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To my fellow Vermonters:
You’re likely hearing a lot about the budget bill we’re working on, which I believe is the most significant piece of legislation for working people since the Great Depression. As Budget Committee Chairman, I want to give you an update on what’s in the bill and how it meets your needs. You can watch my video below and read my initial statement about the $3.5 trillion budget deal here.
At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, and when half our people are living paycheck to paycheck, what this reconciliation bill will finally do is address the needs of working people by asking the wealthy and large corporations to pay their fair share of taxes.
In many ways, it is the most consequential piece of legislation for working families since the Great Depression.
This legislation will aggressively reduce childhood poverty by extending the Child Tax Credit to deliver direct monthly payments of up to $300 per child to working families. For information on the recently-expanded Child Tax Credit, visit my website at https://www.sanders.senate.gov/expandedchildtaxcredit/.
It will address the crisis in child care by fighting to make sure that no working family pays more than 7 percent of their income on this basic need.
It will make higher education affordable by allowing everyone to attend community college tuition-free.
It will save taxpayers hundreds of billions by having Medicare negotiate prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry and use those savings to cover the dental care, hearing aids and eyeglasses that many seniors desperately need.
It will take on the existential threat of climate change by creating millions of good-paying jobs transforming our energy systems away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy.
Finally, it is my hope that this legislation will restore the American people’s faith in their government by proving that it works for them, not just the wealthy and powerful and their lobbyists.
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