Ezra Klein: Something that’s in what you
said being a democratic socialist, is a more
international view.
I think if you take global poverty that seriously
it leads you to conclusions that in the US
are considered out of political bounds.
Things like sharply raising the level of immigration
we permit, even up to a level of open borders.
About sharply increasing ...
Bernie Sanders: Open borders?
No, that's a Koch brothers proposal.
Ezra Klein: Really?
Bernie Sanders:Of course.
That's a right wing proposal which says essentially
there is no United States ...
Ezra Klein: But it would make ...
Bernie Sanders: Excuse me ...
Ezra Klein: It would make a lot of global
poor richer, wouldn't it?
Bernie Sanders: It would make everybody in
America poorer, you're doing away with the
concept of a nation state and I don't think
there's any country in the world which believes
in that.
If you believe in a nation state or in a country
called the United States or UK or Denmark
or any other country, you have an obligation
in my view to do everything we can to help
poor people.
What right wing people in this country would
love is an open border policy.
Bring in all kinds of people, work for 2 or
$3 an hour, that would be great for them.
I don't believe in that.
I think we have to raise wages in this country,
I think we have to do everything we can to
create the millions of jobs.
You know what youth unemployment in the United
States of America today?
If you're white high school graduate, it’s
33%, Hispanic 36%, African American 51%.
Do you think we should open the borders and
bring in a lot of low-wage workers or do you
think maybe we should try to get jobs for
those kids?
I think from a moral responsibility we've
got to work with the rest of the industrialized
world to address the problems of international
poverty but you don't do that by making people
in this country even poorer.
Ezra Klein: Then what are the responsibilities
that we have?
Someone who is poor by US standards is quite
well off by say, Malaysian standards, so of
the calculation goes so easily to the benefit
of the person in the US, how do we think about
that responsibility?
I guess I'm asking for – I agree.
You have a nation-state structure.
You always are going to, the politics don’t
allow anything else.
But I guess philosophically, the question
is how do you weight it?
How do you think about what the foreign aid
budget should be?
How do you think about poverty abroad?
Bernie Sanders: I do weigh it.
Well first of all, again, as a United States
senator in Vermont, my first obligation is
to make certain kids in my state and kids
all over this country have the ability to
go to college, which is why I am supporting
tuition-free public colleges and universities.
I believe we should create millions of jobs
rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and
ask the wealthiest people in this country
to start paying their fair share of taxes.
I believe we should raise the minimum wage
to at least 15 bucks an hour so people in
this county are not living in poverty.
I think we end the disgrace of some 20% of
our kids living in poverty in America.
Now how do you do that?
What you do is understand there's been a huge
redistribution of wealth in the last 30 years
from the middle class to the top 1/10 to 1%.
The other thing that you understand globally
is a horrendous imbalance in terms of wealth
in the world.
As I mentioned earlier, the top 1% will own
more than the bottom 99% in a year or so.
That's absurd.
That takes you to programs like the IMF and
so forth and so on.
I think what we need to be doing as a global
economy is making sure that people in poor
countries have decent paying jobs, have education,
have healthcare, have nutrition for their
people.
That is a moral responsibility, but you don't
do that as some would suggest, by lowering
the standard of American workers which has
already gone down very significantly.
