The Bernie Buzz

On Sunday, nearly 400 Vermont seniors from across Chittenden County joined me in Burlington to share a meal, listen to music from local musician Allison Fay and participate in conversation. It’s no surprise that the issues these Vermonters are focused on are the same that I hear from working people about every day — the skyrocketing cost of our broken health care system, cuts to Medicaid, threats to Social Security, access to veterans’ benefits, the environment and much more.

Ninety years ago this week, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law, creating the most popular government program in our nation’s history. For nearly nine decades, through good times and bad, Social Security has paid out every benefit owed to every eligible American on time and without delay.

This past weekend, more than 5,000 Vermonters packed in and around Virtue Field in Burlington to watch the Vermont Green take on Seattle’s Ballard FC for the USL League Two national championship.

We are thankful to have over 200 food shelves, meal sites and organizations providing food assistance throughout Vermont. It has been reported that community food shelves serve as many as 86,000 Vermonters each year, with food coming from both local and national resources, including local Vermont farms and grocery stores. Read on below for information on how to find a food shelf or meal site near you.

One of the beautiful things about representing the great state of Vermont is that we have some of the best employee-owned companies in the country and I am very proud of that fact. This week, I invited one of those companies — the King Arthur Baking Company, headquartered in Norwich, Vermont — to come to Capitol Hill to testify before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee about their good work.