Bernie Sanders: Let's Spend $5.5 Billion to Employ 1 Million Young People

[Playinghardball]

The Employ Young Americans Now Act is the sort of legislation that would have struggled even in a Democratic Congress. In a Capitol controlled by Republicans, it might as well propose taxing churches to pay for sex reassignment surgeries on a moon base. The legislation, introduced by Michigan Representative John Conyers, would create a $5.5 billion fund, $4 billion earmarked for the employment of people between 16 and 24, $1.5 billion for job training grants. There are no pay-fors. It would ask a Congress that is dead-set against "big government" to employ people, with the help of big government.

Yet the bill's Senate sponsor is Vermont's Bernie Sanders. That matters quite a lot in June 2015. On Thursday morning, Sanders joined Conyers on a visit to the H.O.P.E. Project in southeast Washington. The presidential candidate toured a small but busy office, located above a strip mall, that had successfully trained 375 people in the IT field, and seen 315 of those people get jobs that paid an average of $42,000—far above the median income locally. Ninety-three percent of graduates were African-American, and when Sanders entered a computer room—pausing to greet every student—the only white faces belonged to journalists and staffers. The room was crowded with TV cameras and iPhones, some pointed at four words on the wall: "HARVARD OF THE HOOD."

"In America now we spend nearly $200 billion on public safety, including $70 billion on correctional facilities each and every year," said Sanders from the front of the room. "So, let me be very clear: in my view it makes a lot more sense to invest in jobs, in job training, and in education than spending incredible amounts of money on jails and law enforcement."

Sanders got darker, decrying the size of America's prison population, imagining a world in which people got jobs instead of jail sentences." According to the NAACP, from 1980 to 2008, the number of people incarcerated in America quadrupled from roughly 500,000 to 2.3 million people," he said. "If current trends continue, one in three black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime. This is an unspeakable tragedy."

More here: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-06-04/bernie-sanders-let-s-spend-5-5-billion-to-employ-1-million-young-people

[Kalidurga]

1. Wait a minute...

I thought Bernie didn't care about AA issues. This must be a mistake.

But, seriously I have heard him mention this in several speeches. This expanded version is beautiful and it might even start speaking to the majority of the people in this country even those who say they want less government.

[Nite Owl]

2. Like all of his

proposals it just makes sense. Simple as that. Not liberal, not conservative just sensible.

[BrotherIvan]

3. BOOM

Not enough, Bernie? Words followed by actions. Actual ACTIONS. A plan, not platitudes. That's what a leader does.

And anyone who says this is not social justice is just playing games. This is how you break the cycle of poverty. This is how you bring hope and jobs and the path to financial stability into communities. This is how you change the course from locking people up to helping them realize their full potential. Jobs and training, pffft, what's that? His first 35 minute speech didn't go over everything, so now the entire world feels left out!

Maybe, just maybe, his plans are more complex and take time to communicate. Not one-liners in speeches. Not paid people to pepper the crowd. Not props on stage to make you look good.

And to those who want to say, well this will never get through a Republican Congress, I say, likely not. But do you think it would have gotten through a majority in February 2009?

The Harvard of the Hood. That is not co-opting the struggle of people of color, that is going there and trying to highlight and support all the good work they are doing. And they do it out of the spotlight. They don't do it for riches. They do it because they care. And they need help, not lip service.

How you like them optics?

[we can do it]

4. Sounds like House of Cards