Filibuster: Sanders Reads Consituent Letters on the Collapsing Middle Class

[Transcript]

Here is another story:

Yesterday, I paid for our latest home heating fuel delivery--

Again, I am focusing now on the cost of fuel because in Vermont, where I come from, it is a big deal. So she writes:

Yesterday, I paid for our latest home fuel heating delivery--$1,100. I also paid my $2,000-plus credit card balance, much of which bought gas and groceries for the month.

The point here, and then I will continue her letter, is that a lot of people use their credit cards not just as a nice and convenient way of not having to use cash--when I go shopping, I am going to use my credit card and I will pay it off at the end of the month. What a nice thing. No, people are using their credit cards to buy food, to buy gas, and to buy the basic necessities of life. It is their only line of credit open. And then, as I mentioned earlier, they are charged 25 or 30 percent interest rates on what they owe.

She continues:

My husband and I are very nervous about what will happen to us when we are old. Although we have three jobs between us and participate in 403(b) retirement plans, we have not saved enough for a realistic post worklife if we survive to our life expectancy. As we approach the traditional retirement age, we are slowly paying off our daughter's college tuition loan and trying to keep our heads above water. We have always lived frugally. We buy used cars and store brand groceries, recycle everything, walk or car pool, when possible, and plastic our windows each fall.

What that means is that, in Vermont, if you don't have good storm windows, you put up plastic. It is a way to keep the wind out and keep the home warm. I know about that because I used to do that.

Even so, if and when our son decides to attend college, we will be in deep debt at age 65. Please--

And here she ends this.

P.S. Please don't use my name. I live in a small town, and this is so embarrassing.

So embarrassing. We should be embarrassed, not her. We should be embarrassed that we are for one second talking about a proposal which gives tax breaks to billionaires while we are ignoring the needs of working families, low-income people, and the middle class. We should be embarrassed that we are not investing in our infrastructure, that we are not breaking up these large financial institutions, that we are not putting a cap on interest rates, that we are the only country in the world that does not have health care for all of our people--of major countries. We should be embarrassed, not this wonderful woman who is trying to maintain her dignity.