2020: Meet Bernie Sanders

Meet Bernie Sanders, an American politician, a father, a husband, the current junior Senator of Vermont since 2007, and your first Independent Party candidate for the 2020 Presidential Election. Prior to being a Senator, Sanders was elected as the Mayor of Burlington in 1981 before being elected into the House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic Party in 1990. This enabled him to become appointed to a number of congressional committees.

Bernie Sanders attended Brooklyn College for one year before transferring to the University of Chicago in 1960 and received his Bachelor’s degree in Political Science in 1964. After graduating from college, Sanders returned to New York City and worked a variety of jobs, such as head start teach, psychiatric aide, and carpenter. In 1968, he moved to Vermont and started to work as a carpenter, filmmaker and writer. While in Vermont, he created and sold radical film strips as well as other educational materials to schools.  In 1980, he ran for Mayor of Burlington, won, and remained mayor for 8 years after his election. Sanders ran for House of Representatives and won in 1990 making him the first independent candidate to have been elected. He served in the House until 2007 when he ran for Senator and won. He has retained his seat as Senator and even gone for another higher position: the presidency. Although he lost in the 2016 Presidential Elections, he is making another go at the seat.

On February 19, junior Senator Bernie Sanders announces his run for presidency. Along with his campaign for presidency, he has six key issues. The first key issue being healthcare. In 2017, Sanders introduced a bill to transition healthcare to Medicare for All Act. It is a system where every American would would get healthcare insurance through the government. The second key issue is labor. Sanders has been pushing for minimum wage to be increased to $15 per hour. He introduced a senate bill to hike the federal wage minimum and called the current $7.50 per hour a “starvation wage.” The third key issue is taxes.

He has been very vocal about the Republican tax plan that passed in December 2017 and called it unnecessary. Sanders proposed a plan in January to tax estates that are worth $3.5 million at a minimum. The fourth key issue is investing/banks. Sanders has criticized Wall Street for years. In October, he introduced a bill to cap the size of financial institutions, which would break up banks. Earlier this month, he unveiled a plan to restrict stock repurchases, which would put conditions on share buybacks. The fifth key issue is education. In 2017, Sanders introduced a plan to make community college tuition-free and eliminate tuition at four-year universities for students from families with income of $125,000 or less. This is called the College for All Act. The last key issue is climate control. The senator has endorsed a version of the Green New Deal, a plan to dramatically reshape the U.S. economy to cut carbon emissions and address climate change.

Sanders is a candidate that is very much for the people, and if you want a candidate that will truly fight for you, then Bernie Sanders is the choice for you!