|  Issue December 05, 2008 - http://sanders.senate.gov
Unemployment Emergency  Senator Bernie Sanders called today for immediate action to create jobs in the wake of a new report that more than half a million jobs were lost in November, the worst monthly showing in 34 years. The unemployment rate rose to 6.7 percent, the highest rate since the recession of the early 1990s, the Labor Department reported. "This is an emergency. We need to jolt our economy back to life," Sanders said. He called on Congress to pass a major economic recovery package. To read more, click here.
| Carmakers  The Senate on Monday may take up pleas from car companies for $34 billion in government-backed loans. Sanders said any help for the industry and the 3 million American workers whose jobs depend on the Big Three must include changes in how Detroit does business. What ideas do you have to save jobs while making reforms? To send Bernie a message click here. Like most Americans surveyed by Gallup, a majority so far in our own online poll oppose major financial assistance to the auto industry. What do you think? To take the survey, click here.
-----------------------------------------------
The Bush Recession  The U.S. economy has been in a recession since last December, the Business Cycle Dating Committee just concluded. It didn't take real people a year to figure it out. Hundreds of you last spring wrote to Bernie in personal and poignant detail. "We have at times had to choose between baby food and heating fuel," a Vermont mother said. Sanders read from the e-mails on the Senate floor, and later compiled the stories in a booklet The Collapse of the Middle Class, Letters from Vermont and America. To read it, click here.
-----------------------------------------------
Economic Recovery  The Vermont congressional delegation wants to give a much-needed boost to states facing tight budgets. Sanders was joined Sen. Patrick Leahy and Rep. Peter Welch in proposing to drop state and local funding requirements for highway, transit and rail projects. "Any economic recovery package should first improve our crumbling infrastructure by improving our roads, bridges and public transportation," Sanders said. To read more, click here.
| Global Warming  Sweeping global warming legislation will be offered in January, a sign that President-elect Obama's election could reverse years of foot dragging on climate change, Sanders and other key members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee announced at a Capitol press conference. "It's not only that we will have a president who understands the severity of the problem," Sanders said, "but he also is willing to be aggressive in addressing it." Watch it here.
-----------------------------------------------
Vermont Veterans  The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs will open a new health clinic in Brattleboro. The VA secretary gave Bernie the good news. The clinic will provide veterans greater access to primary health care. "Sen. Sanders has worked very hard for veterans and we appreciate all of the efforts he has made on our behalf," Phil Reeve, commander of the American Legion Post 37 in Bellows Falls, told the Brattleboro Reformer. To read the article, click here.
-----------------------------------------------
Ask Bernie - on YouTube  The Senate, in all of its stodgy hidebound tradition, still has spittoons and snuff boxes. Laptops are not allowed. BlackBerries? Forbidden on the floor. Roll call votes are ploddingly conducted by each senator answering a clerk with a yea or nay. So it is no small wonder that the Senate, only a few years behind the times for a change, has entered the YouTube era. Video yourself asking Bernie a question and submit it here. He will answer as many as possible.
| If you would like to send Senator Sanders' a comment click here.
You are subscribed to Senator Sanders' regular newsletter. |
 |
