Bernie Sanders

Senate Budget chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) sharply criticized the country’s abnormally large defense budget and the “fraud” and “misconduct” of defense contractors in a hearing on Pentagon spending on Wednesday. The Pentagon has a budget of a whopping $740 billion this year. That makes up more than half of the discretionary spending authorized by Congress. This figure would be a lot on its own, but, as Sanders pointed out in the hearing, the Department of Defense is often wasteful in its spending and often racks up cost overruns despite a staggeringly large budget.

The COVID-19 virus continues to spread and mutate, with massive outbreaks in India and Brazil raising fears that without a global, coordinated effort to quickly manufacture vaccines in poorer countries, the pandemic will continue to claim untold numbers of lives while threatening economic recovery. The manufacturing capacity is out there, advocates say, but other countries need access to proprietary production technology and the vaccine “recipe” in order to develop that capacity.

The progressives’ bill calls for investing over $100 billion in public housing over the next decade.

"A People’s Guide to Capitalism" demystifies and makes accessible the fundamental concepts of Marxist economics.

The federal government provides fossil fuel companies with $15 billion in direct subsidies each year.