Out of the 11 remaining presidential candidates – both Republican and Democrat – only one is the real voice of the people: Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist nominee from Vermont.
Bernie has his share of political experience. Eight years as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, he also served 15 years a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and is his eighth year serving as a U.S. Senator.
Bernie is the people’s candidate who plans to rebuild the quickly diminishing working (or middle) class. The plan is to have hard working citizens receive the pay, the benefits, and the care they deserve. To accomplish this, he will tax the top one percent of the population.
A citizen’s right to life can only be fully protected if healthcare is affordable or paid for by tax dollars, this is one of Sanders plans to help the citizens of this country. If citizens decide they want to go to college or decide they do not want to, they should be able to make that choice, work hard, and still be able to live a comfortable life. People should not be forced to go to college.
Along with Bernie’s extensive healthcare plan he also focuses on wealth and income equality. Bernie plans to tax the wealthiest one percent of the population appropriately to their income and assets and redistribute the wealth for other things including infrastructure, and healthcare.
Bernie wants to break up the big banks so that not one large portion of America’s wealth is dependent on the six biggest financial institutions in the country. Bernie also plans to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour.
Although there has been incredible progress in the LGBT community, Bernie still plans to knock out the obstacles that face the community, such as job and housing discrimination.*
Some candidates are focused on running the country through religion, such as Ben Carson. The First Amendment states that citizens have religious freedom, and inserting religion into federal government inherently infringes on the rights of American citizens with differing beliefs. Other candidates, such as Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, are trying to run the country like a business. A problem with Donald Trump wanting to run the federal government like a business is he does not have good track record with successful businesses, Trump has had nine business ventures fail since 1989 according to a Aug. 7, 2015 Time article. Let’s not make America the latest.
On the Liberal front, Hillary Clinton claims to be against Citizens United, but has still taken more than $45 million in donations, while Bernie has collected zero, according to a Feb. 1 New York Times article. The main problem with these super PACs is the candidate has an obligatory duty to do what their contributor tells them to do.
To have a happy and well maintained society were going to need a president we can look up to and the hard working citizens of this country to be respected like they should. Out of the 11 candidates running only Bernie can accomplish this. Feel the Bern.
Read Sam Sutton’s column on the 2016 Presidential race
*If you would like to read more about Bernie’s stances on major issues you can visit his website at berniesanders.com
Dewey Cooper is a sophomore studying Political Science.
