Health care in Denmark is universal, free of charge and high quality. Everybody is covered as a right of citizenship.
— Bernie Sanders
Denmark is a small, homogenous nation of about 5.5 million people. The United States is a melting pot of more than 315 million people. No question about it, Denmark and the United States are very different countries.
Every day we are paying more for energy than we should due to poor insulation, inefficient lights, appliances, and heating and cooling equipment - money we could save by investing in energy efficiency.
If you want to know if your food contains gluten, aspartame, high fructose corn syrup, trans-fats or MSG, you simply read the ingredients listed on the label.
Fossil fuel corporations are supposed to pay the government fair market royalties in exchange for the right to drill on public lands or in federal waters.
We all remember the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the worst oil spill in U.S. history. What is less well known is that BP is claiming a 9.9 billion tax deduction on the money they had to spend cleaning up their own mess and paying for damages they caused. That is absurd.
The history of American democracy, to say the least, has been checkered. Our nation was founded at a time when people of African descent were held in bondage. After slavery was abolished, they were forced to endure legal discrimination for another 100 years.
From the beginning, the HIV/AIDS pandemic has presented very difficult challenges.
The Federal Reserve has the responsibility to protect the credit rights of consumers.
In terms of job creation, every billion dollars invested in the physical infrastructure creates 47,000 new jobs.
In 1940, then-Senator Harry Truman headed up a Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. In the course of World War II, more than $15 billion in unnecessary and fraudulent defense spending was identified.
Former Senator Al D'Amato in 1991 offered an amendment to cap credit card interest rates at 14 percent.
At its worst, Washington is a place where name-calling partisan politics too often trumps policy.
In 2009, UnitedHealth, a leading insurance company, paid $350 million to settle lawsuits brought by the American Medical Association and other physician groups for shortchanging consumers and physicians for medical services outside its preferred network.
In 1999, Hoffmann-LaRoche paid a $500 million criminal fine for leading a worldwide conspiracy to fix prices for certain vitamins.
I see a future where getting to work or to school or to the store does not have to cause pollution.
Even the alternative weekly newspapers, traditionally a bastion of progressive thought and analysis, have been bought by a monopoly franchise and made a predictable shift to the right in their coverage of local news.
The minimum wage in Denmark is about twice that of the United States, and people who are totally out of the labor market or unable to care for themselves have a basic income guarantee of about $100 per day.
Mitt Romney's energy policy is a relic of the 19th century. We need a 21st century plan. The fate of the planet is at stake.
While I may not agree with all of President Obama's energy policies, I strongly supported his successful effort to double fuel economy standards for cars and trucks to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.
When a mother goes to the store and purchases food for her child, she has the right to know what she is feeding her family.
Most of us have not heard about Master Limited Partnerships. These special financing arrangements allow oil and gas investors to avoid paying certain corporate income taxes, but are not available to clean energy businesses.
I have seven beautiful grandchildren, four of whom are girls.
History will record that the Citizens United decision is one of the worst in the history of our country.
Today the biggest problem in caring for those with AIDS is no longer mainly a medical or scientific problem. The crisis is access to affordable drugs.
Citigroup, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase should not be permitted to charge consumers 25- to 30-percent interest on their credit cards, especially while these banks received over $4 trillion in loans from the Federal Reserve.
We should make a major financial commitment to improving our roads and bridges.
Difficult times often bring out the best in people.
States used to protect consumers from predatory lenders, but strong state usury laws were obliterated by a 1978 U.S. Supreme Court decision.
Representative Spencer Bachus is one of the only people I know from Alabama. I bet I'm the only socialist he knows.
In 2003, GlaxoSmithKline paid $88 million in civil fines for overcharging Medicaid for its anti-depressant Paxil.
It has become clear that the function of a private health insurance is to make as much money as possible. Every dollar not paid out in claims is another dollar made in profits for the company.
I see a future where states compete with one another to see which can be the most efficient, and where businesses seek out efficient states in which to locate so they can reap the economic and environmental benefits for their businesses and employees.
The right wing has monopolized the AM radio airwaves.
Danes pay very high taxes, but in return enjoy a quality of life that many Americans would find hard to believe.
The Department of Defense, the largest single energy consumer in America, is bullish on solar.
Not only must we fight to end disastrous unfettered free trade agreements with China, Mexico, and other low wage countries, we must fight to fundamentally rewrite our trade agreements so that American products, not jobs, are our number one export.
In 49 countries around the world, including all of Europe, people have the opportunity of knowing whether or not they are eating food which contains genetically engineered ingredients. In the United States, we don't.
Coal and oil lobbyists added fossil fuels to a bill aimed at helping American manufacturers, so they too could claim 'manufacturing' tax deductions.
The Blunt Amendment would have allowed any employer who provided health insurance, or any insurance company, the right to deny coverage for contraception or any other kind of procedure if the employer had a 'moral' objection to it.
If the U.S. can transform its domestic market for HIV/AIDS drugs, it will certainly transform the world market and make HIV/AIDS drugs more affordable for everyone, everywhere.
When World AIDS Day was first observed in 1988, there was no truly effective treatment for what was almost always a deadly disease.
The details of what the Fed did were kept secret until a provision in the Dodd-Frank Act that I sponsored required the Government Accountability Office to audit the Fed's lending programs during the financial crisis.
For too long, unfunded federal mandates have drained the budgets of states and communities. The strength and vitality of our communities must be restored.
Vermonters often ask me whether I am pessimistic about the future of our country. My honest answer is that I am not.
In Finland, where 80 percent of workers belong to unions, all employees enjoy at least 30 days paid vacation, and the gap between the rich and poor is far more equitable than in the United States.
If credit unions can grow and prosper with a 15 percent cap, so can banks.
In 2004, Warner-Lambert, a division of Pfizer Inc., pled guilty to two felonies and agreed to pay $430 million for fraudulently promoting the drug Neurontin.
For every $1 billion we invest in public transportation, we create 30,000 jobs, save thousands of dollars a year for each commuter, and dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions.
I see a future where American companies lead the world in the production of hybrid-plug in cars and electric vehicles.
