Bernie Sanders has suggested a “unanimous resolution congratulating the billionaire class” for amassing more wealth during the pandemic even as the remaining US citizens suffer economic loss.
In a speech laced with sarcasm on the Senate floor, the Vermont senator tore into the wealthiest Americans, including CEOs, at the Senate by saying: “...for those people these times have not been bad. They in fact, have been very very good.”
Mr Sanders pointed out that “while the vast majority of people in our country are hurting emotionally, they’re hurting economically, these are not difficult times for everybody”.
“If you are one of the very richest people in the country, this moment right now has never been better for you than any time in American history,” he said.
CEOs are making 350 times more than the average Americans, Mr Sanders said, adding that the “billionaire class” owns more income and wealth percentage-wise than any time in American history.
“The top one per cent owns more wealth than the bottom 92 per cent. Rather amazingly, two of the wealthiest people in America now own more wealth than the bottom 42 per cent,” the Senate Budget Committee chair said.
Mr Sanders was referring to an analysis by advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness that said American billionaires had added $1tn gains in profits to their net worth in 2021.
“Maybe the time is approaching that we should offer a unanimous resolution congratulating the billionaire class for their enormous success in moving this country into the oligarchic form of society that they have long desired,” Mr Sanders said.
The 80-year-old democratic-socialist leader has been a strong critic of the country moving towards oligarchy – a form of government controlled by a small group of people in power.
“This massive level of wealth and income inequality, and the political power associated with that wealth, is an issue that cannot continue be ignored. We must fight back,” Mr Sanders had written for CNN in 2017, warning people against the rise of “global oligarchy”.
Mr Sanders has also been a long proponent of increased taxes on the wealthy.
“When overwhelming numbers of the American people know that it is beyond absurd that some billionaires and large profitable corporations don’t pay a nickel in federal income tax, maybe just maybe we might want to change our tax system so that the rich and the powerful start paying their fair share of taxes,” he further said in his Senate speech.
