Bernie Won't Budge In Budget Battle, ‘It's Gonna Be $3.5 Trillion’

Even as corporatist Democrats attempt to water down the $3.5 trillion budget bill, Senator Bernie Sanders is remaining adamant that he won't remove anything from the bill. Sanders is the Chair of the Budget Committee, and he would have final say about any legislation making its way through the Chamber via reconciliation, but can he hold the line and get the Democratic Party to stand with him? Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins examines the options.

Become a member today!

Support us by becoming a monthly patron on Patreon, and help keep progressive media alive!

Find our merchandise at Teespring

Spread the word! LIKE and SHARE this video or leave a comment to help direct attention to the stories that matter. And SUBSCRIBE to stay connected with Ring of Fire's video content!

Support Ring of Fire by subscribing to our YouTube channel

Be sociable! Follow us on:

Follow more of our stories at

Subscribe to our podcast

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Bernie Sanders is adamant that the reconciliation package is going to be no less than three and a half trillion dollars. He came out this week he made it clear that as budget committee chairman, this reconciliation package is going to be three and a half trillion because let's not forget three and a half trillion is already the compromise, right. It was supposed to be 6 trillion. We were supposed to get $6 trillion to rebuild, essentially, the United States, 6 trillion, by the way, over 10 years. This isn't, you know, we got to pay all the money up front. You got 10 years over which period this money would be spent. And based on the spending mechanisms and fundraising mechanisms in this piece of legislation, Bernie Sanders also said, we're looking at a price tag right now of about a hundred to 150 billion a year that is not yet accounted for in the money raising funds.

So yes, we would have to come up with that money somewhere else. But the rest of it, the funding mechanisms we have in place in the legislation would cover the rest of it. So we're only short a hundred to 150 billion per year. That's not that bad, especially considering that's actually less than we pay three different defense contractors in any given year. So if we just shaved a little bit off that defense contractor budget, we could fully fund this thing and nobody would notice anything different. Except of course, the wealthy elite who would watch their taxes go up just a hair, not even to the point where they were under the Obama administration. Everybody wins at that point, right? Rich people still paying less in taxes than they were five years ago. America gets infrastructure. We get a green new deal. We get all of these wonderful pieces of infrastructure rebuilt here in the United States, not just roads and bridges, schools and fire departments.

We get modernization. We get broadband high-speed internet in rural parts of the United States. We improve water delivery systems. Maybe finally get some of these lead pipes out of the ground that are still poisoning people across the country. We could do all these things with this legislation, as long as we don't cut it down too much or as Bernie says, at all. Bernie may be on the losing side here unfortunately. President Biden had a meeting with Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema this week and according to reports out just this morning, Manchin isn't going to budge. Manchin refuses to budge. And of course, over in the House, we have already had three big pharma funded Democrats kill drug price negotiation which also was a piece of this build back better act. So with these corporatist Democrats, because it's not fair to call them moderates or centrists, that's not what these people are. They're corporatists.

They're putting up their obstruction to a bill that is supported by a majority of Republicans, independents and Democrats. They're putting up this obstruction just to please their corporate donors. It has nothing to do with actually being concerned about the big price tag or leaving debt for generations of Americans. They don't give a about that. What they care about is jumping through the right hoops that their corporate donors have told them to jump through. And unfortunately, in order to get anything at all, Bernie Sanders is going to have to bend.