Bernie Sanders: ‘extremely modest’ spending bill fails to meet the moment

theguardian.com:

As Democrats celebrate the long-sought passage of Joe Biden’s sweeping health, climate and economic package, Bernie Sanders is not ready to declare victory. Instead, the Vermont senator is sounding the alarm that Congress has failed to meet the moment, with potentially grave consequences for American democracy.

“We are living in enormously difficult times,” he said in an interview with the Guardian. “And I worry very much … that people are giving up on democracy because they do not believe that their government is working for them.”

The legislation, which Biden is expected to sign into law next week, is but a sliver of the ambitious domestic policy initiative that Sanders, as chair of the Senate Budget Committee, helped draft last year. The original proposal was, in his view, already a compromise. But he believes it would have gone a long way in addressing the widespread economic distress that is undermining Americans’ faith in their government.

With control of Congress at stake this fall, Sanders believes Democrats squandered a major opportunity, probably their last before the midterm elections, to show voters what they could deliver with even larger majorities in Congress.

“It seems to me that what we should have done is gone forward with a bold agenda, to show the American people, ordinary people, that we understand what’s going on in their lives,” he said. “And if we cannot succeed because we don’t have the 50 votes, at least let the American people understand that we are fighting for them, and that we had to make a compromise to do far, far, far less than what is necessary.”

Sanders supported the resulting compromise, finalized after a year of strained negotiations and setbacks, because he concluded that “the pluses