Bernie Sanders Takes Aim at Koch Brothers

By Terri Hallenbeck, Burlington Free Press

29 October 14

en. Bernie Sanders has been jetting about the country testing political waters for a possible presidential run. This weekend, he brought that speech home to Vermont to fire up voters on behalf of a few Democratic candidates.

After plying the Holley Hall crowd of about 120 with free bagels and coffee and talking up a host of state Democratic candidates, Sanders unleashed a lengthy and fiery call to arms Saturday morning in Bristol. His arms were flapping nearly as much as his lips.

His main target: The Koch Brothers, as in Charles and David, the very wealthy proprietors of Koch Industries who have spent a lot of money trying to influence the political direction of the United States.

"We have got to do everything we can do stop them," Sanders said, ticking off a lengthy list of egregious things he said the brothers wanted to do. That included abolishing virtually every program you've heard on in the federal government, from Medicaid and Medicare to Social Security, minimum wage, campaign spending limits and the EPA.

So long was the list that after a while one couldn't help but wonder who "they" was.

Sanders clarified Monday that "they" is based on the 1980 Libertarian Party platform, on which David Koch ran for vice president. That was a long time ago — so long that Bernie Sanders wasn't even yet mayor of Burlington at the time — but Sanders notes that 34 years later, the Kochs are still funding fights against some of those issues.

"None of these things are going to happen tomorrow," Sanders concedes, but he argues that the national Republican Party is closer to that point than it was 35 year ago. "They have moved very far in the direction of the Koch Brothers," he said.

He points to the minimum wage as an example. Here in Vermont, most Republicans joined in to raise the state's minimum wage this year. Sanders notes that in Washington, the ranking Republican on the Senate labor committee, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, wants to get rid of the minimum wage. If Republicans win control of the Senate next Tuesday, Alexander will be in charge of the labor committee, Sanders said.

"This is their agenda," Sanders said. "I want people to understand what's at stake."

He urged the Vermont crowd to take the lead on issues such as health care because Congress will never do that. He claimed that if Vermont goes first, other states will follow.

The speech sounded, as one might expect 10 days before Election Day, like it was about the 2014 election. There were indications, though, that it might also be about 2016.

"The Koch Brothers have their vision and I have my vision," Sanders told the Bristol audience Saturday.

Some of his vision: Spend $1 trillion rebuilding roads, water treatment plans and railroads, creating 13 million jobs, raise the minimum wage to a living wage, change trade policies so that American companies invest at home instead of in China, offer free college tuition, increase Social Security benefits by requiring the wealthy to pay more into the program.

Will his vision put him into the presidential race? Sanders never mentioned that to the Bristol audience Saturday and the crowd never pressed him on the issue.

"It's a big decision," Sanders said Monday, one he will make "at the appropriate time." Will that be before the new year? "I don't know yet."