Sen. Bernie Sanders: Deficit caused by wars, tax breaks and Wall Street

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Thursday urged the congressional debt
committee not to propose any cuts to Social Security, Medicare or
Medicaid.

“This country does in fact have a serious deficit problem,” he said
to about 200 people packed in the Senate Budget Committee room.

“But the reality is that the deficit was caused by two wars — unpaid
for. It was caused by huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this
country. It was caused by a recession as result of the greed,
recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street. And if those are the
causes of the deficit, I will be damned if we’re going to balance the
budget on backs of the elderly, the sick, the children, and the poor.
That’s wrong.”

Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-MD), Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Rosa DeLauro
(D-CT) also joined Sanders in the Senate Budget Committee room.

“So what we are here today to say to the super committee that is
surrounded by lobbyists and big money interests, we want you to go
forward and help us with deficit reduction but we want to do it in a way
which is fair and responsible,” Sanders continued.

“When the wealthiest people in this country have never had it so
good, when the top 1 percent earns more income than the bottom 50
percent, and tax rates for the highest income people in real effective
terms are the lowest in decades — we’re going to ask the wealthiest
people to start paying their fair share of the taxes.”

Watch video, uploaded to YouTube by Sen. Sander’s office, below: