[b] [/b] [url=https://berniesanders.com/news/bernies-announcement/][b]Read the full speech here.[/b][/url] Sanders is a self-described socialist running on a populist platform; he says he wants to help the average American with strong government support and equally strong restrictions on the wealthiest individuals and corporations. I've picked out the important parts of his speech and put them below, but here's a quick summary. [quote][b]Jobs and Wages[/b] Unemployment is too high. Rebuild infrastructure with a $1 trillion investment, creating 13 million jobs. The minimum wage needs to be a living wage. $15/hour nationwide. Trade bills are bad because they ship jobs overseas. Oppose bills like TPP and NAFTA[/quote][quote][b]Those Dastardly Billionaires[/b] Too few people have too much money. Raise taxes on the richest Americans. "Too big to fail" banks must be broken up. Overturn Citizens United. Public funding for all elections.[/quote][quote][b]Social Programs[/b] Free college tuition in all public institutions and lower interest rates. Funded with a tax on high-frequency trading. Obamacare wasn't enough. Full, free, healthcare for all. Expand entitlement programs like Social Security.[/quote][quote][b]Climate Change[/b] It's bad. Carbon tax and move to renewables.[/quote][quote][b]War[/b] It's bad. Please stop.[/quote] Hit the spoiler for his speech, with the introduction edited out for the sake of brevity. [spoiler]To bring people together we need a simple and straight-forward progressive agenda which speaks to the needs of our people, and which provides us with a vision of a very different America. And what is that agenda? [b]Jobs, Jobs, Jobs:[/b] It begins with jobs. If we are truly serious about reversing the decline of the middle class we need a major federal jobs program which puts millions of Americans back to work at decent paying jobs. At a time when our roads, bridges, water systems, rail and airports are decaying, the most effective way to rapidly create meaningful jobs is to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. That’s why I’ve introduced legislation which would invest $1 trillion over 5 years to modernize our country’s physical infrastructure. This legislation would create and maintain at least 13 million good-paying jobs, while making our country more productive, efficient and safe. And I promise you as president I will lead that legislation into law. I will also continue to oppose our current trade policies. For decades, presidents from both parties have supported trade agreements which have cost us millions of decent paying jobs as corporate America shuts down plants here and moves to low-wage countries. As president, my trade policies will break that cycle of agreements which enrich at the expense of the working people of this country. [b]Raising Wages:[/b] Let us be honest and acknowledge that millions of Americans are now working for totally inadequate wages. The current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is a starvation wage and must be raised. The minimum wage must become a living wage – which means raising it to $15 an hour over the next few years – which is exactly what Los Angeles recently did – and I applaud them for doing that. Our goal as a nation must be to ensure that no full-time worker lives in poverty. Further, we must establish pay equity for women workers. It’s unconscionable that women earn 78 cents on the dollar compared to men who perform the same work. We must also end the scandal in which millions of American employees, often earning less than $30,000 a year, work 50 or 60 hours a week – and earn no overtime. And we need paid sick leave and guaranteed vacation time for all. [b]Addressing Wealth and Income Inequality:[/b] This campaign is going to send a message to the billionaire class. And that is: you can’t have it all. You can’t get huge tax breaks while children in this country go hungry. You can’t continue sending our jobs to China while millions are looking for work. You can’t hide your profits in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens, while there are massive unmet needs on every corner of this nation. Your greed has got to end. You cannot take advantage of all the benefits of America, if you refuse to accept your responsibilities. That is why we need a tax system which is fair and progressive, which makes wealthy individuals and profitable corporations begin to pay their fair share of taxes. [b]Reforming Wall Street:[/b] It is time to break up the largest financial institutions in the country. Wall Street cannot continue to be an island unto itself, gambling trillions in risky financial instruments while expecting the public to bail it out. If a bank is too big to fail it is too big to exist. We need a banking system which is part of the job creating productive economy, not a handful of huge banks on Wall Street which engage in reckless and illegal activities. [b]Campaign Finance Reform:[/b] If we are serious about creating jobs, about climate change and the needs of our children and the elderly, we must be deadly serious about campaign finance reform and the need for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. I have said it before and I’ll say it again. I will not nominate any justice to the Supreme Court who has not made it clear that he or she will move to overturn that disastrous decision which is undermining our democracy. Long term, we need to go further and establish public funding of elections. [b]Reversing Climate Change:[/b] The United States must lead the world in reversing climate change. We can do that if we transform our energy system away from fossil fuels, toward energy efficiency and such sustainable energies such as wind, solar, geo-thermal and bio-mass. Millions of homes and buildings need to be weatherized, our transportation system needs to be energy efficient, and we need a tax on carbon to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuel. [b]Health Care for All:[/b] The United States remains the only major country on earth that does not guarantee health care for all as a right. Despite the modest gains of the Affordable Care Act, 35 million Americans continue to lack health insurance and many more are under-insured. Yet, we continue paying far more per capita for health care than any other nation. The United States must join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee health care to all as a right by moving toward a Medicare-for-All single-payer system. [b]Protecting Our Most Vulnerable:[/b] At a time when millions of Americans are struggling to keep their heads above water economically, at a time when senior poverty is increasing, at a time when millions of kids are living in dire poverty, my Republican colleagues, as part of their recently-passed budget, are trying to make a terrible situation even worse. If you can believe it, the Republican budget throws 27 million Americans off health insurance, makes drastic cuts in Medicare, throws millions of low-income Americans, including pregnant women off of nutrition programs, and makes it harder for working-class families to afford college or put their kids in the Head Start program. And then, to add insult to injury, they provide huge tax breaks for the very wealthiest families in this country while they raise taxes on working families. Well, let me tell my Republican colleagues that I respectfully disagree with their approach. Instead of cutting Social Security, we’re going to expand Social Security benefits. Instead of cutting Head Start and child care, we are going to move to a universal pre-K system for all the children of this country. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt reminded us, a nation’s greatness is judged not by what it provides to the most well-off, but how it treats the people most in need. And that’s the kind of nation we must become. [b]College for All:[/b] And when we talk about education, let me be very clear. In a highly competitive global economy, we need the best educated workforce we can create. It is insane and counter-productive to the best interests of our country, that hundreds of thousands of bright young people cannot afford to go to college, and that millions of others leave school with a mountain of debt that burdens them for decades. That must end. That is why, as president, I will fight to make tuition in public colleges and universities free, as well as substantially lower interest rates on student loans. [b]War and Peace:[/b] As everybody knows, we live in a difficult and dangerous world, and there are people out there who want to do us harm. As president, I will defend this nation – but I will do it responsibly. As a member of Congress I voted against the war in Iraq, and that was the right vote. I am vigorously opposed to an endless war in the Middle East – a war which is unwise and unnecessary. We must be vigorous in combatting terrorism and defeating ISIS, but we should not have to bear that burden alone. We must be part of an international coalition, led by Muslim nations, that can not only defeat ISIS but begin the process of creating conditions for a lasting peace.[/spoiler] So that's what he wants to do as president. What do you think? [url=http://www.vox.com/2015/5/27/8666215/bernie-sanders-ideas][b]Here is an article on why Bernie Sanders is worth talking about.[/b][/url] And here are the AMA's he's done on Reddit, courtesy of everyone's favorite psychologist. [b][url=https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/36j690/i_am_senator_bernie_sanders_democratic_candidate/]AMA from last week[/url] [url=https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/24zdnn/i_am_senator_bernie_sanders_ivt_ama]AMA from last year[/url][/b]