By Tom Cahill
While the media hyped a false narrative about Bernie Sanders’ competence and policies, three of Sanders’ policy proposals were implemented this week.
What’s sad is that as the biggest leak in world history came to light, exposing 140 different politicians from 50 countries engaged in egregious tax dodging, corporate-owned media outlets chose instead to take their lead for the week’s news from a greasy tabloid’s error-laden editorial board meeting with Bernie Sanders. The main narrative that came out of that interview was that the Vermont senator didn’t know how his own policies worked, with the Washington Post gleefully climbing on board.
However, the Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim accurately pointed out that the interview transcript revealed both Sanders’ expertise and the New York Daily News editorial board’s sheer ignorance of both financial policy and civics. The New York Times and many other publications also balked at the sudden media attack on Sanders’ accurate answers.
While this all played out, Sanders watched as two governors, a federal agency head, and a president implemented some of his “unrealistic” policy proposals.
1. New York and California pass a $15/hour minimum wage
Bernie Sanders has called for a “living wage” of $15/hour to be the new national minimum wage, introducing legislation in July 2015 and joining the Fight for $15 during their events. Before taxes, this would amount to $31,200 a year for a full-time worker. It’s not exactly enough to live like a king, but enough for a person to be able to pay their bills and not live in abject poverty.
Even though detractors have been saying that doubling the minimum wage isn’t possible, and to aim lower, governors of two of the most populous states (New York and California) have joined other major cities in signing $15/hour minimum wage bills into law.
While Hillary Clinton tried to take credit for the New York law by being present at the signing ceremony, she’s only championed raising the minimum wage to $12/hour. And Sanders’ calls for $15/hour appear to be on their way to reality in other states as well, as 25 cities in Oregon are now on their way to having a $15/hour minimum wage, with Boston and Massachusetts considering the possibility.
2. President Obama cracks down on corporate tax dodgers
As the release of the Panama Papers were causing international political scrambling and the resignation of Iceland’s prime minister, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, outrage over global elites hiding their wealth in offshore tax havens reached a boiling point. Shortly after Gunnlaugsson’s resignation, President Obama announced sweeping new rules by the U.S. Department of the Treasury aimed at stopping inversions — a popular corporate tax dodge.
Inversion is a process wherein an American corporation buys a foreign competitor, then re-registers themselves in that competitor’s home country to avoid paying U.S. tax rates.
While it’s great that Obama took action, the idea for executive action to stop inversions was originally proposed by Bernie Sanders last year. In March 2015 Sen. Sanders wrote a letter to the White House, asking President Obama to take executive action in order to close six of the most commonly-abused corporate tax loopholes, in light of Congress’ deadlock. The third item on that list was inversions.
Sanders explained that even though it would technically take an act of Congress to close the inversion loophole, Obama could get around Congress by using the power of the Executive Branch:
‘The Administration has the authority to block the tax avoidance strategies that become available to corporations after they invert, which are the main motivation for most inversions. The Administration rightly acted in September of 2014 to block one such tax avoidance strategy known as ‘hopscotch loans’ but has not yet acted on another, known as ‘earnings stripping.’”
The provision targeted by Obama’s executive action? You guessed it — earnings stripping. And as an added bonus, Obama’s action has already scuttled a planned merger between Pfizer and Ireland-based Allergan, preventing the loss of $35 billion in tax revenue.
3. Drug Enforcement Agency may reconsider marijuana policy
Last November, Sen. Sanders introduced a bill to take marijuana off the U.S. government’s list of Schedule I drugs. By definition, Schedule I drugs are defined as the “most dangerous” of drugs, with “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” Sanders made a point to mention the injustice of criminalizing marijuana during the first Democratic debate in Las Vegas.
“We have a criminal justice system that lets CEOs on Wall Street walk away, and yet we are imprisoning or giving jail sentences to young people who are smoking marijuana,” Sanders said.
Now it looks as if the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) may be taking that idea seriously. This week the DEA announced that it would decide on taking marijuana off the list of Schedule I drugs by the end of June. This would put the DEA in alignment with the U.S. Surgeon General, who recently stated “marijuana can be helpful” for treating certain ailments.
The DEA rejected petitions in 2001 and 2006 to reclassify marijuana. As such, many pundits believe the decision will be to reclassify marijuana to either Schedule II or III, which would open up new lines of medical research on the effects of marijuana.
Given these three bits of underreported news, it’s easy to see why this week was one of Bernie Sanders’ best, as these advancements debunk some of the establishment media’s main talking points: Sanders’ policy proposals are realistic, not pie-in-the-sky; they are detailed, not vague; and when implemented, they are effective.
Tom Cahill is a writer for US Uncut based in the Pacific Northwest. He specializes in coverage of political, economic, and environmental news. You can contact him via email at tom.v.cahill@gmail.com.
