In the wake of President Obama's deal with congressional Republicans to preserve Bush-era tax cuts—tax cuts that gave colossal breaks to the wealthiest Americans—Senator Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, publicly denounced the deal as an "absolute disaster" and decided to do something about it.
On Friday, December 10, 2010, Senator Sanders galvanized millions of Americans with an eight-and-a-half-hour filibuster decrying the tax deal and all it symbolized: the bankrupting of the middle class, corporate greed, and the impotence and corruption of today's Congress. As Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel noted, "The good Senator from Vermont spoke for millions of struggling working and middle class people who feel their voices aren't being heard in a system dominated by well-funded lobbyists and corporate insiders."
Reprinted in its entirety and with a new introduction, The Speech is a People's State of the Union address, an anatomy of working and middle-class America rarely heard in the rarefied walls of the Senate.
- Arab American Heritage Month
- Enjoyed this year's Long Island Reads selection? Check out these titles too!
- Past Long Island Reads Picks
- Birds of a Feather
- National Autism Awareness Month
- National Poetry Month
- Passover
- Earth Day
- Blake Crouch: Dark Matter and More
- She doesn't even go here!: For fans of Mean Girls
- April Showers Bring May Flowers
- Not Just Another Teen Book- YA for Adults
- Retro Reads - Books from the 1900s
- See all
- Arab American Heritage Month
- Enjoyed this year's Long Island Reads selection? Check out these titles too!
- Past Long Island Reads Picks
- National Autism Awareness Month
- Earth Day
- Poetry Is Meant To Be Spoken
- National Poetry Month
- She doesn't even go here!: For fans of Mean Girls
- April Showers Bring May Flowers
- Page to Screen
- Not Just Another Teen Book- YA for Adults
- Retro Reads - Books from the 1900s
- New audiobook additions
- See all
- #ownvoices / Diverse Books
- Antiracism Resources
- Sheet Music & Song Books
- Bücher auf Deutsch / Books in German
- Civil Service Test Prep
- The Great Courses
- QuickReads Collection
- See all