The Week in Review

Thousands of you have taken up Sen. Bernie Sanders’ invitation to answer a simple question on the income and wealth gap in the United States. Is it a moral issue? The response has been overwhelming. One of those who said yes was Sid Meyer of Milford, Conn. “With declining wages I have to work two jobs just to stay afloat,” he told Sanders. What do you think?

Meanwhile, more than 700,000 Americans sent a message to budget negotiators in Congress: Don’t cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, they said in petitions delivered on Wednesday on Capitol Hill. On Friday, the Postal Service reported that it made a $600 million profit in the past year.

A Moral Issue Some 95 percent of all new income went to the top 1 percent from 2009 to 2012, according to the most recent study. Meanwhile, since 1999, median family income declined by more than $5,000 after adjusting for inflation. Today, a record-breaking 46.5 million people live in poverty in the United States. At 21.8 percent, we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. Poverty among seniors also is growing. Over 9 percent of seniors lived in poverty last year, higher than in 2009. Do you believe the rapid increase in wealth and income inequality in the United States is a moral issue?

Don’t Cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid A petition signed by more than 700,000 Americans saying “no” to cuts in Social Security was delivered on Wednesday to the offices of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. Sanders, a member of the special budget panel headed by Ryan and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray, spearheaded the petition effort. “I will do my best to make sure that we don’t cut these very important programs, which are life and death to millions of Americans,” Sanders said. A Sanders info graphic looks at what caused the deficits and proposed a progressive budget blueprint outlining fair ways to reduce red ink while creating jobs and protecting programs that help working families. Read more at Common Dreams

Minimum Wage Sanders is behind a move that is gaining steam to raise the minimum wage from $7.25, where it’s been for the past four years, to $10.10 an hour. “We have a shot to do it because the American people are very clear about what they want," Sanders said Thursday on The Ed Schultz Show. Seventy-six percent of the American people want the minimum wage raised. Listen

Health Care President Obama on Thursday said millions of Americans should be allowed to renew individual coverage plans cancelled this fall under the new health care law. Sanders sympathized with Obama’s attempt to keep his promise to consumers who wanted to retain their current coverage but remained concerned that many health insurance plans do not provide good coverage. The better solution, Sanders said, would be to replace the wasteful and bureaucratic private health insurers with a Medicare-for-all, single-payer system. Sanders dismissed Republican critics of Obamacare who have offered no ideas on what to do about 48 million uninsured Americans or how to fix a health care system that costs twice as much per person as any other country with worse results. “I get very tired of the carping of our Republican friends who have completely forever ignored the health care crisis in the country,” Sanders told Chris Hayes on MSNBC. “I am a strong advocate of a Medicare-for-all, single-payer program.” Watch

USPS Works Sanders welcomed Friday’s news that the U.S. Postal Service reported an operating profit of $600 million for the 2013 fiscal year. “Despite all the rhetoric about how the Postal Service is ‘going broke’ I was very pleased that, during the last 12 months, the United States Postal Service made a profit of $600 million picking up and delivering mail and packages to every community in America.  And they did that without receiving one dime from the taxpayers of this country.  This is great news for the American people and makes me optimistic that, with modest changes, we can protect the jobs and quality services that the Postal Service is providing today,” Sanders said. The Postal Service balance sheet showed a $5 billion “loss” for the year only because of an unprecedented and onerous requirement imposed by Congress that it pre-fund 75 years of future retiree health benefits in just 10 years. “No other business or government agency is burdened with this mandate,” the senator said of the payments into a fund that already has accumulated more than enough to cover the future health care costs. Sanders and 28 cosponsors have proposed legislation to modernize the Postal Service, save Saturday mail and repeal the crippling law responsible for about 90 percent of the mail system’s funding woes. Similar legislation introduced in the House by Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon now has 168 cosponsors.