Bernie Sanders Calls For Shared Sacrifice

Vanessa Remmers

During a press briefing Tuesday, Sen. Sanders (I-VT) touted a stack of papers listing the names of 100,000 Americans who support for tax hikes for the wealthy as evidence of American opposition to Republican plans to balance the budget soley through cuts.

“By overwhelming numbers, based on every single poll that I have seen, the American people do not agree with Republicans who say that deficit reduction should be based on savage cuts to working families, the elderly, the children, the sick and the most vulnerable people in this country while not asking the weathiest people in America and the largest corporations to contribute a nickel,” Sanders said. 

With the budget deadline drawing near, Sanders said he believes the President could make better use of his bully pulpit.

“Do I think the President has fought as hard as he should in making it clear to the American people that he is going to stand tall in defending Medicare, Medicaid, education, nutrition, and community health centers? … No, I do not think he has,” Sanders said.

According to Sanders, it is an economic and moral imperative to fight against budget cuts to certain programs.

“From an economic point of view, you’ve got corporate America sitting on trillions of dollars in cash that they are not investing because working people do not have enough money to buy it. So I think from both a moral perspective for what is fair and an economic perspective of how we create jobs in this country, I am very worried about any proposal that will make devestating cuts to people who are already hurting,” Sanders said.

House May Try To Pass Smaller Individual Healthcare Bills, Says Hoyer

Unwilling to make the ultimate concession and pass the Senate’s healthcare reform bill, the House may try to pass a series of individual bills, said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Tuesday.

“We may have individual bills on the floor...that’s in discussion,” said Hoyer, who acknowledged that passing piecemeal legislation could be difficult given that many reform provisions rely on others to be effective. Hoyer said that a decision on how to proceed would be made “as soon as [House leaders] know the way forward.”

In addition to healthcare, Hoyer touched upon a laundry list of issues during his weekly briefing with reporters, including Pay-Go legislation that passed the Senate last week. The Majority Leader said that the House would vote on a Pay-Go proposal of its own within a bill to raise the nation's debt ceiling on Thursday.

Addressing the big news story of the day -- testimony from Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen regarding ending the military’s ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ policy -- Hoyer said he supported doing away with the controversial practice.

“‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ needs to be repealed,” he said. Hoyer added that although Mullen called for an end to the policy during Tuesday’s hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Congress would wait to act on putting forth legislation.

Later, Hoyer blasted Republican leadership for blocking a Senate amendment last week that would’ve created a congressional debt commission. Hoyer took shots at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), noting that he had been for the commission before he voted against it. The Majority Leader expressed his hope that President Barack Obama would “go forward” on issuing an executive order to create a similar commission.

And for you sports fans out there, when asked for his pick to win the Super Bowl, Hoyer wouldn’t commit to either the Saints or Colts, but may have tipped his hand when he quipped that the “Colts were stolen out of Baltimore...in the dead of night.”