VA Claims Backlog Falls but More Work Ahead

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 – The Department of Veterans Affairs has reduced a disability claims backlog but more work remains to be done, according to testimony today before the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the committee chairman, cited “good news about significant progress” in addressing “one of the major challenges confronting the VA.” He spoke at the

Read More »

Budget Pact Protects Social Security and Medicare

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said widespread grassroots opposition to cuts in Social Security benefits and Medicare coverage kept congressional budget negotiators from cutting the programs in a two-year agreement outlined yesterday.  “This is good news for millions of Americans who have earned their Social Security benefits and their Medicare health care coverage,” said Sanders, a member

Read More »

Statement on Nelson Mandela

BURLINGTON, Vt., Dec. 5 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today issued the following statement on the death of former South African President Nelson Mandela: “Nelson Mandela was one of the outstanding leaders of the 20th century. I am deeply saddened by his passing. In his native South Africa, he was a powerful force for good in the struggle to dismantle the terrible

Read More »

Delegation Statement on F-35s

BURLINGTON, Vt., Dec. 3 – Vermont’s congressional delegation – Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders and Rep. Peter Welch – along with Gov. Peter Shumlin issued the following statement today after the Air Force announced its decision on basing F-35 aircraft at the Vermont Air National Guard: “The Air Force decision to base its newest generation of planes in Burlington is

Read More »

Sanders Applauds Pope Francis’ Call to Rein in the “Tyranny” of Capitalism

BURLINGTON, Vt.,  Nov. 26 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today applauded Pope Francis’ recent papal pronouncement, which condemns the “new tyranny” of unrestrained capitalism, causing income inequality and poverty, and calling on leaders to curb “the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation,” and act “for the common good.”   In his first independently written apostolic exhortation called “Evangelii

Read More »