brothers and sisters! my name is john nichols, and i stand before you as a proud wisconsin progressive. i am here in the tradition of robert m. lafollette. the capital times newspaper, the progressive magazine, the wisconsin idea. and the wisconsin uprising of 2011. i am here to welcome you and i am here to welcome one of you. because bernie sanders is not separate from the people in this room. i'm not here to make any endorsements or deliver any grand statements about what you should do in 2016.
that's not... that's not what the wisconsin progressive movement was ever about. the wisconsin progressive movement was about citizens, gathering in church halls, and schools, and union halls and deciding the issues that mattered for them! this has always been a people's movement. and when leaders arrive the come from the people, they don't dictate to the people. i'm serious when i say i'm not here to tell you what to do, you don't need someone to come up and tell you what to do, you don't need someone to come up and tell you what to think about the presidential race,
senator bernie sanders will be here in a moment to make his case. this campaign is all over this room, they've given you all sorts of information, they want you to go to berniesanders.com, they want you to text 82623, pull your phone out and do all that, and type in bernie and you' get updates all the time, they'll tell you all the bells and whistles. i'm not here to do any of that. i am here to tell you what you have already done. because what you have already done is more important
than any thing that any candidate will do. what you have already done is demand that the 2016 presidential race have a progressive voice at the table. and you... you demanded that it be someone who came from you, someone who you knew. you demanded, that it be someone who has marched with you, someone who has rallied with you, someone who knows ed garvey, and who has campaigned with ed garvey, ladies and gentlemen, the man who rebuilt the progressive movement in this state,
(?) the father of fighting bob fess: ed garvey, right here, up front. right in front of him, to rows up, the mayor of madison paul soglin right here with us tonight. couple steps away from him, state senator fred risser the longest-serving legislator in the united states. state representatives terese berceau, and... and melissa sargent and a dozen others i can't even pick out here. it's a remarkable thing that's going on and i want you to know that a year ago, when bernie sanders said to me that he was thinking of running for president of the united states i had my doubts. but... but then... but then bernie sanders said you know wha... 'cause
he was pretty sure it was going to work because he said he wasn't going to do it like other people did it. he was going to do it as a movement. bernie sanders didn't make anything. bernie sanders is the product of movements that have made everything. people demanded a candidate who would stand up absolutely and apologetically for organized labor. people demanded a candidate who would stand up absolutely and apologetically for fair trade, not the broken free trade model of nafta and the tpp. people demanded a candidate who would vote against wars and against the patriot act. people demanded a candidate...
people demanded a candidate who would march with naomi klein and bill mckibben to say "climate change is the essential issue of our time". and people demanded... demanded that finally, a hundred years on, we would get another candidate who would say as boldly, as robert m. lafollette did, that this fight is not about parties and partisanship and ideology. this fight is about all of us against a handful of plutocrats that would take everything we have. wisconsin progressives, you demanded a candidate who spoke your language.
and ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, please welcome senator bernie sanders! whoa! in case you haven't noticed there are a lot of people here. well, let me... let me begin by thanking john for that very generous introduction. we love you bernie! and let me thank my dear friends: ed and betty garvey, for all the work they've done for wisconsin and this country for so many years. but mostly...
on this early summer night let me thank all of you for being here this evening. now, tonight... tonight we have made a little bit of history. you may know that there are some... 25 candidates running for president of the united states but tonight... we have more people at a meeting for a candidate for president of the united states that any other has had in 2016. thank you! bernie! bernie!
now... it is... now, i was show something yesterday, apparently the wisconsin republican party has welcomed me into the state with a billboard and... the billboard indicated that i was an extremist. so let me just say a few words to my friends in the republican party about extremism. when you deny the right of workers to come together in collective bargaining: that's extremism! when you tell a woman that she cannot control her own body: that's extremism! when you think a woman is a child and can't purchase a contraceptive: that is extremism!
when you give tax breaks to billionaires and refuse to raise the minimum wage: that's extremism. but our views, which represent, in fact, the vast majority of the american people, are a little bit different. we believe.... that the time has come, when people in wisconsin, vermont and all over this country create a political movement which say to the billionaire class: "you can't have it all!". and what we are saying to the koch brothers, governor walker and all those people, is that this great country and our government belong to all of the people and not just a handful of very wealthy people. now the truth of the matters is, is that politics in a democratic society should not be complicated.
what politics should simply be about is people coming together taking a hard look at the problems that we face listen to different ideas and then go about solving those problems. despite what the media may think politics is not a baseball game with polls, politics is not a soap opera, what politics is about in a democratic society is people coming together and improving life for our people. and today i want to touch on some of the major issues that are facing our people
and talk to you about some ideas as to how we can address those problems. but the first point i want to make, and john nichols has already made it, and let me be very clear about this: this campaign is not about bernie sanders, it is not about hillary clinton, it is not about anybody else, it is about putting together a grassroots movement
of millions and millions of people, who stand together and make it clear that we need fundamental changes in the economics and politics of this country, so the government works for all of us, and not a handful of wealthy campaign contributors. and let me also tell you: that in order to win this election, it goes without saying, that we need a strong grassroots movement, an unprecedented grassroots movement,
but let me say this to you also, and this is something that no other candidate will tell you: and that is that nobody in the white house, no matter how good he or she may be, can address the major issues facing the working families and the middle class without an act of politically conscious grassroots movement. and the reason for that... the reason for that is not complicated. it is that the big money interests, wall street, corporate america,
all of these guys have so much power that no president can defeat them, unless there is an organized grassroots movement making them an offer they can't refuse. and that is what this campaign is about. what this campaign is about is creating a political revolution in america. a revolution which takes on the greed of wall street and corporate america, a revolution which takes on the reality that the republican party is, essentially, owned
by big money interests and too many democrats are owned by big money interests. today, we live, hard to believe, many people don't sense it, we live in the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. that's where we are today. but most people in this country don't sense that, don't feel that because all of the wealth is being held in the hands of a very few. america today has more income and wealth inequality
than any other major country on earth, and the gap between the very, very rich and everyone else is wider in america today than it has been since 1928. the issue of wealth and income inequality, to my mind, is the great moral issue of our time, it is the great economic issue of our time and it is the great political issue of our time. let me be as clear as i can be: there is something profoundly wrong
when, today, the top one-tenth of one percent (0.1%), own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%. there is something profoundly wrong when, today, 58% of all new income is going to the top 1%. there is something profoundly wrong when, in recent years, we have seen a proliferation of millionaires and billionaires at the same exact time, as millions of americans are working longer hours for lower wages and we have, by far, the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major industrialized country.
when one family, the walton family of walmart, owns more wealth than the bottom 130 million americans. this grotesque level of inequality is immoral, it is bad economics, it is unsustainable and it is not what the united states of america is supposed to be about. this is a rigged economy, and, brothers and sisters, together we are going to change that. this campaign is sending a message loud and clear to the billionaire class and that is:
you can't get tax breaks when children in america go hungry. you cannot continue to send our jobs to china when millions of americans are desperately looking for work. you can't hide your profits in cayman islands and in other tax havens while we have so many unmet needs in america. you're gonna have to start paying. the greed...
the greed of corporate america and the billionaire class has got to end, and we are gonna end it for them. but the issue of our economy is not just income and wealth inequality. the issue of what's going on in our economy deals with the tragic reality that for the last 40 years 40 years the great middle class of america, once the envy of the entire world, has been disappearing. despite exploding technology so that every worker is significantly more productive
then those who came before, median family income is almost $5000 less today than it was in 1999. in my state of vermont, and i am sure that it is true here, in wisconsin, we have workers not working at 1 job, not working at 2 jobs, but sometimes at 3 or 4 jobs, at abysmally low wages in order to cobble together an income and some health care; that is not the american economy that we will accept. and when you look at the economy what you have to understand is that every month the government announces
a statistic about official unemployment, currently it is about 5.4%. but, if you look at another government statistic which includes those people, who have given up looking for work, and those people, those millions of people, who are working part-time when they want to work full-time, real unemployment today is close to 11% - that is unacceptable. and let me touch on an issue
that is widely ignored, almost nobody talks about it. and that while real unemployment is close to 11%, youth unemployment has reached tragic proportions. today in america, for those young people 17 to 20, those kids who have graduated high school or have dropped out of high school, if they are white - youth unemployment is 33%. if they are hispanic - youth unemployment is 36%. if they are african-american - youth unemployment is 51%. in my view, maybe, just maybe,
it makes sense to create jobs and educational opportunities for these young people. maybe we should create jobs and educational opportunities for the people, rather than more and more incarceration and more and more jails. today in america, today in america, shamefully, we have more people in jail than any other country on earth.
so our job, in fact, is to create a new criminal justice system. our job is police department reform. our job is to make sure the young african-americans can walk down the street without being abused or worse. our job... our job is to have the best-educated population in the world, not the country with the most people in jail. and when we talk about the economy, it's not only
the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality, it's not only the unacceptably high levels of unemployment, when we talk the economy today we have to understand that tens of millions of americans are working in wages which are totally inadequate. and i know that governor walker may disagree. but to my mind, the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is a starvation wage which must be raised. the minimum wage must become
a living wage, which means $15 an hour, over the next few years. now, i don't think it is a terribly radical idea to say that in america if someone works 40 hours a week that that person should not be living in poverty. and, brothers and sisters, a living wage should not only be fair, it should be equitable, there is no excuse for women making 78 cents on the dollar compared to men. and let me congratulate president obama
for doing something that is long overdue and making sure that millions of working people finally get time and a half when they're working 50 or 60 hours a week. that's an issue that many of us have been working on and i'm glad the president came through. as some of you may know, many of our republican friends are very deeply concerned about family values, they just they love families. and their view of family values is that women
should not be able to control their own bodies, their view of family values is that women should not be able to purchase the contraceptives they need, you know, when i say these things, it really is hard to believe. can you imagine? is that gay people should not be able to get married. now that is their view, their warped view, of family values. let me give you another view of family values, i have
4 kids, i got 7 beautiful grandchildren, my wife is hear, we've been married for 27 years. i believe and you believe in the importance of family. and that is why, because we believe in real family values, the united states must end the international embarrassment of being the only major country on earth that does not guarantee workers paid medical and family leave. that does not guarantee workers paid sick time or paid vacation time.
so let me talk a little bit about family values, today in wisconsin or in vermont a woman is having a baby, one of the most meaningful and important moments in her life, father standing right beside her. but, because that family does not have a lot of money, that woman will forced to go back to work in a week of 7 or 8 days. that is not a family value. in every other major country
women, regardless of their incomes, and the father as well, are able to stay home with their baby, get to know their baby, in the most important moments of their baby's life. that is a family value and that is why i will fight for 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave. let me touch on another issue that is almost never talked about at all, but it is an issue of enormous consequence. and that is as the result of the collapse
of the american middle class what we are seeing is people in our country working incredibly long hours. incredibly long. i go around the country and i look in the eyes of people they are tired, they're exhausted, they're stressed out, because they are working, and working, and working. i'll tell you a brief story. couple of years ago, outside a grocery store in burlington, vermont, i met a woman. and she came up to me, she said: "you know, bernie, my husband and i have one kid.
but we would like to have more kids, but i'm working 3 jobs, he's working 2 jobs, and we do not believe that we can be the parents we should be, so we're putting off having more kids." that story is being told all over america. today, the american people are working longer hours than the people of any other major country on earth. the japanese are very hard-working people we work 137 hours a year more than the japanese.
we work 260 more hours a year than the british. and we work almost 500 hours a year more than our good friends in france. what can we say about the french? now here's the point, and i want, i say this in order to put where we are today in a broader context. when we were kids in school and we read history textbooks, we saw pictures in those books of workers out on the streets, demonstrating
100 years ago, 1910, 1912, 1914, those workers held up these big banners, and the signs, and you know what those signs said? they said: "we want a 40 hour work week!". what they said is... what they said, is "we are not beasts of burden, we want time with our families, we want time for education, we need time for leisure.". that was 100 years ago. today, unbelievably,
85% of working men and 66% of working women work more than 40 hours a week. 100 years have come and gone, and we have lost ground. now, at the very least, what the united states must do, and i will do as president, is to make sure that every family in this country gets at least 2 weeks off of paid vacation. now, when pollsters go out, and they ask american people
what is uppermost on their mind, what are they most worried about, the answer always is: a four-letter word called "jobs", j-o-b-s. when you have real unemployment of 11%, youth unemployment over 30%, now is the time for a federal jobs program to create millions of decent-paying jobs. in virtually every state in this country our infrastructure, our roads, our bridges, water systems, waste water plants, our rail system, our levies and out dams need an enormous amount of work.
now is the time to invest in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, a one tril... a one trillion-dollar investment will create and maintain some 13 million jobs, and that is exactly what i intend to do. but when we talk about jobs, it's not just the need to create millions of decent-paying jobs, it is the necessity to end job loss as a result of disastrous trade policies.
you are looking at a senator and former congressman who voted against nafta, against cafta, against permanent normal trade relations, and i will do everything that i can to defeat this disastrous tpp. and when we talk about rebuilding the american middle class we're talking about rebuilding the american trade union movement. there are millions of workers who would like to join unions today, but are unable to do so, because of illegal actions on the part of their employers.
in my view, if 50% + 1 of workers in a bargaining unit sign a card asking for a union - they should have that union. about greed, when we talk about recklessness, when we talk about illegal behavior, these are just another word, another phrase, to describe wall street. in my view, and this a hugely important issue, for the future of our economy it is time to break up the largest financial institutions in this country.
wall street continue to be an island unto itself gambling trillions in risky financial instruments while expecting the public to bail it out. in my view, and we've introduced legislation to deal with this, if a bank is too big to fail - it is too big to exist. when we talk about issue of jobs or
education or the environment or any other significant issue, they all are related to another issue which undermines everything else that's going on in america. and i think you in wisconsin are very familiar with this issue. so let me be as blunt as i can be when i tell you what you already know. and that is, that as a result of the disastrous supreme court decision in the citizens united case
the american political system has been totally corrupted, and the foundations of american democracy are being undermined. what the supreme court said in so many words, is they said to the wealthiest people in this country, they said: "ok guys, you already own much of the economy, now we are going to give you the opportunity to own the united states government." and that is what they are trying to do right now. let me be as clear as i can be.
and that is, that as president of the united states i will not nominate any justice to the supreme court, who has not made it crystal-clear that he or she will vote and work to overturn this disastrous citizens united decision. long-term, overturning citizens united is terribly important, passing a disclosure law is terribly important, but, long-term, if we want to see a vibrant democracy, where people of any political point of view who want to be in public service can get up and run for office without having to beg rich people for money, we need to move to public funding of elections. let me give you an example... give you an example of how bad
the situation is today. according to media reports, which, i think, are accurate, the koch brothers alone, second-wealthiest family in america, a family that wants to eliminate social security, medicare, medicaid, public education, and virtually every piece of legislation passed since the 1930s which protect the working families, this one family will be spending, in this election cycle, close to $1,000,000,000. and they're job, and what they're money is about, is to elect candidate who make the rich richer and everybody else poorer. but when you have 1 family spending close to a billion dollars, which is more money
than either the democratic party or the republican party will spend, this is not democracy, this is oligarchy, and we have got to end it. and let me also be clear, that american democracy means one person - one vote. american democracy means that we try to have the highest voter turnout in the world. american democracy does not mean voter suppression or the gerrymandering of districts. i think everybody here knows that we are living in a very competitive global economy. and that if we are gonna succeed, if our economy is going to do well in years to come we need to have the best-educated workforce in the world. to my mind, it is basically insane, and i use that word advisably,
and counter-productive to the future of this country, when we have today hundreds of thousands of bright, young, qualified people, who want to get a higher education, they want to go to college, but they are locked out because their families don't have enough money. and that is not only pulling the ladder out from under these young people who want to work hard and make it to the middle class, it is not the way you create a growing and vibrant economy when we need doctors, and scientists, and nurses, and teachers and all kinds of educated workers. but the issue goes beyond the high cost of college and people not being able to get in to college. today, we have a situation where we have millions of young and not-so-young people who are shouldering horrendous college debt decade after decade. a year or so ago i met with some folks, and there was a young women there
whose dream it had been to go to medical school and practice primary care for lower-income people, exactly the kind of physicians that we need, and that's what she did. and as a result, she left school $300,000 in debt. for the crime of going to medical school so she can work with low-income people. then, i thought that that was really quite extreme, and then i was in iowa, a couple of months ago, and i mention this fact, and a young woman came up to me after my remarks, and she said: "senator, i just graduated dental school $400,000 in debt.". now, that is why, and all over this country young people fifty, sixty thousand dollars in debt talk to somebody recently spending 20% of her income paying back student debt. people can't get married, they can't get have kids, can't buy a house because of the student debt. so, we've introduced legislation, which i will push through as president, that does two things: number one, it will make every public college and university in america tuition-free.
and, i want you to know, the importance of that concept is not just for kids in the 11th or 12th grade who want to go to college, the importance of that concept, is that it will resonate with kids in the 5th grade and in the 6th grade right now, all over america, there are young kids, who may not know it intellectually, but they know it emotionally, their parents didn't go to college, the kids in their neighborhood don't go to college, why should they study hard? why should they do their homework if they're not going be able to get a higher education or get into the middle class? that's wrong! so we are saying to every kid in america: "if you study hard, if you do your work, you will, in fact, be able to get all the education you need, regardless of the income of your family.". and when we talk about student debt it is absolutely unconscionable that we have folks today, who are paying interests rate of 8%, 9%, 10% on student debt, which they are stuck with for decades, yet they can go out and refinance their home for 2% or 3%.
so what we've got to do, is allow people with student debt to refinance we've got to get the government out of the business of profiteering off of student debt as well. and when we do that, we can cut student interest rates by more than half. now, when we talk, when we talk about the major issues facing not only our country, but the world, it is absolutely essential that we talk about our responsibilities as human beings, as adults, as parents, and understand, that there is nothing more important than leaving this planet in a way that is habitable for our kids and our grandchildren. the debate is over. the scientific community has spoken in a virtually unanimous voice, climate change is real, climate change is caused by human activity, and it is already causing devastating problems all over our country and all over the world.
you don't have to look further than the water situation in california, you don't have to look further than what's going on in pakistan, where people are dying from an unprecedented heat wave. the scientists are telling us, loudly and clearly, that if we do not boldly transform our energy system away from fossil fuel and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy, this planet will see a temperature rise of between 5 and 10 degrees centigrade, with extraordinary negative consequences. what that means, is more drought, more floods, more extreme weather disturbances, more acidification of the ocean, more rising sea levels. and what the cia and the department of defense tell us, is that when people around the world don't have food,
because the land that they are working on is no longer arable, when they do not have enough water, this causes international security issues, where people fight each other for limited natural resources. as a nation, we can, as a nation, we must, lead the entire world in transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel. and let me just... let me just... mention something to you that many of you know know, and that is today, sadly, tragically, the united states of america is the only major, industrialized nation
that does not guarantee health care to all people as a right. that is not something that we should be proud of, it is something we should be embarrassed about. despite the gains of the affordable care act 35 million americans continue to lack health insurance and many more are under-insured with high deductibles and high co-payments. yet, despite all of that, we continue to spend almost twice as much per capita on health care as do the people of any other nation. in my view, this country must make two fundamental decisions with regard to health care.
number one, in america health care must be a right for all of our people. and number two, if we are going to provide health care, to all of our people in a cost-effective way, if we're going to take the burden off the backs of small businesses, we need to move to a medicare for all single-payer system. all of you who are here this evening, i think, have an understanding, about how real change takes place in our country, and has historically taken place. you are aware that change takes place from the bottom on up. it's never from the top on down, people on top are usually the last to know.
you are all aware, that a hundred and more years ago, workers, who were working incredibly long hours under horrendous working conditions, said "enough is enough, we're going to form unions and engage in collective bargaining.". and as a result of those efforts we have created a middle class in this country workers had decent wages, decent benefits. and politically, because of millions of workers coming together, we passed social security, medicare, and medicaid, and many other programs to help the american people. because people came together. all of you are aware of the tragic history of racism in america. but for a very long time, african-americans and their white allies came together, and they struggled, and they stood up for justice. and they stood up to lynching, and they stood up to segregation, and they stood up to a situation that african-americans couldn't even vote in america.
and change came about, not as much as we would want, we know that we still have racism in america, but, as a nation, we should be proud of the fact that in 2008 we elected the first african-american to be the president of the united states. most of all things. so many people stood up for civil rights, didn't happen because of a few, and when we talk about women's rights, we know that women, the suffragettes, susan b. anthony and all those folks went to jail, some of the died, and they said: "women in america and around the world will not be second-class citizens!". and that struggle continues to exist today. and then, in more recent history, we have seen gay people saying: "we will not be discriminated against any more.".
and a huge change swept the country, huge change in consciousness, and said that we are going to treat all of our people with respect and dignity, no matter what their sexual orientation may be. and last week, a very conservative supreme court, finally made gay marriage legal in 50 states. so, as a nation, we have a right to be very proud of the successes that we have seen because of the struggles of millions of people to create a less discriminatory society. that's something we should be proud of. right, we deserve a hand for that. but there is one struggle in which, not only have we not succeeded,
but in which we are losing ground, and that is the fundamental struggle for economic justice. i am in the senate the ranking member of the budget committee. which means that i am the democratic leader on that committee, and i want to give you an example, and i want to speak now not just to the people in this room, but to working class and middle class republicans in the state of wisconsin, because i want you to know what many people do not know, i want you know what your party, the republican party, is doing in washington d.c.. this is what the republican budget did, and i know something about it, because i am the ranking member of this committee, this is what it did: 2 months ago, this legislation was passed. and this legislation sets the framework for what the appropriations committees will do later on.
35 million americans have no health insurance, only country, major country on earth without health care for all, republicans decided to end the affordable care act, cut medicaid by over 400 billion dollars, throw 27 million americans off of health insurance. at a time when the middle class is struggling to send their kids to college, republican budget over a 10-year period cut 90 billion dollars from the pell grant program. at a time when millions of americans are working 40 or 50 hours a week and are not earning the income they need to adequately feed their family the republicans made massive cuts in nutrition programs
for hungry people and for children, including the wick program, which is designed to protect low-income pregnant women and their newborn babies. and then, after making massive cuts in health care, education, nutrition, and many, many other programs that working families depend upon the republicans decided to give over 200 billion dollars of tax breaks to the top two-tenths of 1%. in my view... in my view, when we reach out, and what this campaign is about is to reach out to working families all over this country, including republicans, because i believe, i believe, i believe that the koch brothers and the republican leadership in washington has gotten away with murder for too many years. what they have done, is try to divide our country up
black vs white, native vs immigrant, gay vs straight, and what they have done is try to divide us, our job is to bring people together around a progressive agenda that works for all of us. go out, please, where we need, where we need most help, not just in winning this election, but in transforming america, is to create a process by which people stop voting against their own best interest. ask your republican friends at work if they really think it makes sense to vote for people who are going to send their jobs abroad. vote for people who will not raise the minimum wage. vote for people who will take health care away from their own children.
and when we are successful in bringing our people, the middle class working people together, we will transform america. let me conclude by saying this: if anything what i would like to ask of you is: think big, not small. in washington the debate is often about whether we cut education by 2% or 6%. whether we throw this many people or that many. whether we give corporations this much of a tax break or that much of a tax break. that's not the world view we should have. our vision should be, that in the wealthiest country in the history of the world there is nothing that we cannot accomplish.
we can! we can provide health care to every man, woman and child as a right. we can make certain that every person in this country can get all of the education he or she needs regardless of the income. we can create millions of decent-paying jobs, we can have the best childcare system in the world. in the last 30 years there has been a huge redistribution of wealth from the middle class and the working families to the top 0.1%. our job is to reverse that, redistribute wealth back into the hands of working families. now, in terms of this campaign, i am more than aware,
that my opponents will be able to outspend us, they have billionaire backers, they have super pacs, they've a lot of millionaire friends. but we are gonna win this election, be- we are gonna win this election, because if we do our job well, if we develop the grassroots national movement that i know we can, at the end of the day, they may have the money, but we have the people, and when the people stand together - we can win! thank you all very much!
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