Top 833 Quotes & Sayings by Bernie Sanders - Page 13

In the United States today we have the most unequal wealth and income distribution of any major country on earth - worse than at any time since the 1920s. This is an economy that must be changed in fundamental ways.

We have got to make sure that every qualified American in this country who wants to go to college can go to college -- regardless of income.

Today, the United States is No. 1 in corporate profits, No. 1 in CEO salaries, No. 1 in childhood poverty and No. 1 in income and wealth inequality in the industrialized world.

I think the way for [Marco] Rubio to say to [Donald] Trump supporters, hey, essentially he's conned you. He's a con man. That's what they do. You pour gold people.My goodness, that's not the way to bring them in.

Even in South Carolina, as badly as we did, and we did very badly, we won the votes of people 29 years of age or younger. The future of the Democratic Party, the future of this country is involving young people in the political process, getting them to stand up for their rights.

The American people must make a fundamental decision. Do we continue the 40-year decline of our middle class and the growing gap between the very rich and everyone else, or do we fight for a progressive economic agenda that creates jobs, raises wages, protects the environment and provides health care for all?

I am on the Health Education Labor Committee. That committee wrote the Affordable Care Act. The idea I would dismantle health care in America while we're waiting to pass a Medicare for all is just not accurate.

During the 1999 debate over Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China President Bill Clinton said, 'In opening the economy of China, the agreement will create unprecedented opportunities for American farmers, workers and companies to compete successfully in China's market. WRONG: Our trade deficit with China has increased from $83 billion in 2001 to a record breaking $342 billion in 2014.

High-speed trains in Japan can now reach 375 mph - twice as fast as any public transit train in the United States. America's railroads were once the envy of the world. Today they are in disrepair and we are falling further and further behind the rest of the world. We need to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, including rail. When we do that we not only make our country more productive and efficient, we create millions of new jobs.

Instead of fighting ISIS, (the Saudis) have focused more on a campaign to oust Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

You asked Marco Rubio if it was too little too late. I think there's a little bit of too much too late, which is, he is just getting down in the muck with Donald Trump. And when you get down in the muck, you get up with muck on you.

There is a reason why these people [from Wall Street] are putting huge amounts of money into our political system. And in my view, it is undermining American democracy and it is allowing Congress to represent wealthy campaign contributors and not the working families of this country.

We need a growing middle class, not one that has been disappearing for 40 years. We need a vibrant one person-one vote democracy, not one which is dominated by billionaire campaign contributors. It's time for a political revolution. It's time to make our government work for all of us, and not just the 1%.

I think people cast their votes for a number of reasons. I think if you look at your polls, you'll probably find that many, many people think that our views are closer to what they believe the future of America should be. That our views are closer on economic issues. And a lot of those polls come down to demographics, to age, to how much money you are making.

The police killings of unarmed African Americans has got to stop.

We've had a number of economists supporting our legislation. And here's where we are. The American people can judge. Six largest financial institutions in America today have assets of roughly $10 trillion; equivalent to 58 percent of the GDP of the United States of America.

Every person in this country who has the desire and ability should be able to get all the education they need regardless of the income of their family. This is not a radical idea. In Germany, Scandinavia and many other countries, higher education is either free or very inexpensive. We must do the same.

I think we're going to win a very good share of those delegates. I think you've got major states coming up. And I think the important point is that people throughout this country are resonating to our message.

I think it is now widely understood that the so-called "War on Drugs" has largely been a failure. Too many people have developed criminal records for smoking marijuana. Too many people have gone to jail for nonviolent crimes. So I think it's important for us to rethink the war on drugs.

We need the best educated workforce in the world. Hundreds of thousands of bright, young, qualified people who want to go to college or get a higher education are unable to do so, not because they lack the ability but because they lack the money.

During the last two years the wealthiest 14 Americans saw their wealth increase by $157 billion. This is truly unbelievable. This $157 billion INCREASE in wealth among 14 individuals is more wealth that is owned, collectively, by 130 million Americans. This country does not survive morally, economically or politically when so few have so much, and so many have so little.

I did work with John McCain. I did work with Jeff Miller over in the House. And we put together not the bill that I wanted, but probably the most comprehensive V.A. health care bill in the modern history of this country.

When the media worries about what Hillary’s hair looks like or what my hair looks like, that’s a real problem. We have millions of people who are struggling to keep their heads above water, who want to know what candidates can do to improve their lives, and the media will very often spend more time worrying about hair than the fact that we’re the only major country on earth that doesn’t guarantee health care to all people.

It is a public financing system that everybody knows is antiquated. It no longer works. Nobody can become president based on that system.

I think we are making progress, but we have long way to go. People also have got to understand the agenda that we are fighting for. This is a senator who has taken on every powerful special interest, whether it's Wall Street, whether it's drug companies who are ripping off the American people, the military industrial complex.

In the economy today, everybody understands that we need a well educated workforce. This is 2016. When we talk about public education, it can no longer be K through 12th grade. I do believe that public colleges and universities should be tuition free.

Education should be a right, not a privilege. We need a revolution in the way that the United States funds higher education.

How can the United States be competitive globally if higher education is unaffordable? Germany, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Scotland and Sweden have no tuition for college. Other countries have low tuition. We need the best educated workforce in the world. Instead of spending endless amounts on the military, we need to invest in our young people.

When I talked about Boeing and I talked about General Electric, what I was referring to is an outrage... Right now you have a loophole such that these guys are putting their profits, multi-billion dollar profitable corporations putting billions of dollars into the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and other tax havens.

The United States must lead the world in reversing climate change. We can do that.

We need a movement that says in a highly competitive global economy all of our kids who have the ability, the qualifications and the desire, will be able to get a college education regardless of income because we will make public colleges and universities tuition free.

Giving up is not an option if we want to prevent irreparable harm to our planet.

The votes elected officials make should be based on the best interests of the American people, not the fear of retribution when shadowy groups spend millions of dollars on negative advertisements.

Rich get richer. Everyone else gets poorer. And all these guys can talk about is war and defunding Planned Parenthood.

Prescription drug prices are skyrocketing and one-third of all seniors depend on Social Security for at least 90% of their income.

I am very proud to be the only candidate up here who does not have a Super PAC, who's not raising huge sums of money from Wall Street...

The United States has got to join the rest of the industrialized world in making sure that working families of the middle class have benefits that they absolutely need. We are the only major country on Earth that does not guarantee health care to all people as a right. We are the only major country on Earth that does not provide paid family and medical leave. There are many countries around the world which make sure that public colleges and universities are tuition-free. In our country, it's becoming increasingly difficult to afford to go to college.

What we are doing in this campaign [2016], it just blows my mind every day because I see it clearly, we're taking on not only Wall Street and economic establishment, we're taking on the political establishment.

I think we've got a number of states coming up that we're going to do extremely well and possibly winning, including California and New York state.So I think we do have a path to victory.

It's not something where you can say, one time you said this and now you said this. That doesn't peel off any of his people. The only way that you can do it is by out alphaing [Doanld] Trump, and I think that's what Marco Rubio's attempting to do.

Not only did I vote against that war, I helped lead the opposition, and if you go to my website, berniesanders.com, you will see the statement that I made in 2002. And it gives me no pleasure to tell you that much of what I feared would happen the day after Saddam Hussein was overthrown, in fact, did happen.

I will do my best to transform our trade policy and take on these corporations who want to invest in low-income countries around the world rather than in the United States of America.

We have two and half million individual campaign contributions, more than any campaign in history.

What the Des Moines Register said - you know, there were coin - I think there were half a dozen coin flips - a fairly chaotic type situation. At the end of the day, no matter how it's recounted, it will break roughly even. I love and respect the caucus process in Iowa. See, and I don't have to say it, because they voted already.

I think what the secretary Hillary Clinton has recognized is the American people are extremely angry about the power of Wall Street, the greed, the illegal behavior of Wall Street.

One can't predict the future, that maybe our training and their fighting capabilities are improving and we are going to make some progress in destroying ISIS.

Interestingly, a lot of the polling that I see is not along racial lines, but along generational lines. We are doing better and better among younger people, not so well among older people, whether they're African-American, whether they're white or whether they're Latino.

When Hillary Clinton ran against Senator [Barack] Obama she thought him naive because he thought it was a good idea to talk to our enemies. I think those are exactly the people you have to talk to and you have to negotiate with.

I have known Secretary [Hillary] Clinton for 25 years and respect her very much.

I would love to have the endorsement of every progressive organization in America. We're very proud to have received recently the endorsement of MoveOn.org. We've received the endorsement Democracy for America. These are grassroots organizations representing millions of workers.

I don't go around every other day calling for governors to resign. I don't think I ever have.

We have to invest in our kids, we have to invest in our communities, we have to create jobs. We have to make certain that kids are not dropping out of school and hanging out on street corners.

We did phenomenally well with young people. I think we did well with working class people.

There's issue of a corrupt campaign finance system, where big money interests and Wall Street are trying to buy elections.Those are the issues that are resonating.

Please don't suggest that I think we normalize relations with Tehran tomorrow. We don't. But I would like to see us move forward, and hopefully some day that will happen.

In terms of Iran and in terms of Saudi Arabia, of course they hate each other. That's no great secret. But John Kerry, who is I think doing a very good job, has tried to at least get these people in the room together because both of them are being threatened by ISIS.

I think we bring together that broad coalition including Russia to help us destroy ISIS and work on a timetable to get rid of Assad, hopefully through Democratic elections. First priority, destroy ISIS.

We will do well when young people, when working-class people come out. We do not do well when the voter turnout is not large. We did not do as good a job as I had wanted to bring out a large turnout.

What every American should know is that we have more people in jail today than any other country on Earth, more than China. We have some 2.2 million people in jail. What that means is that a lot of lives are being destroyed.

I'm not going to get establishment support. I'm not going to get the support of the governors and the senators, with few exceptions, and many of the major organizations.