An interview with Bernie Sanders

http://youtu.be/rPh-qGcYruw

Thomas Frank interviews Bernie Sanders for Salon. Go read it all:

I’ve followed what you have been saying for a long time. You and I are both concerned about the big change of our time, which is the concentration of wealth in this country, deindustrialization, the slow decline of the middle class. 

The not-so-slow decline of the middle class.

Why is it so hard for Americans to talk about this? When the president talks about this, he uses this term “inequality,” and it sounds scientific, but it doesn’t speak to people. For many years, you were the only person on Capitol Hill talking about this at all. Why aren’t people furious about it?

People are furious about it.

We have a very conservative Senate and House. Congress is dominated by large campaign contributors who exercise enormous influence. I think, the people here [in Washington] have almost developed an instinct not to attack the people who put money into their coffers. Obviously the Republicans are beholden to these guys. But too many Democrats are nervous about talking about issues including income and wealth inequality.

But in fact, the American people absolutely want to hear about it. I talk about it all the time. I give a lot of speeches and large crowds come out. People are very, very concerned about the overall impact of income and wealth inequality in terms of morality, in terms of economics, in terms of—with Citizens United—what it means to our political system.

The Koch brothers are not tucking their money under the mattress. They’re spending it very significantly trying to buy elections so that candidates representing the wealthy are going to get elected. So it is a huge issue, which people are keenly concerned about. But you have a Congress significantly dependent on the one percent for their campaign contributions and you have the media that is owned by multinational corporations who are not excited about dealing with this issue.

For Salon, I’ve been doing a series of articles about the history of inequality – where it comes from, when it got worse. You said the middle class is declining precipitously now…

What can I tell you? You know all the facts.

Come on, now. You know this better than me.

Well, I don’t know that I do. But you’re looking at, today, an American male worker, the average guy in the middle, the median guy, is making $280 less than he did 44 years ago. Given inflation—

Per week?

Per year. So 44 years have come and gone. There’s a huge amount of increase in productivity. And that guy is making less in inflation-counted dollars than he did 44 years ago. That’s extraordinary. Women are making less than they did — I don’t have the numbers here — a number of years ago. Median family income has gone down by $5,000 since 1999.

So what you’re seeing is a middle class which in fact is disappearing. You’re seeing, up until very recently, more people living in poverty than any time in American history, because most of the new jobs that are being created are low-wage or part-time jobs. And people, believe me, they know it. They understand it. They are worried not only for themselves but for their kids. And meanwhile, while that’s going on, they see another reality which is — the people on top are doing phenomenally well. Corporate profits are at an all-time high and people do not believe that that is what America is supposed to be about.

And yet at the same time we just came through this financial crisis. I mean, there is no better expression of what’s wrong with us. And what’s the reaction? The Tea Party movement, another wave of conservatives sweeping over Capitol Hill.

The reaction is that you have some very smart people, like the Koch brothers, who do a very effective job of taking the discontent — that’s what your book was about — and channeling it in exactly the wrong direction. So you have the rather remarkable reality that the people who founded the Tea Party are the Koch brothers. And if the people, the working class members of the Tea Party, knew what their founders believed in, they would be in for a very big shock. And it’s one of our jobs to get the word out.

Getting back to the history of it. Everybody knows about the ’80s, the Reagan tax cuts. Everybody talks about deregulation. But we often have trouble talking about the ’90s. I was reading your book, “Outsider in the House,” about when you first came to Congress back in the ’90s. And you had NAFTA, welfare reform, bank deregulation — what’s the significance of these in the long term?

You had, in terms of NAFTA, the beginning of a disastrous set of trade policies absolutely pushed by corporate America with the goal of making it easier for plants to shut down in this country and move to Mexico.

That was the goal?

Of course it was the goal. And to cultivate a race to the bottom.

So what NAFTA, which primarily dealt with Mexico, does — as well as CAFTA and Permanent Normal Trade Relations to China — is it says to the average American worker… First of all it says, “We can make 5 cents more by moving to China, so we’re going, have a nice day.” Second of all, what it says is, “We’re thinking about going to China. If you as a worker don’t want us to go to China, if you as a union don’t want us to go to China, you’re going to have to take a cut in your salary. You’re going to have to take a reduction in healthcare benefits we provide you. Or else, by the way, we’re going.” So what was engaged in was a race to the bottom.

A year or two years ago, there was a piece in the paper that pointed out that GE was expanding a manufacturing plant in Louisville. I asked the guy, I said, “This is good. You’re creating hundreds of new jobs. That’s very nice. Why are you doing that?” The guy said, “Well, the truth is that when you look at transportation costs, the wage costs, and everything else, the United States is now becoming competitive with the international community.” In other words, as wages go down, and you factor in quality of work, and infrastructure, lack of bribery and transportation costs, America is an increasingly better place [for employers] to work, which has always been the goal. So we are moving down — we’re not at a Chinese level — but the goal is a race to the bottom, where workers earn less, have fewer benefits, and that was the goal and we’ve succeeded in doing it.