Public opinion favors progressive policies. So why do republicans get elected?

[Billy_Kinetta]

Public opinion favors progressive policies. So why do republicans get elected?

Easy. Because public opinion does not favor progressive policies nearly as much as the polls and media would have you believe.

Who tells you that? Fox News?

50 years of observation.

 

[blackhawk]

If public opinion truly favored progressive policies Republicans wouldn't get elected so the clear and logical answer is they don't or if they do only by a narrow margin. More important though people understand this idea that the government can provide everything for you that you can't provide for yourself is a myth.

 

[Contumacious]

Public opinion favors progressive policies. So why do republicans get elected?


)

Because many Republicans will adopt those fascistic policies which will make them electable. Obama's Career Bureaucrat Jonathan Gruber has categorized Americans as stupid. So your idol Bernard Sanders has a good chance to being elected. The American dream : free lunches and something for nothing.


.

 

[rdean]

Most people favor
-The family
-Borders
-A strong defense
-Law enforcement
-Working


Outside of these I'll agree that investment in our country is a serious plus for the democrats.

Republicans don't care about family. Only the fetus. They don't care about working. They are afraid of education, the path to a really good job. Borders? Only to keep away the competition. Law enforcement? The recent gay marriage policy proves otherwise.

And the ONLY reason they want a strong defense is so they can bully other countries when they are in power. No one believes they made this country safer after the Iraq debacle.

And just for the record. Gays are part of our families. Republicans will welcome a murderer or a rapist before they would welcome a patriotic law abiding and talented gay.

 

[2aguy]

So....we send tax money to Washington...they waste it, spend it on themselves and their friends and steal it....then the pennies that are left they use to buy votes for their reelection....

Now, morons like you say...but that simply means we have to increase taxes because there isn't enough money spent to help people.....

Again....we send tax money to Washington....they waste it, spend it on themselves and their friends and steal it...then the pennies that are left they use to buy votes for their reelection.....

So....how many times do you have to have that repeated before it sinks in that we don't have a tax raising problem...we have a corrupt politician problem......

and guys like you want to just keep sending them money......see above....

 

[Billy000]

Public opinion favors progressive policies. So why do republicans get elected?


)

Because many Republicans will adopt those fascistic policies which will make them electable. Obama's Career Bureaucrat Jonathan Gruber has categorized Americans as stupid. So your idol Bernard Sanders has a good chance to being elected. The American dream : free lunches and something for nothing.


.

Education serves the greater good, not just the individual. Intelligent people do not go to college simply because of cost. That is why it should be free. There really isn't anything "free lunch" about his platform beyond that.

 

[2aguy]

Obviously it's because the average American doesn't know which party represents which policies. Bernie Sanders is what this country needs but republicans are too stupid to realize it.

Big Business

• About three-quarters (74 percent) of Americans--including 84 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of independents, and 62 percent of Republicans--believe that corporations have too much influence on American life and politics today, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll. In contrast, only 37 percent think that labor unions exercise too much influence.

• The Pew Research Center discovered that 60 percent of Americans--including 75 percent of Democrats--believe that "the economic system in this country unfairly favors the wealthy."

• Fifty-eight percent of Americans say they would support breaking up "big banks like Citigroup," a key plank of Sanders' platform and the goal of a bill that Sanders sponsored in the Senate.

• Seventy-three percent of Americans favor tougher rules for Wall Street financial companies, versus 17 percent who oppose stronger regulation.

• Sixty-four percent of Americans strongly or somewhat favor regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, factories and cars and requiring utilities to generate more power from "clean" low-carbon sources.

Progressive Taxation

• More than three-quarters of Americans (79 percent) think that wealthy people don't pay their fair share of taxes, while 82 percent believe that some corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes.

• Sixty-eight percent of Americans favorraising taxes on people earning more than $1 million per year, including 87 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of independents, and 53 percent of Republicans.

Inequality and Poverty

• A strong majority (66 percent) say that wealth should be more evenly divided and that it is a problem that should be addressed urgently.

• Ninety-two percent of Americans want a society with far less income disparity than currently exists in the United States. Americans prefer some inequality to perfect equality, according to the professors at the Harvard Business School and Duke University who conducted the survey. But when asked to pick an ideal level of income disparity, Americans prefer the more egalitarian level similar to the one in Sweden (although without identifying the country by name) to that in the U.S. What's more, the rich and the poor, and Democrats and Republicans, are almost equally likely to choose the Swedish model. For example, 93.5 percent of Democrats and 90.2 percent of Republicans preferred the level of income distribution that exists in Sweden.

• Sixty-nine percent of Americans--including 90 percent of Democrats, 69 percent of independents, and 45 percent of Republicans--believe that the government should help reduce the gap between the rich and everyone else. Eighty-two percent of Americans--including 94 percent of Democrats, 83 percent of independents, and 64 percent of Republicans--think the government should help reduce poverty.
  

Money in Politics

• Eighty-four percent of Americans think that money has too much influence in politics. Slightly more Americans (85 percent) want an overhaul of our campaign finance system

• Seventy-eight percent of Americans think that campaign spending by outside groups not affiliated with candidates should be limited by law.

• A majority of Americans (54 percent) believe that money given to political candidates is not a form of free speech protected by the First Amendment. In other words, they disagree with the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.

Minimum Wage and Workers' Rights

• A recent poll by Hart Research Associates found that 75 percent of Americans (including 53 percent of Republicans) support an increase in the federal minimum wage to $12.50 an hour by 2020. Sixty-three percent of Americans support an even greater increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020.

• Eighty percent of Americans favor requiring employers to offer paid leave to parents of new children and employees caring for sick family members. An even larger number (85 percent) favor requiring employers to offer paid leave to employees who are ill.

• A significant majority of Americans supportthe right of workers to unionize, despite several decades of corporate-sponsored anti-union propaganda. Eighty-two percent believe that factory and manufacturing workers should have the right to unionize. A vast majority also support the right to unionize for transportation workers (74 percent), police and firefighters (72 percent), public school teachers (71 percent), workers in supermarkets and retail sales (68 percent), and fast food workers (62 percent).

Health Care and Social Security

• Over 50 percent of Americans (including one-quarter of Republicans and nearly 80 percent of Democrats) say they support a single-payer "Medicare for All" approach to health insurance, something Sanders has long advocated. Only 36 percent oppose the idea. 12 percent are neutral.

• Seventy-one percent Americans support a public option, which would give individuals the choice of buying healthcare through Medicare or private insurers. This was part of Obama's original health care plan in 2010 but the insurance industry lobby killed it, thanks to every Senate Republican and a handful of Senate Democrats, led by former Senator Max Baucus of Montana.

• The Gallup poll found that 67 percent of Americans want to lift the income cap on Social Security to require higher-income workers to pay Social Security taxes on all of their wages. Most people don't realize that workers who earn more than $118,500 a year don't contribute on their full income and that simply removing that tax loophole for high earners would close the lion's share of Social Security's modest long-term funding gap. Legislation introduced by Senator Sanders and Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon would apply the same payroll tax already paid by more than nine out of 10 Americans to those with incomes over $250,000 a year. Census Bureau data shows that only about 5 percent (1 in 18) of workers would pay more if the cap were scrapped, and only the top 1.4 percent (one in 71 workers) would be affected if the tax were applied to earnings over $250,000.

Higher Education

• More than three-quarters (79 percent) of Americans think that education beyond high school is not affordable for everyone in the U.S. who needs it. Seventy-seven percent believe that higher education institutions should reduce tuition and fees, while 59 percent and 55 percent respectively agree that state governments and the federal government should provide more assistance. The average tuition bill for students at a public four-year college has increased by more than 250 percent over the past three decades. More than one-third (35 percent) of 2000-2014 college graduates report graduating with more than $25,000 in undergraduate student loan debt, in inflation-adjusted dollars. The recently graduated college class of 2015 has an average debt burden of $35,051 per student, the highest ever. Sanders introduced legislation to make four-year public colleges and universities tuition-free, paid for through a tax on Wall Street transactions.

Same-Sex Marriage

• Today, 60 percent of Americans believe it should be legal for gay and lesbian couples to marry, according to Gallup, a figure that is likely to increase following the Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. But in 1996, only 27 percent felt that way. That year, then-Congressman Sanders was one of only 67 House members to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred federal recognition of gay marriages.

Is Bernie Sanders Too Radical for America Peter Dreier

(None of these polls were conducted by the Huffington Post)

Yes...the Greek people answered these questions the same way....more than that...they actually implemented your stupid beliefs....

Now....their seniors on their pensions can only draw 60 Euros from the bank, and they are running out of food and medicine......

Ask the American people if that is really what they want.....

 

[bripat9643]

Obviously it's because the average American doesn't know which party represents which policies. Bernie Sanders is what this country needs but republicans are too stupid to realize it.

Big Business

• About three-quarters (74 percent) of Americans--including 84 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of independents, and 62 percent of Republicans--believe that corporations have too much influence on American life and politics today, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll. In contrast, only 37 percent think that labor unions exercise too much influence.

• The Pew Research Center discovered that 60 percent of Americans--including 75 percent of Democrats--believe that "the economic system in this country unfairly favors the wealthy."

• Fifty-eight percent of Americans say they would support breaking up "big banks like Citigroup," a key plank of Sanders' platform and the goal of a bill that Sanders sponsored in the Senate.

• Seventy-three percent of Americans favor tougher rules for Wall Street financial companies, versus 17 percent who oppose stronger regulation.

• Sixty-four percent of Americans strongly or somewhat favor regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, factories and cars and requiring utilities to generate more power from "clean" low-carbon sources.

Progressive Taxation

• More than three-quarters of Americans (79 percent) think that wealthy people don't pay their fair share of taxes, while 82 percent believe that some corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes.

• Sixty-eight percent of Americans favorraising taxes on people earning more than $1 million per year, including 87 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of independents, and 53 percent of Republicans.

Inequality and Poverty

• A strong majority (66 percent) say that wealth should be more evenly divided and that it is a problem that should be addressed urgently.

• Ninety-two percent of Americans want a society with far less income disparity than currently exists in the United States. Americans prefer some inequality to perfect equality, according to the professors at the Harvard Business School and Duke University who conducted the survey. But when asked to pick an ideal level of income disparity, Americans prefer the more egalitarian level similar to the one in Sweden (although without identifying the country by name) to that in the U.S. What's more, the rich and the poor, and Democrats and Republicans, are almost equally likely to choose the Swedish model. For example, 93.5 percent of Democrats and 90.2 percent of Republicans preferred the level of income distribution that exists in Sweden.

• Sixty-nine percent of Americans--including 90 percent of Democrats, 69 percent of independents, and 45 percent of Republicans--believe that the government should help reduce the gap between the rich and everyone else. Eighty-two percent of Americans--including 94 percent of Democrats, 83 percent of independents, and 64 percent of Republicans--think the government should help reduce poverty.
  

Money in Politics

• Eighty-four percent of Americans think that money has too much influence in politics. Slightly more Americans (85 percent) want an overhaul of our campaign finance system

• Seventy-eight percent of Americans think that campaign spending by outside groups not affiliated with candidates should be limited by law.

• A majority of Americans (54 percent) believe that money given to political candidates is not a form of free speech protected by the First Amendment. In other words, they disagree with the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.

Minimum Wage and Workers' Rights

• A recent poll by Hart Research Associates found that 75 percent of Americans (including 53 percent of Republicans) support an increase in the federal minimum wage to $12.50 an hour by 2020. Sixty-three percent of Americans support an even greater increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020.

• Eighty percent of Americans favor requiring employers to offer paid leave to parents of new children and employees caring for sick family members. An even larger number (85 percent) favor requiring employers to offer paid leave to employees who are ill.

• A significant majority of Americans supportthe right of workers to unionize, despite several decades of corporate-sponsored anti-union propaganda. Eighty-two percent believe that factory and manufacturing workers should have the right to unionize. A vast majority also support the right to unionize for transportation workers (74 percent), police and firefighters (72 percent), public school teachers (71 percent), workers in supermarkets and retail sales (68 percent), and fast food workers (62 percent).

Health Care and Social Security

• Over 50 percent of Americans (including one-quarter of Republicans and nearly 80 percent of Democrats) say they support a single-payer "Medicare for All" approach to health insurance, something Sanders has long advocated. Only 36 percent oppose the idea. 12 percent are neutral.

• Seventy-one percent Americans support a public option, which would give individuals the choice of buying healthcare through Medicare or private insurers. This was part of Obama's original health care plan in 2010 but the insurance industry lobby killed it, thanks to every Senate Republican and a handful of Senate Democrats, led by former Senator Max Baucus of Montana.

• The Gallup poll found that 67 percent of Americans want to lift the income cap on Social Security to require higher-income workers to pay Social Security taxes on all of their wages. Most people don't realize that workers who earn more than $118,500 a year don't contribute on their full income and that simply removing that tax loophole for high earners would close the lion's share of Social Security's modest long-term funding gap. Legislation introduced by Senator Sanders and Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon would apply the same payroll tax already paid by more than nine out of 10 Americans to those with incomes over $250,000 a year. Census Bureau data shows that only about 5 percent (1 in 18) of workers would pay more if the cap were scrapped, and only the top 1.4 percent (one in 71 workers) would be affected if the tax were applied to earnings over $250,000.

Higher Education

• More than three-quarters (79 percent) of Americans think that education beyond high school is not affordable for everyone in the U.S. who needs it. Seventy-seven percent believe that higher education institutions should reduce tuition and fees, while 59 percent and 55 percent respectively agree that state governments and the federal government should provide more assistance. The average tuition bill for students at a public four-year college has increased by more than 250 percent over the past three decades. More than one-third (35 percent) of 2000-2014 college graduates report graduating with more than $25,000 in undergraduate student loan debt, in inflation-adjusted dollars. The recently graduated college class of 2015 has an average debt burden of $35,051 per student, the highest ever. Sanders introduced legislation to make four-year public colleges and universities tuition-free, paid for through a tax on Wall Street transactions.

Same-Sex Marriage

• Today, 60 percent of Americans believe it should be legal for gay and lesbian couples to marry, according to Gallup, a figure that is likely to increase following the Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. But in 1996, only 27 percent felt that way. That year, then-Congressman Sanders was one of only 67 House members to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred federal recognition of gay marriages.

Is Bernie Sanders Too Radical for America Peter Dreier

(None of these polls were conducted by the Huffington Post)

The Greeks favor all the same things. Look where that got them.

 

[2aguy]

Public opinion favors progressive policies. So why do republicans get elected?


)

Because many Republicans will adopt those fascistic policies which will make them electable. Obama's Career Bureaucrat Jonathan Gruber has categorized Americans as stupid. So your idol Bernard Sanders has a good chance to being elected. The American dream : free lunches and something for nothing.


.

Education serves the greater good, not just the individual. Intelligent people do not go to college simply because of cost. That is why it should be free. There really isn't anything "free lunch" about his platform beyond that.

There is no such thing as Free Education....teachers, and all the other people have to be paid, buildings need to be maintained.........what you want is money taken from the poor and middle class to pay for people to get degrees in 18th century poetry.....who graduate from college and then get right into the welfare line....who then do not generate any wealth for the society....but vote for politicians who keep raising the welfare benefits against those making the money.....

And then Greece happens..........

You sir are an idiot.....

 

[ScienceRocks]

Obviously it's because the average American doesn't know which party represents which policies. Bernie Sanders is what this country needs but republicans are too stupid to realize it.

Big Business

• About three-quarters (74 percent) of Americans--including 84 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of independents, and 62 percent of Republicans--believe that corporations have too much influence on American life and politics today, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll. In contrast, only 37 percent think that labor unions exercise too much influence.

• The Pew Research Center discovered that 60 percent of Americans--including 75 percent of Democrats--believe that "the economic system in this country unfairly favors the wealthy."

• Fifty-eight percent of Americans say they would support breaking up "big banks like Citigroup," a key plank of Sanders' platform and the goal of a bill that Sanders sponsored in the Senate.

• Seventy-three percent of Americans favor tougher rules for Wall Street financial companies, versus 17 percent who oppose stronger regulation.

• Sixty-four percent of Americans strongly or somewhat favor regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, factories and cars and requiring utilities to generate more power from "clean" low-carbon sources.

Progressive Taxation

• More than three-quarters of Americans (79 percent) think that wealthy people don't pay their fair share of taxes, while 82 percent believe that some corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes.

• Sixty-eight percent of Americans favorraising taxes on people earning more than $1 million per year, including 87 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of independents, and 53 percent of Republicans.

Inequality and Poverty

• A strong majority (66 percent) say that wealth should be more evenly divided and that it is a problem that should be addressed urgently.

• Ninety-two percent of Americans want a society with far less income disparity than currently exists in the United States. Americans prefer some inequality to perfect equality, according to the professors at the Harvard Business School and Duke University who conducted the survey. But when asked to pick an ideal level of income disparity, Americans prefer the more egalitarian level similar to the one in Sweden (although without identifying the country by name) to that in the U.S. What's more, the rich and the poor, and Democrats and Republicans, are almost equally likely to choose the Swedish model. For example, 93.5 percent of Democrats and 90.2 percent of Republicans preferred the level of income distribution that exists in Sweden.

• Sixty-nine percent of Americans--including 90 percent of Democrats, 69 percent of independents, and 45 percent of Republicans--believe that the government should help reduce the gap between the rich and everyone else. Eighty-two percent of Americans--including 94 percent of Democrats, 83 percent of independents, and 64 percent of Republicans--think the government should help reduce poverty.

Money in Politics

• Eighty-four percent of Americans think that money has too much influence in politics. Slightly more Americans (85 percent) want an overhaul of our campaign finance system

• Seventy-eight percent of Americans think that campaign spending by outside groups not affiliated with candidates should be limited by law.

• A majority of Americans (54 percent) believe that money given to political candidates is not a form of free speech protected by the First Amendment. In other words, they disagree with the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.

Minimum Wage and Workers' Rights

• A recent poll by Hart Research Associates found that 75 percent of Americans (including 53 percent of Republicans) support an increase in the federal minimum wage to $12.50 an hour by 2020. Sixty-three percent of Americans support an even greater increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020.

• Eighty percent of Americans favor requiring employers to offer paid leave to parents of new children and employees caring for sick family members. An even larger number (85 percent) favor requiring employers to offer paid leave to employees who are ill.

• A significant majority of Americans supportthe right of workers to unionize, despite several decades of corporate-sponsored anti-union propaganda. Eighty-two percent believe that factory and manufacturing workers should have the right to unionize. A vast majority also support the right to unionize for transportation workers (74 percent), police and firefighters (72 percent), public school teachers (71 percent), workers in supermarkets and retail sales (68 percent), and fast food workers (62 percent).

Health Care and Social Security

• Over 50 percent of Americans (including one-quarter of Republicans and nearly 80 percent of Democrats) say they support a single-payer "Medicare for All" approach to health insurance, something Sanders has long advocated. Only 36 percent oppose the idea. 12 percent are neutral.

• Seventy-one percent Americans support a public option, which would give individuals the choice of buying healthcare through Medicare or private insurers. This was part of Obama's original health care plan in 2010 but the insurance industry lobby killed it, thanks to every Senate Republican and a handful of Senate Democrats, led by former Senator Max Baucus of Montana.

• The Gallup poll found that 67 percent of Americans want to lift the income cap on Social Security to require higher-income workers to pay Social Security taxes on all of their wages. Most people don't realize that workers who earn more than $118,500 a year don't contribute on their full income and that simply removing that tax loophole for high earners would close the lion's share of Social Security's modest long-term funding gap. Legislation introduced by Senator Sanders and Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon would apply the same payroll tax already paid by more than nine out of 10 Americans to those with incomes over $250,000 a year. Census Bureau data shows that only about 5 percent (1 in 18) of workers would pay more if the cap were scrapped, and only the top 1.4 percent (one in 71 workers) would be affected if the tax were applied to earnings over $250,000.

Higher Education

• More than three-quarters (79 percent) of Americans think that education beyond high school is not affordable for everyone in the U.S. who needs it. Seventy-seven percent believe that higher education institutions should reduce tuition and fees, while 59 percent and 55 percent respectively agree that state governments and the federal government should provide more assistance. The average tuition bill for students at a public four-year college has increased by more than 250 percent over the past three decades. More than one-third (35 percent) of 2000-2014 college graduates report graduating with more than $25,000 in undergraduate student loan debt, in inflation-adjusted dollars. The recently graduated college class of 2015 has an average debt burden of $35,051 per student, the highest ever. Sanders introduced legislation to make four-year public colleges and universities tuition-free, paid for through a tax on Wall Street transactions.

Same-Sex Marriage

• Today, 60 percent of Americans believe it should be legal for gay and lesbian couples to marry, according to Gallup, a figure that is likely to increase following the Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. But in 1996, only 27 percent felt that way. That year, then-Congressman Sanders was one of only 67 House members to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred federal recognition of gay marriages.

Is Bernie Sanders Too Radical for America Peter Dreier

(None of these polls were conducted by the Huffington Post)

The Greeks favor all the same things. Look where that got them.

Can you name a single first world country that doesn't invest in its own infrastructure? There's a big difference between investment and doling out free shit.

 

[Contumacious]

Public opinion favors progressive policies. So why do republicans get elected?


)

Because many Republicans will adopt those fascistic policies which will make them electable. Obama's Career Bureaucrat Jonathan Gruber has categorized Americans as stupid. So your idol Bernard Sanders has a good chance to being elected. The American dream : free lunches and something for nothing.


.

Education serves the greater good, not just the individual. Intelligent people do not go to college simply because of cost. That is why it should be free. There really isn't anything "free lunch" about his platform beyond that.

MR DUMB ASS, SIR:

1- who pays for the textbooks
2- who pays the teachers
3- why do you have children if you can't afford to educate them


.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Obviously it's because the average American doesn't know which party represents which policies. Bernie Sanders is what this country needs but republicans are too stupid to realize it.

Big Business

• About three-quarters (74 percent) of Americans--including 84 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of independents, and 62 percent of Republicans--believe that corporations have too much influence on American life and politics today, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll. In contrast, only 37 percent think that labor unions exercise too much influence.

• The Pew Research Center discovered that 60 percent of Americans--including 75 percent of Democrats--believe that "the economic system in this country unfairly favors the wealthy."

• Fifty-eight percent of Americans say they would support breaking up "big banks like Citigroup," a key plank of Sanders' platform and the goal of a bill that Sanders sponsored in the Senate.

• Seventy-three percent of Americans favor tougher rules for Wall Street financial companies, versus 17 percent who oppose stronger regulation.

• Sixty-four percent of Americans strongly or somewhat favor regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, factories and cars and requiring utilities to generate more power from "clean" low-carbon sources.

Progressive Taxation

• More than three-quarters of Americans (79 percent) think that wealthy people don't pay their fair share of taxes, while 82 percent believe that some corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes.

• Sixty-eight percent of Americans favorraising taxes on people earning more than $1 million per year, including 87 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of independents, and 53 percent of Republicans.

Inequality and Poverty

• A strong majority (66 percent) say that wealth should be more evenly divided and that it is a problem that should be addressed urgently.

• Ninety-two percent of Americans want a society with far less income disparity than currently exists in the United States. Americans prefer some inequality to perfect equality, according to the professors at the Harvard Business School and Duke University who conducted the survey. But when asked to pick an ideal level of income disparity, Americans prefer the more egalitarian level similar to the one in Sweden (although without identifying the country by name) to that in the U.S. What's more, the rich and the poor, and Democrats and Republicans, are almost equally likely to choose the Swedish model. For example, 93.5 percent of Democrats and 90.2 percent of Republicans preferred the level of income distribution that exists in Sweden.

• Sixty-nine percent of Americans--including 90 percent of Democrats, 69 percent of independents, and 45 percent of Republicans--believe that the government should help reduce the gap between the rich and everyone else. Eighty-two percent of Americans--including 94 percent of Democrats, 83 percent of independents, and 64 percent of Republicans--think the government should help reduce poverty.

Money in Politics

• Eighty-four percent of Americans think that money has too much influence in politics. Slightly more Americans (85 percent) want an overhaul of our campaign finance system

• Seventy-eight percent of Americans think that campaign spending by outside groups not affiliated with candidates should be limited by law.

• A majority of Americans (54 percent) believe that money given to political candidates is not a form of free speech protected by the First Amendment. In other words, they disagree with the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.

Minimum Wage and Workers' Rights

• A recent poll by Hart Research Associates found that 75 percent of Americans (including 53 percent of Republicans) support an increase in the federal minimum wage to $12.50 an hour by 2020. Sixty-three percent of Americans support an even greater increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020.

• Eighty percent of Americans favor requiring employers to offer paid leave to parents of new children and employees caring for sick family members. An even larger number (85 percent) favor requiring employers to offer paid leave to employees who are ill.

• A significant majority of Americans supportthe right of workers to unionize, despite several decades of corporate-sponsored anti-union propaganda. Eighty-two percent believe that factory and manufacturing workers should have the right to unionize. A vast majority also support the right to unionize for transportation workers (74 percent), police and firefighters (72 percent), public school teachers (71 percent), workers in supermarkets and retail sales (68 percent), and fast food workers (62 percent).

Health Care and Social Security

• Over 50 percent of Americans (including one-quarter of Republicans and nearly 80 percent of Democrats) say they support a single-payer "Medicare for All" approach to health insurance, something Sanders has long advocated. Only 36 percent oppose the idea. 12 percent are neutral.

• Seventy-one percent Americans support a public option, which would give individuals the choice of buying healthcare through Medicare or private insurers. This was part of Obama's original health care plan in 2010 but the insurance industry lobby killed it, thanks to every Senate Republican and a handful of Senate Democrats, led by former Senator Max Baucus of Montana.

• The Gallup poll found that 67 percent of Americans want to lift the income cap on Social Security to require higher-income workers to pay Social Security taxes on all of their wages. Most people don't realize that workers who earn more than $118,500 a year don't contribute on their full income and that simply removing that tax loophole for high earners would close the lion's share of Social Security's modest long-term funding gap. Legislation introduced by Senator Sanders and Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon would apply the same payroll tax already paid by more than nine out of 10 Americans to those with incomes over $250,000 a year. Census Bureau data shows that only about 5 percent (1 in 18) of workers would pay more if the cap were scrapped, and only the top 1.4 percent (one in 71 workers) would be affected if the tax were applied to earnings over $250,000.

Higher Education

• More than three-quarters (79 percent) of Americans think that education beyond high school is not affordable for everyone in the U.S. who needs it. Seventy-seven percent believe that higher education institutions should reduce tuition and fees, while 59 percent and 55 percent respectively agree that state governments and the federal government should provide more assistance. The average tuition bill for students at a public four-year college has increased by more than 250 percent over the past three decades. More than one-third (35 percent) of 2000-2014 college graduates report graduating with more than $25,000 in undergraduate student loan debt, in inflation-adjusted dollars. The recently graduated college class of 2015 has an average debt burden of $35,051 per student, the highest ever. Sanders introduced legislation to make four-year public colleges and universities tuition-free, paid for through a tax on Wall Street transactions.

Same-Sex Marriage

• Today, 60 percent of Americans believe it should be legal for gay and lesbian couples to marry, according to Gallup, a figure that is likely to increase following the Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. But in 1996, only 27 percent felt that way. That year, then-Congressman Sanders was one of only 67 House members to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred federal recognition of gay marriages.

Is Bernie Sanders Too Radical for America Peter Dreier

(None of these polls were conducted by the Huffington Post)

The Greeks favor all the same things. Look where that got them.

Can you name a single first world country that doesn't invest in its own infrastructure? There's a big difference between investment and doling out free shit.

Cut government spending back to 2007 levels.
Spend 10% of the savings on infrastructure.
And stop whining, you sound like a lib.

 

[bripat9643]

Obviously it's because the average American doesn't know which party represents which policies. Bernie Sanders is what this country needs but republicans are too stupid to realize it.

Big Business

• About three-quarters (74 percent) of Americans--including 84 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of independents, and 62 percent of Republicans--believe that corporations have too much influence on American life and politics today, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll. In contrast, only 37 percent think that labor unions exercise too much influence.

• The Pew Research Center discovered that 60 percent of Americans--including 75 percent of Democrats--believe that "the economic system in this country unfairly favors the wealthy."

• Fifty-eight percent of Americans say they would support breaking up "big banks like Citigroup," a key plank of Sanders' platform and the goal of a bill that Sanders sponsored in the Senate.

• Seventy-three percent of Americans favor tougher rules for Wall Street financial companies, versus 17 percent who oppose stronger regulation.

• Sixty-four percent of Americans strongly or somewhat favor regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, factories and cars and requiring utilities to generate more power from "clean" low-carbon sources.

Progressive Taxation

• More than three-quarters of Americans (79 percent) think that wealthy people don't pay their fair share of taxes, while 82 percent believe that some corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes.

• Sixty-eight percent of Americans favorraising taxes on people earning more than $1 million per year, including 87 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of independents, and 53 percent of Republicans.

Inequality and Poverty

• A strong majority (66 percent) say that wealth should be more evenly divided and that it is a problem that should be addressed urgently.

• Ninety-two percent of Americans want a society with far less income disparity than currently exists in the United States. Americans prefer some inequality to perfect equality, according to the professors at the Harvard Business School and Duke University who conducted the survey. But when asked to pick an ideal level of income disparity, Americans prefer the more egalitarian level similar to the one in Sweden (although without identifying the country by name) to that in the U.S. What's more, the rich and the poor, and Democrats and Republicans, are almost equally likely to choose the Swedish model. For example, 93.5 percent of Democrats and 90.2 percent of Republicans preferred the level of income distribution that exists in Sweden.

• Sixty-nine percent of Americans--including 90 percent of Democrats, 69 percent of independents, and 45 percent of Republicans--believe that the government should help reduce the gap between the rich and everyone else. Eighty-two percent of Americans--including 94 percent of Democrats, 83 percent of independents, and 64 percent of Republicans--think the government should help reduce poverty.

Money in Politics

• Eighty-four percent of Americans think that money has too much influence in politics. Slightly more Americans (85 percent) want an overhaul of our campaign finance system

• Seventy-eight percent of Americans think that campaign spending by outside groups not affiliated with candidates should be limited by law.

• A majority of Americans (54 percent) believe that money given to political candidates is not a form of free speech protected by the First Amendment. In other words, they disagree with the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.

Minimum Wage and Workers' Rights

• A recent poll by Hart Research Associates found that 75 percent of Americans (including 53 percent of Republicans) support an increase in the federal minimum wage to $12.50 an hour by 2020. Sixty-three percent of Americans support an even greater increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020.

• Eighty percent of Americans favor requiring employers to offer paid leave to parents of new children and employees caring for sick family members. An even larger number (85 percent) favor requiring employers to offer paid leave to employees who are ill.

• A significant majority of Americans supportthe right of workers to unionize, despite several decades of corporate-sponsored anti-union propaganda. Eighty-two percent believe that factory and manufacturing workers should have the right to unionize. A vast majority also support the right to unionize for transportation workers (74 percent), police and firefighters (72 percent), public school teachers (71 percent), workers in supermarkets and retail sales (68 percent), and fast food workers (62 percent).

Health Care and Social Security

• Over 50 percent of Americans (including one-quarter of Republicans and nearly 80 percent of Democrats) say they support a single-payer "Medicare for All" approach to health insurance, something Sanders has long advocated. Only 36 percent oppose the idea. 12 percent are neutral.

• Seventy-one percent Americans support a public option, which would give individuals the choice of buying healthcare through Medicare or private insurers. This was part of Obama's original health care plan in 2010 but the insurance industry lobby killed it, thanks to every Senate Republican and a handful of Senate Democrats, led by former Senator Max Baucus of Montana.

• The Gallup poll found that 67 percent of Americans want to lift the income cap on Social Security to require higher-income workers to pay Social Security taxes on all of their wages. Most people don't realize that workers who earn more than $118,500 a year don't contribute on their full income and that simply removing that tax loophole for high earners would close the lion's share of Social Security's modest long-term funding gap. Legislation introduced by Senator Sanders and Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon would apply the same payroll tax already paid by more than nine out of 10 Americans to those with incomes over $250,000 a year. Census Bureau data shows that only about 5 percent (1 in 18) of workers would pay more if the cap were scrapped, and only the top 1.4 percent (one in 71 workers) would be affected if the tax were applied to earnings over $250,000.

Higher Education

• More than three-quarters (79 percent) of Americans think that education beyond high school is not affordable for everyone in the U.S. who needs it. Seventy-seven percent believe that higher education institutions should reduce tuition and fees, while 59 percent and 55 percent respectively agree that state governments and the federal government should provide more assistance. The average tuition bill for students at a public four-year college has increased by more than 250 percent over the past three decades. More than one-third (35 percent) of 2000-2014 college graduates report graduating with more than $25,000 in undergraduate student loan debt, in inflation-adjusted dollars. The recently graduated college class of 2015 has an average debt burden of $35,051 per student, the highest ever. Sanders introduced legislation to make four-year public colleges and universities tuition-free, paid for through a tax on Wall Street transactions.

Same-Sex Marriage

• Today, 60 percent of Americans believe it should be legal for gay and lesbian couples to marry, according to Gallup, a figure that is likely to increase following the Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. But in 1996, only 27 percent felt that way. That year, then-Congressman Sanders was one of only 67 House members to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred federal recognition of gay marriages.

Is Bernie Sanders Too Radical for America Peter Dreier

(None of these polls were conducted by the Huffington Post)

The Greeks favor all the same things. Look where that got them.

Can you name a single first world country that doesn't invest in its own infrastructure? There's a big difference between investment and doling out free shit.

Somehow infrastructure got built in this country before WW II. We weren't exactly a third world country then. Can you explain how that was accomplished?

 

[Billy000]

Public opinion favors progressive policies. So why do republicans get elected?


)

Because many Republicans will adopt those fascistic policies which will make them electable. Obama's Career Bureaucrat Jonathan Gruber has categorized Americans as stupid. So your idol Bernard Sanders has a good chance to being elected. The American dream : free lunches and something for nothing.


.

Education serves the greater good, not just the individual. Intelligent people do not go to college simply because of cost. That is why it should be free. There really isn't anything "free lunch" about his platform beyond that.

There is no such thing as Free Education....teachers, and all the other people have to be paid, buildings need to be maintained.........what you want is money taken from the poor and middle class to pay for people to get degrees in 18th century poetry.....who graduate from college and then get right into the welfare line....who then do not generate any wealth for the society....but vote for politicians who keep raising the welfare benefits against those making the money.....

And then Greece happens..........

You sir are an idiot.....

Um yeah obviously. That's what taxes are for. Our highways and military aren't free either.

 

[Billy000]

Obviously it's because the average American doesn't know which party represents which policies. Bernie Sanders is what this country needs but republicans are too stupid to realize it.

Big Business

• About three-quarters (74 percent) of Americans--including 84 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of independents, and 62 percent of Republicans--believe that corporations have too much influence on American life and politics today, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll. In contrast, only 37 percent think that labor unions exercise too much influence.

• The Pew Research Center discovered that 60 percent of Americans--including 75 percent of Democrats--believe that "the economic system in this country unfairly favors the wealthy."

• Fifty-eight percent of Americans say they would support breaking up "big banks like Citigroup," a key plank of Sanders' platform and the goal of a bill that Sanders sponsored in the Senate.

• Seventy-three percent of Americans favor tougher rules for Wall Street financial companies, versus 17 percent who oppose stronger regulation.

• Sixty-four percent of Americans strongly or somewhat favor regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, factories and cars and requiring utilities to generate more power from "clean" low-carbon sources.

Progressive Taxation

• More than three-quarters of Americans (79 percent) think that wealthy people don't pay their fair share of taxes, while 82 percent believe that some corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes.

• Sixty-eight percent of Americans favorraising taxes on people earning more than $1 million per year, including 87 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of independents, and 53 percent of Republicans.

Inequality and Poverty

• A strong majority (66 percent) say that wealth should be more evenly divided and that it is a problem that should be addressed urgently.

• Ninety-two percent of Americans want a society with far less income disparity than currently exists in the United States. Americans prefer some inequality to perfect equality, according to the professors at the Harvard Business School and Duke University who conducted the survey. But when asked to pick an ideal level of income disparity, Americans prefer the more egalitarian level similar to the one in Sweden (although without identifying the country by name) to that in the U.S. What's more, the rich and the poor, and Democrats and Republicans, are almost equally likely to choose the Swedish model. For example, 93.5 percent of Democrats and 90.2 percent of Republicans preferred the level of income distribution that exists in Sweden.

• Sixty-nine percent of Americans--including 90 percent of Democrats, 69 percent of independents, and 45 percent of Republicans--believe that the government should help reduce the gap between the rich and everyone else. Eighty-two percent of Americans--including 94 percent of Democrats, 83 percent of independents, and 64 percent of Republicans--think the government should help reduce poverty.

Money in Politics

• Eighty-four percent of Americans think that money has too much influence in politics. Slightly more Americans (85 percent) want an overhaul of our campaign finance system

• Seventy-eight percent of Americans think that campaign spending by outside groups not affiliated with candidates should be limited by law.

• A majority of Americans (54 percent) believe that money given to political candidates is not a form of free speech protected by the First Amendment. In other words, they disagree with the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.

Minimum Wage and Workers' Rights

• A recent poll by Hart Research Associates found that 75 percent of Americans (including 53 percent of Republicans) support an increase in the federal minimum wage to $12.50 an hour by 2020. Sixty-three percent of Americans support an even greater increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020.

• Eighty percent of Americans favor requiring employers to offer paid leave to parents of new children and employees caring for sick family members. An even larger number (85 percent) favor requiring employers to offer paid leave to employees who are ill.

• A significant majority of Americans supportthe right of workers to unionize, despite several decades of corporate-sponsored anti-union propaganda. Eighty-two percent believe that factory and manufacturing workers should have the right to unionize. A vast majority also support the right to unionize for transportation workers (74 percent), police and firefighters (72 percent), public school teachers (71 percent), workers in supermarkets and retail sales (68 percent), and fast food workers (62 percent).

Health Care and Social Security

• Over 50 percent of Americans (including one-quarter of Republicans and nearly 80 percent of Democrats) say they support a single-payer "Medicare for All" approach to health insurance, something Sanders has long advocated. Only 36 percent oppose the idea. 12 percent are neutral.

• Seventy-one percent Americans support a public option, which would give individuals the choice of buying healthcare through Medicare or private insurers. This was part of Obama's original health care plan in 2010 but the insurance industry lobby killed it, thanks to every Senate Republican and a handful of Senate Democrats, led by former Senator Max Baucus of Montana.

• The Gallup poll found that 67 percent of Americans want to lift the income cap on Social Security to require higher-income workers to pay Social Security taxes on all of their wages. Most people don't realize that workers who earn more than $118,500 a year don't contribute on their full income and that simply removing that tax loophole for high earners would close the lion's share of Social Security's modest long-term funding gap. Legislation introduced by Senator Sanders and Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon would apply the same payroll tax already paid by more than nine out of 10 Americans to those with incomes over $250,000 a year. Census Bureau data shows that only about 5 percent (1 in 18) of workers would pay more if the cap were scrapped, and only the top 1.4 percent (one in 71 workers) would be affected if the tax were applied to earnings over $250,000.

Higher Education

• More than three-quarters (79 percent) of Americans think that education beyond high school is not affordable for everyone in the U.S. who needs it. Seventy-seven percent believe that higher education institutions should reduce tuition and fees, while 59 percent and 55 percent respectively agree that state governments and the federal government should provide more assistance. The average tuition bill for students at a public four-year college has increased by more than 250 percent over the past three decades. More than one-third (35 percent) of 2000-2014 college graduates report graduating with more than $25,000 in undergraduate student loan debt, in inflation-adjusted dollars. The recently graduated college class of 2015 has an average debt burden of $35,051 per student, the highest ever. Sanders introduced legislation to make four-year public colleges and universities tuition-free, paid for through a tax on Wall Street transactions.

Same-Sex Marriage

• Today, 60 percent of Americans believe it should be legal for gay and lesbian couples to marry, according to Gallup, a figure that is likely to increase following the Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. But in 1996, only 27 percent felt that way. That year, then-Congressman Sanders was one of only 67 House members to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred federal recognition of gay marriages.

Is Bernie Sanders Too Radical for America Peter Dreier

(None of these polls were conducted by the Huffington Post)

The Greeks favor all the same things. Look where that got them.

Lol so does Norway and they have the best economy in Europe. The 4th highest GDP of a nation in the world

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Obviously it's because the average American doesn't know which party represents which policies. Bernie Sanders is what this country needs but republicans are too stupid to realize it.

Big Business

• About three-quarters (74 percent) of Americans--including 84 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of independents, and 62 percent of Republicans--believe that corporations have too much influence on American life and politics today, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll. In contrast, only 37 percent think that labor unions exercise too much influence.

• The Pew Research Center discovered that 60 percent of Americans--including 75 percent of Democrats--believe that "the economic system in this country unfairly favors the wealthy."

• Fifty-eight percent of Americans say they would support breaking up "big banks like Citigroup," a key plank of Sanders' platform and the goal of a bill that Sanders sponsored in the Senate.

• Seventy-three percent of Americans favor tougher rules for Wall Street financial companies, versus 17 percent who oppose stronger regulation.

• Sixty-four percent of Americans strongly or somewhat favor regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, factories and cars and requiring utilities to generate more power from "clean" low-carbon sources.

Progressive Taxation

• More than three-quarters of Americans (79 percent) think that wealthy people don't pay their fair share of taxes, while 82 percent believe that some corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes.

• Sixty-eight percent of Americans favorraising taxes on people earning more than $1 million per year, including 87 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of independents, and 53 percent of Republicans.

Inequality and Poverty

• A strong majority (66 percent) say that wealth should be more evenly divided and that it is a problem that should be addressed urgently.

• Ninety-two percent of Americans want a society with far less income disparity than currently exists in the United States. Americans prefer some inequality to perfect equality, according to the professors at the Harvard Business School and Duke University who conducted the survey. But when asked to pick an ideal level of income disparity, Americans prefer the more egalitarian level similar to the one in Sweden (although without identifying the country by name) to that in the U.S. What's more, the rich and the poor, and Democrats and Republicans, are almost equally likely to choose the Swedish model. For example, 93.5 percent of Democrats and 90.2 percent of Republicans preferred the level of income distribution that exists in Sweden.

• Sixty-nine percent of Americans--including 90 percent of Democrats, 69 percent of independents, and 45 percent of Republicans--believe that the government should help reduce the gap between the rich and everyone else. Eighty-two percent of Americans--including 94 percent of Democrats, 83 percent of independents, and 64 percent of Republicans--think the government should help reduce poverty.

Money in Politics

• Eighty-four percent of Americans think that money has too much influence in politics. Slightly more Americans (85 percent) want an overhaul of our campaign finance system

• Seventy-eight percent of Americans think that campaign spending by outside groups not affiliated with candidates should be limited by law.

• A majority of Americans (54 percent) believe that money given to political candidates is not a form of free speech protected by the First Amendment. In other words, they disagree with the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.

Minimum Wage and Workers' Rights

• A recent poll by Hart Research Associates found that 75 percent of Americans (including 53 percent of Republicans) support an increase in the federal minimum wage to $12.50 an hour by 2020. Sixty-three percent of Americans support an even greater increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020.

• Eighty percent of Americans favor requiring employers to offer paid leave to parents of new children and employees caring for sick family members. An even larger number (85 percent) favor requiring employers to offer paid leave to employees who are ill.

• A significant majority of Americans supportthe right of workers to unionize, despite several decades of corporate-sponsored anti-union propaganda. Eighty-two percent believe that factory and manufacturing workers should have the right to unionize. A vast majority also support the right to unionize for transportation workers (74 percent), police and firefighters (72 percent), public school teachers (71 percent), workers in supermarkets and retail sales (68 percent), and fast food workers (62 percent).

Health Care and Social Security

• Over 50 percent of Americans (including one-quarter of Republicans and nearly 80 percent of Democrats) say they support a single-payer "Medicare for All" approach to health insurance, something Sanders has long advocated. Only 36 percent oppose the idea. 12 percent are neutral.

• Seventy-one percent Americans support a public option, which would give individuals the choice of buying healthcare through Medicare or private insurers. This was part of Obama's original health care plan in 2010 but the insurance industry lobby killed it, thanks to every Senate Republican and a handful of Senate Democrats, led by former Senator Max Baucus of Montana.

• The Gallup poll found that 67 percent of Americans want to lift the income cap on Social Security to require higher-income workers to pay Social Security taxes on all of their wages. Most people don't realize that workers who earn more than $118,500 a year don't contribute on their full income and that simply removing that tax loophole for high earners would close the lion's share of Social Security's modest long-term funding gap. Legislation introduced by Senator Sanders and Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon would apply the same payroll tax already paid by more than nine out of 10 Americans to those with incomes over $250,000 a year. Census Bureau data shows that only about 5 percent (1 in 18) of workers would pay more if the cap were scrapped, and only the top 1.4 percent (one in 71 workers) would be affected if the tax were applied to earnings over $250,000.

Higher Education

• More than three-quarters (79 percent) of Americans think that education beyond high school is not affordable for everyone in the U.S. who needs it. Seventy-seven percent believe that higher education institutions should reduce tuition and fees, while 59 percent and 55 percent respectively agree that state governments and the federal government should provide more assistance. The average tuition bill for students at a public four-year college has increased by more than 250 percent over the past three decades. More than one-third (35 percent) of 2000-2014 college graduates report graduating with more than $25,000 in undergraduate student loan debt, in inflation-adjusted dollars. The recently graduated college class of 2015 has an average debt burden of $35,051 per student, the highest ever. Sanders introduced legislation to make four-year public colleges and universities tuition-free, paid for through a tax on Wall Street transactions.

Same-Sex Marriage

• Today, 60 percent of Americans believe it should be legal for gay and lesbian couples to marry, according to Gallup, a figure that is likely to increase following the Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. But in 1996, only 27 percent felt that way. That year, then-Congressman Sanders was one of only 67 House members to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred federal recognition of gay marriages.

Is Bernie Sanders Too Radical for America Peter Dreier

(None of these polls were conducted by the Huffington Post)

The Greeks favor all the same things. Look where that got them.

Lol so does Norway and they have the best economy in Europe. The 4th highest GDP of a nation in the world

Lol so does Norway and they have the best economy in Europe. The 4th highest GDP of a nation in the world

When you get 30% of your government revenue from offshore oil, you can spend a lot on welfare.

 

[Kosh]

Oh my the far left drones actually believe they are progressives..

I do not know of anyone that wants to government to control every aspect of their lives, not even "progressives".

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

"Public opinion favors progressive policies. So why do republicans get elected?"

With regard to the HoR, gerrymandering in red states, of course.

Otherwise, republicans tend to be better organized, more motivated, and the base is more reliable – republicans know public opinion favors progressive policies, so they twist the facts and lie about those policies to energize a base already frightened of, and hostile to, change, diversity, and expressions of individual liberty.

 

[Kosh]

"Public opinion favors progressive policies. So why do republicans get elected?"

With regard to the HoR, gerrymandering in red states, of course.

Otherwise, republicans tend to be better organized, more motivated, and the base is more reliable – republicans know public opinion favors progressive policies, so they twist the facts and lie about those policies to energize a base already frightened of, and hostile to, change, diversity, and expressions of individual liberty.

Oh my the far left propaganda is getting thick in here.

Note: Being a far left drone means you are not a "progressive" or a "liberal: even though the far left hijacked those terms..

 

[bripat9643]

Obviously it's because the average American doesn't know which party represents which policies. Bernie Sanders is what this country needs but republicans are too stupid to realize it.

Big Business

• About three-quarters (74 percent) of Americans--including 84 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of independents, and 62 percent of Republicans--believe that corporations have too much influence on American life and politics today, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll. In contrast, only 37 percent think that labor unions exercise too much influence.

• The Pew Research Center discovered that 60 percent of Americans--including 75 percent of Democrats--believe that "the economic system in this country unfairly favors the wealthy."

• Fifty-eight percent of Americans say they would support breaking up "big banks like Citigroup," a key plank of Sanders' platform and the goal of a bill that Sanders sponsored in the Senate.

• Seventy-three percent of Americans favor tougher rules for Wall Street financial companies, versus 17 percent who oppose stronger regulation.

• Sixty-four percent of Americans strongly or somewhat favor regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, factories and cars and requiring utilities to generate more power from "clean" low-carbon sources.

Progressive Taxation

• More than three-quarters of Americans (79 percent) think that wealthy people don't pay their fair share of taxes, while 82 percent believe that some corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes.

• Sixty-eight percent of Americans favorraising taxes on people earning more than $1 million per year, including 87 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of independents, and 53 percent of Republicans.

Inequality and Poverty

• A strong majority (66 percent) say that wealth should be more evenly divided and that it is a problem that should be addressed urgently.

• Ninety-two percent of Americans want a society with far less income disparity than currently exists in the United States. Americans prefer some inequality to perfect equality, according to the professors at the Harvard Business School and Duke University who conducted the survey. But when asked to pick an ideal level of income disparity, Americans prefer the more egalitarian level similar to the one in Sweden (although without identifying the country by name) to that in the U.S. What's more, the rich and the poor, and Democrats and Republicans, are almost equally likely to choose the Swedish model. For example, 93.5 percent of Democrats and 90.2 percent of Republicans preferred the level of income distribution that exists in Sweden.

• Sixty-nine percent of Americans--including 90 percent of Democrats, 69 percent of independents, and 45 percent of Republicans--believe that the government should help reduce the gap between the rich and everyone else. Eighty-two percent of Americans--including 94 percent of Democrats, 83 percent of independents, and 64 percent of Republicans--think the government should help reduce poverty.

Money in Politics

• Eighty-four percent of Americans think that money has too much influence in politics. Slightly more Americans (85 percent) want an overhaul of our campaign finance system

• Seventy-eight percent of Americans think that campaign spending by outside groups not affiliated with candidates should be limited by law.

• A majority of Americans (54 percent) believe that money given to political candidates is not a form of free speech protected by the First Amendment. In other words, they disagree with the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.

Minimum Wage and Workers' Rights

• A recent poll by Hart Research Associates found that 75 percent of Americans (including 53 percent of Republicans) support an increase in the federal minimum wage to $12.50 an hour by 2020. Sixty-three percent of Americans support an even greater increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020.

• Eighty percent of Americans favor requiring employers to offer paid leave to parents of new children and employees caring for sick family members. An even larger number (85 percent) favor requiring employers to offer paid leave to employees who are ill.

• A significant majority of Americans supportthe right of workers to unionize, despite several decades of corporate-sponsored anti-union propaganda. Eighty-two percent believe that factory and manufacturing workers should have the right to unionize. A vast majority also support the right to unionize for transportation workers (74 percent), police and firefighters (72 percent), public school teachers (71 percent), workers in supermarkets and retail sales (68 percent), and fast food workers (62 percent).

Health Care and Social Security

• Over 50 percent of Americans (including one-quarter of Republicans and nearly 80 percent of Democrats) say they support a single-payer "Medicare for All" approach to health insurance, something Sanders has long advocated. Only 36 percent oppose the idea. 12 percent are neutral.

• Seventy-one percent Americans support a public option, which would give individuals the choice of buying healthcare through Medicare or private insurers. This was part of Obama's original health care plan in 2010 but the insurance industry lobby killed it, thanks to every Senate Republican and a handful of Senate Democrats, led by former Senator Max Baucus of Montana.

• The Gallup poll found that 67 percent of Americans want to lift the income cap on Social Security to require higher-income workers to pay Social Security taxes on all of their wages. Most people don't realize that workers who earn more than $118,500 a year don't contribute on their full income and that simply removing that tax loophole for high earners would close the lion's share of Social Security's modest long-term funding gap. Legislation introduced by Senator Sanders and Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon would apply the same payroll tax already paid by more than nine out of 10 Americans to those with incomes over $250,000 a year. Census Bureau data shows that only about 5 percent (1 in 18) of workers would pay more if the cap were scrapped, and only the top 1.4 percent (one in 71 workers) would be affected if the tax were applied to earnings over $250,000.

Higher Education

• More than three-quarters (79 percent) of Americans think that education beyond high school is not affordable for everyone in the U.S. who needs it. Seventy-seven percent believe that higher education institutions should reduce tuition and fees, while 59 percent and 55 percent respectively agree that state governments and the federal government should provide more assistance. The average tuition bill for students at a public four-year college has increased by more than 250 percent over the past three decades. More than one-third (35 percent) of 2000-2014 college graduates report graduating with more than $25,000 in undergraduate student loan debt, in inflation-adjusted dollars. The recently graduated college class of 2015 has an average debt burden of $35,051 per student, the highest ever. Sanders introduced legislation to make four-year public colleges and universities tuition-free, paid for through a tax on Wall Street transactions.

Same-Sex Marriage

• Today, 60 percent of Americans believe it should be legal for gay and lesbian couples to marry, according to Gallup, a figure that is likely to increase following the Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. But in 1996, only 27 percent felt that way. That year, then-Congressman Sanders was one of only 67 House members to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred federal recognition of gay marriages.

Is Bernie Sanders Too Radical for America Peter Dreier

(None of these polls were conducted by the Huffington Post)

The Greeks favor all the same things. Look where that got them.

Lol so does Norway and they have the best economy in Europe. The 4th highest GDP of a nation in the world

Norway is the Scandinavian equivalent of Saudi Arabia. Its good fortune has nothing to do with Socialism. It occurs despite socialism.