Back in the fall I had the unique pleasure of seeing Sen. Sanders speak at a local bookstore in a small group setting. There were no more than 40 people there, and he stayed for over an hour, talking and addressing each of us in turn. He came off as a person who genuinely cared about each of our concerns and problems, and wanted to solve them. Two things he said stuck with at me.
First, the nation's economy is finally turning a corner. Everybody knows that. Unemployment is down, and GDP, labor force participation and consumer confidence is up. The national unemployment rate is 5.6%. But the one group that has remained largely untouched by the recovery is youth. The national youth unemployment rate is 12.2%, double the national average. Climate change is also getting worse, driven by a fall in oil prices and a rise in carbon emissions from both developed and developing nations.
Sanders recognizes that these two problems are the greatest facing America today. In his speech, he outlined some important things we could do to solve both of these problems
His first major proposal was to invest a trillion dollars in infrastructure over ten years. This would create 13 Million jobs, and go a long way towards reducing long term unemployment. He also proposed taking ambitious steps to combat climate change while creating jobs. Many of these, like weatherizing 1 million homes a year, or reauthorizing tax credits for renewable energy, have already been proven to be good drivers of high paying job creation. Others, like leveraging hundreds of billions of dollars in private investment through a green bank, are more innovative.
Although I do not agree with Sen. Sanders on every issue, especially some of his more fiery rhetoric against banks and the rich, I do believe his plans for fighting climate change and creating jobs are the best I have yet seen out of any prospective 2016 candidate. Whoever the Democratic nominee is in 2016, they would be wise to make job creation a significant part of their platform. A Washington post poll found that 78% of Americans support government action to limit climate change, while a significant majority support list the economy or unemployment as the most important issue. A comprehensive plan to create large numbers of good paying jobs across all sectors of the economy would be a solid platform for Democrats to run on, promoting both the economic success of the Obama years and democratic plans for the years ahead. Bold innovative proposals to big problems are the type of thing that wins votes and elections. Although I do not believe that Bernie Sanders will be the next president of the United States, I believe that his message of job creation is a winning one, and democrats would be wise to follow it.