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Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders Books

United States Senator

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“The goal of any democratic, moral, and rational nation must be to create a society where people are healthy, happy and able to live long and productive lives. Not just the rich and the powerful, but all people. Our greatness should be determined not by the number of billionaires who live in our country, the size of our GDP, the number of nuclear weapons we have, or how many channels we receive on cable TV. We should judge our success as a nation by looking at the quality of life of the average American. How healthy is he? How satisfied is she in her work? How happy are their children? We must move away from the economic mentality of scarcity and austerity, to a mindset that seeks prosperity for all. To those who say that in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, there is not enough to care for all the people, our answer must be, 'that’s absurd. Of course there’s enough.”

“If we are going to create a financial system that works for all Americans, we have got to stop financial institutions from ripping off the American people by charging sky-high interest rates and outrageous fees. In my view, it is unacceptable that Americans are paying a $4 or $5 fee each time they go to the ATM. It is unacceptable that millions of Americans are paying credit card interest rates of 20 or 30 percent. The Bible has a term for this practice. It’s called usury. And in The Divine Comedy, Dante reserved a special place in the Seventh Circle of Hell for those who charged people usurious interest rates. Today, we don’t need the hellfire and the pitch forks, we don’t need the rivers of boiling blood, but we do need a national usury law.”

“In Israel, we spent time working on several kibbutzim. It was unique experience and a very different type of culture than I was used to. I enjoyed picking grapefruits, netting fish on the "fish farm", and doing other agricultural work. Mostly, however, it was the structure of the community that impressed me. People there were living their democratic values. The kibbutz was owned by the people who lived there, the "bosses" were elected by the workers, and overall decisions for the community were made democratically. I recall being impressed by how young-looking and alive the older people there were. Democracy, it seemed, was good for one's health.”

“Republicans are far more likely to walk in to a polling boot than democrats and democrats are far more likely to use mail-in ballots. So what could very well happen on in election night, you’re sitting there moderating show, it appears that Trump is winning in Michigan and Wisconsin and Florida. People say it, oh my goodness trump is ahead and then in ten a clock in a night Trump announces, “I won the election and by the way my attorney general has told me there is massive fraud with the mail in ballots, and we got a stop counting those ballots. Thank you America , I won, have a good night!” And then the mail in-ballots keep coming in and Trumps lead disappears and Biden becomes the leader. And then you have a massive chaos and conspiracy theory and that is the nightmare I’m worried about.”

“I supported Barack Obama originally. I supported him for reelection and the alternative of a Mitt Romney is very, very clear to everybody. And I think the president has done a good job in a number of areas. But one area that has concerned me from day one has been his reliance on Wall Street type people in terms of financial matters.”