Senator Bernie Sanders - On a Potential 2016 Run lyrics

There are huge issues out there that the American people feel very strongly about, but unfortunately the political leadership does not talk about too much, and certainly the corporate media doesn't talk about enough. [Will a progressive presidential candidate bring a voice to these issues?] Yes. Many of the issues I am talking about will appeal to people who do not consider themselves “progressive.” … The main point that I'm making is that there is a crisis facing this country. The American people know that there is something profoundly wrong. We are fighting to make sure the middle-cla** in this country survives, and I do not see that sense of urgency in Congress and among many of our political leaders. [Is your goal to raise these issues on the 2016 campaign trail?] Not only to raise them but to rally people around. Look, this is what I'm trying to do right now as a senator from Vermont: I have the President of the United States saying, “We should go forward with a chained CPI,” which would cut Social Security and benefits from disabled veterans. I have every Republican saying that, I have a number of Democrats saying that, I have the Koch brothers saying that with their huge influence, I have Pete Peterson, a Wall Street billionaire, spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to accomplish that goal. That's what's going on right now. It's not an academic question of walking into a room and saying, “Gee, I think we should discuss this issue. It's a question of reflecting what the American people want. Every poll that I have seen says overwhelmingly that the American people do not want to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and they want the wealthy and large corporations to pay more in taxes. In Washington, they're saying, “Let's cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Let's give the rich and large corporations more tax breaks.” They're completely different sets of reality. The American people want something, and Congress and their big money interests want something else. So I want to rally the American people to stand up and fight for their needs, and the needs of middle-cla** people rather than allowing the wealthy to have so much influence. [Does this urgency spur you to potentially run in 2016?] Sure. Under normal times, it's fine, you have a moderate Democrat running, a moderate Republican running. These are not normal times. The United States right now is in the middle of a severe, severe crisis and we have to call it what it is. When you have 20% of young people in this country who have no jobs, that's a crisis. When the gap between the very, very rich and everybody else is growing wider, that is a crisis. When you have a horrendous Supreme Court decision called Citizens United, which allows billionaires to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into the political process, that is crisis undermining democracy. Billionaires are now dominating the political process.