Sanders says jobs are priority for new session

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(Host) Vermont Congressman Bernie Sanders says his top priority in the new legislative session is to stem the loss of manufacturing jobs. Sanders says that over the last three years, the United States has lost 2.7 million jobs, as companies move operations to China and other countries.

Ata news conference on Monday, the Vermont independent predicted that the jobs issue will get a higher profile in Washington. He says Republicans as well as Democrats have become more leery of U.S. trade policy.

(Sanders) “I think we have to have a very careful examination in Washington D.C. about all the corporate welfare that these corporations are receiving. If they think that they can simply destroy the American middle class and move jobs abroad, then I will do everything that I can to make sure that the taxpayers of this country are not supporting them.”

(Host) Speaking about the Democratic presidential race, Sanders said political reporters should focus less on the horse race, and more on the candidates’ positions.

(Sanders) “I think what the media should be doing is look at the most important issues facing America, see what these guys A) are saying, what they propose to do, and B) what they’re record has been in the past. That’s what we should be doing, not worrying about what Howard Dean said on a television show in Canada four years ago, which is totally absurd.”

(Host) Sanders also described as a “smoking gun” the comments by former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, that the Iraq war was planned long before the 9-Eleven terror attacks.

(Sanders) “And now you have the former secretary of the treasury who was involved in many of these discussions and he says that from the beginning of the Bush Administration – months and months before the horrors of 9-11 – one of the first foreign policy initiatives that the Bush Administration was talking about was the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Husein. So I think you’re right, I think this is a smoking gun.”

(Host) On other issues, Sanders says he will push for legislation to form a national dairy compact, and to allow the re-importation of prescription drugs from Canada.

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