debate, Sanders told Wolf Blitzer on CNN. Watch

Voter ID New state laws that make it harder for millions of voters to cast ballots are catalogued in a Government Accountability Office report issued Thursday. During the past decade, 21 states passed new voter ID laws and seven states tightened existing ID requirements.  The study was requested by Sanders and other senators concerned about an "alarming number" of new state laws that will make it "significantly harder" for millions of voters to cast ballots on Nov. 6. The report was issued two days after a Pennsylvania judge issued the latest in a string of court rulings that have struck down or limited laws restricting access to the ballot box. Read more

Photo Credit: Kevin Burkholder