The economy, virtually all the new income has gone to the top 10 percent, and we need to find those areas where we can actually make a change in that. And that includes enhancing manufacturing jobs in this country, it includes the ability to go to community college for free, it includes the ability to have debt-free higher education, it includes career technical education in our high schools. It also includes taking on the pharmaceutical companies on the extravagant prices that they`re charging for the drugs. Americans need to stay healthy.
Jeff MerkleyThat's a question best put to Bernie Sanders himself, but I think that he will probably put forward ideas that are related to the corrupting role of Citizens United and Buckley versus Valeo court decisions and the need to restore a by-and-for-the-people republic envisioned in our Constitution instead of the of-, by- and for-the-most-powerful system that we have right now.
Jeff MerkleyThere's an enormous amount of corruption, and as one American adviser put it to me, "The police in Afghanistan are thugs. We equip them, we train them, and now they are equipped and trained thugs."
Jeff MerkleyAmericans have powerfully sensed that we're off track. There is a structural challenge in our economy that needs to be addressed.
Jeff MerkleyFor too long, tricks and traps in mortgages, credit cards, and other financial transactions have stripped wealth from working families.
Jeff Merkley