BURLINGTON, Vt. – Sen. Bernie Sanders announced today in Vermont that he will seek a fourth term to the U.S. Senate. His time in the Senate, along with his previous 16 years in the House of Representatives, makes him the longest-serving independent Member of Congress in American history.
In his statement to Vermonters, Sanders said:
“Let me thank the people of Vermont, from the bottom of my heart, for giving me the opportunity to serve in the United States Senate. It has been the honor of my life.
Today, I am announcing my intention to seek another term. Let me take a few minutes to tell you why.
As the Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee; as part of the U.S. Senate Democratic Leadership team; as a senior member of the Veterans Committee, the Budget Committee, and the Environment and Public Works Committee, I have been, and will be if re-elected, in a strong position to provide the kind of help that Vermonters need in these difficult times.
In recent years, working together, we have made important progress in addressing some very serious challenges. But much, much more needs to be done if we are to become the state, and the nation, that our people deserve.
Together, we have made Vermont the leading state in the country in terms of per capita utilization of community health centers. That means that up to 190,000 Vermonters every year are receiving their primary health care, their dental care, their mental health counseling, and lower-cost prescription drugs at these centers. But that’s not enough. In my view, the United States must join every other major country on earth in guaranteeing health care to all of our people as a human right, not a privilege. That’s a fight we must continue to wage.
Together, we have begun the process of lowering the cost of prescription drugs. We’re making insulin more affordable to seniors and all those struggling with diabetes. We’re lowering the cost of inhalers for those with asthma and COPD. We’re finally beginning to negotiate prices with the big drug companies. But that’s not enough. We need to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and end the absurdity of Americans paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.
Earlier this year, we saw devastating flooding across our state, further illustrating the deadly effect of climate change. And I will tell you that visiting the communities impacted in Barre, in Montpelier, in Weston, Ludlow and other towns, and talking with Vermonters who had lost their homes and businesses – that was a painful experience. Together, we must continue to combat climate change by transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel, and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy. I’m proud that I was able to bring $62 million into Vermont to help our people afford solar panels for their rooftops, and additional money for heat pumps. But that’s not enough. This is a global crisis. We must work with every country on earth to cut carbon emissions and save the planet for our kids and future generations.
As the former Chair of the Veterans Committee, I’m proud of the role my office has played in making sure that veterans in our state get the quality health care they deserve, whether it’s at the White River Junction Medical Center or community-based outpatient clinics around the state. And I’m excited about major new VA health clinics that will be built both in Chittenden County and for Vermont veterans in the southern part of our state. But that’s not enough. We must vigorously oppose those who want to privatize the VA and make sure that every veteran gets the quality care and benefits they have earned.
I’m proud of my 100% lifetime voting record in defense of women’s rights and the absolute need for women to control their own bodies. And I am proud of Vermont for becoming the first state to enshrine abortion rights in our constitution. But that’s not enough. We must codify Roe v. Wade into national law and do everything possible to oppose the well-funded right-wing effort to roll back the gains that women have achieved after decades of struggle. No more second-class citizenship for the women of Vermont or America.
I’m proud of the role my office has played in canceling student debt for millions of Americans, including nearly 6,500 here in Vermont. But that’s not enough. In a highly competitive global economy, we need to make sure that all public colleges and universities are tuition free, and that every Vermonter, regardless of income, can get the higher education they need to pursue their dreams. Further, we need to break our dependence on the regressive property tax in the funding of local schools.
I am proud of my leadership role in defending Social Security and Medicare from those who would cut benefits for our seniors. No. We don’t need to cut benefits. We need to expand them. And we can do that by demanding that the very wealthy start paying their fair share of taxes into the Social Security Trust Fund.
I’m proud of some of the innovative housing programs we’ve introduced over the years and the millions of housing dollars we’ve brought into the state. This includes the National Housing Trust Fund – a national program modeled after the Burlington Community Land Trust, now the Champlain Housing Trust – which puts federal funds to work to create safe, perpetually affordable housing. But that’s not enough. We have a major housing crisis today that must be addressed. No Vermonter should be paying 40 or 50 percent of his or her income to put a roof over their head.
And there is one other issue that I know is very much on the minds of Vermonters. On October 7th, 2023, Hamas – a terrorist organization – began the war in Gaza with a horrific attack on Israel that killed 1,200 men, women, and children and took more than 230 hostages, some of whom remain in captivity today. Israel had the absolute right to defend itself against this terrorist attack, but it did not and does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people, which is exactly what it is doing.
34,000 Palestinians have already been killed and 77,000 have been wounded – 70% of whom are women and children. According to humanitarian organizations, famine and starvation are now imminent. In my view, U.S. tax dollars should not be going to the extremist Netanyahu government to continue its devastating war against the Palestinian people.
Let me conclude by telling you what you already know: These are very difficult times for our country and the world. And, in many ways, this 2024 election is the most consequential election in our lifetimes. Will the United States continue to even function as a democracy, or will we move to an authoritarian form of government? Will we reverse the unprecedented level of income and wealth inequality that now exists, or will we continue to see billionaires get richer while working families struggle to put food on the table? Can we create a government that works for all of us, or will our political system continue to be dominated by wealthy campaign contributors?
These are just some of the questions that, together, we need to answer, and that I look forward to discussing with you on the campaign trail.
Once again: Thank you very much for the support that many of you have given me in the past. As I enter this campaign, I look forward to your continued support.”
Sanders is a member of the Democratic Leadership team; the former chair and a senior member of the Veterans Committee, where he has long fought for veterans to get the best possible care and benefits they were promised; the former chair and a senior member of the Senate Budget Committee, where he led the committee’s fight against corporate greed; and a senior member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, where he has focused on climate change and rebuilding our nation’s crumbling infrastructure.
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Categories: Press Release
Don’t thank me you looney flatlander. I would not vote for you if you were running for Possum Queen of Moscow, and I don’t mean Moscow Vt. !
Call him what he actually is. A Communist. And Communists live, and there, and everywhere.
That’s meant of course to say here, there, and everywhere.
Sanders is the genesis of the cancer that is metastasizing in the country. At first it was funny. But after 10 years of Democrat fisting, no one is feeling the Bern anymore, although everyone is sporting scar tissue. But I do look forward to the day Bernie strokes out, and finally does something positive for this country. I shall celebrate his long-overdue demise, and maybe even water his headstone.
Riptide, He has never been funny, strange orotherwise. He has, on the other hand, been a example of how this state has changed since the late 60s with the migration of people like him to this state . I keep hoping, and praying for a reversal of our inundation by these people. I realize that this is not going to happen, but I can always hope.
Why would anyone expect anything else, Vermont’s barking buffoon Social Sanders, whoops ” Independent “……. he has been on the Federal ” TIT ” forever, and where else can you make $174k a year and become a millionaire, Oh wait, he’s a published author……………… yeah, now that’s funny !!
We deserve better, I hope we get it….
“My wife wrote a book. You wanna be a millionaire? Write a book” Quote, B.S. that’s Bernie San, never mind, I’ll let it stand as B.S.
Another example of an old white guy ( sic Joe Biden ) that refuses to go quietly into the night
But the “independent” Vermont electorate is all about term limits. Yeah. Sure they are. Lemmings.
Deploy Malloy
Deploy (almost) anybody but, “The Three Stooges” !
“I need another house.” Bernie Sanders
There is something wrong with any politician, of any party, that clings to office until they are at deaths door.
There’s something a lot more seriously wrong with that person’s party who continues to elect those politicians. Sanders himself has made out like a proverbial bandit. Nothing wrong there. At least not for him.
Vermonters deserve better, yet they will reelect this buffoon once again. You can surely do better than Bernie.
ChuckG
More like ‘appoint” him.
That leaky gasket will not make it.
Stalinist. What a harmful, embarrassing shame.
Ol’ Bern just isn’t ready to give up that wonderful flow of graft & cash he & his family so dearly enjoy taking form the sheeple…
It seems to me that we finally have a great opportunity to replace this fossil with a good, “common sense” conservative. Is there no one in this state with the smarts and charisma to run a good campaign? And will the RNC provide support? With Ronna McRomney gone, my magic eight ball says “Signs point to yes”. So what’s the holdup?
Like a large luxury liner which takes forever to turn around, I’m seeing signs that the country is finally beginning to do so.
The times, they are a-changing.
Why would The Bern be any different than Robert Bird, Strom Thurmond, Ted Kennedy, Saint[sic] Patrick Leahy or Dianne Feinstein? If their breath still forms a vapor, the Capitol staff will wheel them in and out, strap them into their chairs, hand them a spiked throat lozenge, a shot booster of adreline, and call it good.
His announcement has motivated me to (see if I can get) enough signatures to get on the (unitary then independent) ballot in that race. I will be at this Thursday’s event in Montpelier, please help me fill the number of signatures I need to appear in the uniparty and next as an independent. My intend is to shape the conversation, I have no expectation of ‘winning’ as I will not abandon my principles of not seeking donations, (since this means the leader cannot serve the good of all, and only the good of their donors and the corporatists of course). I will also not get into political signs. I will only get in to call for a unified call to action of a radical expansion of the small farms and farmsteads with the highest quality of humane and clean products to meet the core of our crises and to identify correctly the crises as corporatism. I also see a way we can do this radical farm expansion independently as the private sector and that effort is ongoing behind the scenes. I am a perennial candidate entering to put a rudder into the conversation, just as in 2020 I ran to alert the public regarding the corporate Pandemic goals. When this race is over I will continue to work in an entrepreneurial setting for empowerment of the private sector and that is quite exciting as it’s gaining steam towards major funding, then I can share it.
Make room for young blood you power crazed old fart!
What do you think this is…the house of lords ,peerage for life?
Be honorable and please drift out to pasture and make way for young energetic blood, with new ideas, and enthusiasm!
82 years old and grasping the reins of power like some grabby old man who can not get enough of other peoples toils and labors…like an old leech.
Shame on you…retire!
Make way for the leaders of tomorrow…you had your day, don’t be grabby ,let others have theirs…in all due respect. No shame whatsoever.
82…give us a break! We had enough.
Why don’t you retire you old fart! You’re all washed up you old bafoon!
We’re not feeling the ‘Bern’ anymore!
Well Vermont …….. We now have the chance to get rid of The Bern along with Becca ! Let’s get it done this time !! It’s past time to take back our state and these two would be a good start ! Many seats opening up within our state Gov and we need to get it done there too !! I don’t want to have to leave my home state but it has been looking like it might be the only way to survive! Let’s do this !!
Bernie Sanders lives in a fantasy world; a world created by smoke and mirrors, lit by the red glow of socialism from far to the east. That’s what you get when you gas light the public for so long. He yells, he spits, he pokes his finger into the fog he’s created to make a point when he tells Vermonters half truths, outright lies and made up, ah, stuff. I’m old enough to remember a very different, very much better Vermont before Bernie slithered into Vermont politics from elsewhere. It’s time for this person who has done so little to help, and so much to ruin the Vermont so many of us remember, to leave and slink back to where he came from. Vote ‘No’ to another term for this Buffoon…
This announcement is just another reason why I’m seriously thinking about selling out to escape from enemy lines, figuratively speaking. I am never going to be able to afford to stay here and why would I want to. There’s nothing to look forward to except having to work well past retirement age just to keep up with the never-ending drain on finances just to exist here. And as I age further and perhaps can’t work, what then? It’s not a great future to look forward too.
Socialist Bernie has three homes, a few million and the cocktail party, Political DC bar circuit, the lobbyist’s bennies and has no connection to Vermont or the true Vermont culture, he’s from Brooklyn. And he’s a fraud in my opinion. And the other two party robots Pete and Ms. Balint are the two other reasons to get out.
If this isn’t enough, we have a governor who voted for Joe Biden and worshipped at the altar of the Covid pharmaceutical Gods, and the DC cash and he’s supposed to be a republican. I’ve had enough, I’m almost ready to pull up stakes and get out of OZ.
Remember the bumper sticker that said, “Bye Bye Bernie”? Well, it didn’t work. He’s bamboozled enough Bernie Bros and useful idiots to keep on going like the Eveready Bunnie at 82. Bernie got the mine, and the Bernie Bros felt the Bern and got the shaft. You will all get to see the elusive Bernie from Brooklyn soon, It’s almost parade season!
When I leave, Bye Bye, Bernie will have a true meaning finally!
Bernie can’t let go, adrenaline and power as other commentators said. JC, 82 yrs old, would you not want to sit in a chair on your socialist lake house and take in YUGE consulting fees? Well, gotta admire the work ethic!
👎👎👎🥸👎🥸👎🥸👎PERIOD!!
HIs motto is ‘kill the white rick man”. Altho he IS a rich man. He wants to tax them to non existence. ANd when they all leave VT? and then he just has the poor folk, he can give them benefits and have control over them??? Yup, Lenin, would be proud.
“Come on man” retire already! You are In your eighties…LET #NoMoreBS4VT
“Come on man” retire already! You are in your eighties…LET IT GO!
#NoMoreBS4VT
Honestly Bernie, I couldn’t be bothered to “take a few minutes” to read what little you have actually done for Vermonters. It stares me in the face every single day. It is time to retire that torch, as it has done nothing for Vermont. The Bern is over.
Go away Bernie !We want Malloy.A believer in the American Constitution .
He wants to run again to get that last bunch of cash he can steal for his retirement. Keeping up three homes is expensive! Go away you flatlander. I wish you had never set foot in our once beautiful state which you and the progs have ruined.