Bernie Sanders lays out plan to transform the nation

Bernie Sanders speaks at the St. James.

Democratic candidate for president Sen. Bernie Sanders told the audience at a campaign rally in Springfield Feb. 26 he has a message for Trump: “We’re going to throw you out of office in November.”

Sanders spoke at the St. James sports complex in Mason District three days before the Virginia primary.

Sanders called Trump “the most dangerous president in our history.” He said Trump “has no idea of what the Constitution is,” is “undermining American democracy,” and “thinks he is above the law.”

Trump is “a racist, sexist, xenophobe and religious bigot,” Sanders charged, and while Trump is deporting undocumented immigrants, “he hired hundreds of them at low wages to work at his fancy resorts.”

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“Trump thinks he is going to win re-election by dividing the American people, getting us to hate each other,” Sanders said. “We’re going to defeat Donald Trump because we’re putting together an unprecedented, multiracial, multigenerational movement . . . . “We’re bringing people together” in a campaign that “works for all of us, not just wealthy campaign contributors.”

Sanders would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, stating, “If you work 40 hours a week, you should not be living in poverty.”

He promised to provide free healthcare to everyone. “Healthcare is a human right not a privilege,” he said.

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While the healthcare industry made half a billion dollars in profits last year, Sanders said, 87 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, at least 30,000 people die each year because they can’t afford healthcare, and half a million Americans go bankrupt every year because of medically related bills.

Sanders vowed to pass a “Medicare for all single-payer program,” with no premiums, no copayments, no deductibles, and no out-of-pocket expenses.

Among other campaign promises, Sanders said his administration would:

• “Double trade union membership over the next four years.”
• Create millions of new jobs rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure and 10 million units of low-income housing.
• Provide universal high-quality, affordable childcare.
• Triple funding for Title 1 schools, serving low-income families.
• Raise teacher salaries to at least $60,000 a year. 
• Make public colleges and universities tuition-free for everyone funded by “a modest tax on Wall Street speculation.” 
• Cancel all student debt.
• End private prisons and detention centers and end the destructive war on drugs.
• Legalize marijuana in every state and expunge the record of those arrested for marijuana offenses. 
• Not nominate anyone to the Supreme Court or federal government who doesn’t support Roe v. Wade. 
• Transform the nation’s “broken and racist immigration system” and provide a path to citizenship.

On day one, Sanders promised to “sign an executive order overturning all of Trump’s racist immigration executive orders.” He would restore the legal status for everyone eligible for DACA and “end the policy at the border to snatch babies from the arms of their mothers.”

While Trump “thinks climate change is a hoax,” Sanders said he agrees with scientists who say “climate is an existential threat to our country and the entire world.” He said “we have a moral responsibility to tell the fossil fuel industry their short-term profits are not more important than the future of our planet.”

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Sanders accused Trump and the Republican leadership in Congress of being intimidated by the NRA. With a Sanders administration, “we would pass the most sweeping gun safety legislation this country has seen,” he said, including universal background checks, banning guns for people with a violent past, ending the gun show loophole, and ending the sale and distribution of assault weapons.

Sanders said his effort to win the White House is “more than a campaign; it’s a movement for fundamental change.”

“We will create a government of compassion and love, not greed and lies,” he said. “This country belongs to all of us, not just the few.”