The Week in Review
The Treasury Department reported on Friday that the federal budget deficit fell in the past year but still topped $1 trillion. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a member of the Senate Budget Committee, has offered fair and progressive proposals to lower deficits. They do not include more tax breaks for millionaires and they do not include cuts to programs for millions of working families and seniors covered by Social Security. "I fear very much that there is a possibility that in a lame-duck session, President Obama and Democratic leaders will be pressured to make cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid in exchange for some modest revenue increases - much of which will end up coming not from the wealthy but from the middle class," Sanders told The Nation's John Nichols in an article posted on Monday.
Defending Social Security 
As Congress looks past Election Day and toward automatic spending cuts set to kick in on Jan. 1, negotiations are underway on a deficit-reduction deal that backers hope to pass during the lame-duck session of Congress after the election. While some senators have taken their discussions behind closed doors, Sanders has been out front defending Social Security. "That's not the way to go, but I'm convinced there are Democrats who are prepared to make that compromise," he said in The Nation interview. In a separate interview with The New York Times, Sanders was equally blunt. "If Obama wins and retreats on those issues, there would be an enormous amount of disappointment."
Read The Nation »
Read more about Sanders' fair and progressive budget »
Hunger in America
Nationwide, hunger is at an all-time high. Last year, almost 45 million people - one in every seven Americans - received food stamps, more than at any other time in our nation's history. In Vermont, more than one in eight households do not have the money to fully meet their food needs at all times, according to Hunger Free Vermont. More than 12,000 Vermont children depend on food shelves each month and almost 10,000 Vermont seniors face the threat of hunger. So to Sen. Bernie Sanders, it is "unconscionable" that cuts in a federal emergency hunger program have resulted in a 50 percent reduction in food supplies from that program for the Vermont Foodbank. "At a time when many Vermonters are struggling to make ends meet, many low-income households - including working families, the elderly and children - rely on emergency food shelves for short-term hunger relief," Sanders said at a news conference Tuesday at the Chittenden County Emergency Food Shelf.
Watch Sanders at the news conference »
Global Warming 
The number of natural disasters each year has gone up dramatically on all continents, but the increase has been greatest in North America. A study released Thursday by Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurance firm, says climate change caused the increase. The new report echoed findings first made public last May 1 at a news conference on Capitol Hill. Representatives of leading insurance companies joined Sanders to discuss the mounting financial impact of global warming. "Perhaps no industry better understands the impact of global warming than the insurance industry whose job it is to analyze risk," Sanders said.
Read about the latest study in USA Today »
