Bernie Sanders in Lansing: 'The status quo is not good enough. We demand change'

LANSING - U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders returned to Lansing on Sunday as part of a tour aimed at energizing his base from the 2016 Democratic primary, urging progressives to get involved.

"If I said it once, I've said it a million times, and that is real change never, ever takes place from the top on down," Sanders told a crowd of more than 1,600 at the Lansing Center. "It is always from the bottom up."

Change can happen only when "millions of people look around them and say loudly and clearly, 'the status quo is not good enough, we demand change,'" Sanders said.

The rally was part of a 100-day "Repeal the Trump Tax" tour organized by Not One Penny, a coalition opposing President Donald Trump's tax plan.

In a wide-ranging speech that mirrored his messaging in 2016, Sanders pointedly criticized Trump and the Republican president's agenda, calling Trump "a pathological liar" and "the least-qualified president" in the nation's history.

The independent senator from Vermont touched on health care reform, gun control, race and gender inequality, income inequality, immigration, climate change, tuition-free college, paid family and medical leave and other topics during his 45-minute speech.

He didn't address the tax-cut legislation enacted in December until 25 minutes into his speech.

Trump promised tax reform that benefited the middle class, he said. "Well, it turns out that the bill he supported and passed will provide 83 percent of the benefits at the end of 10 years to the top 1 percent. And at the end of 10 years, 93 million middle-class Americans will be paying more in taxes, not less."

A roster of other speakers also criticized the Republican tax plan.

Republican leaders have said the $1.5 trillion in tax cuts – the largest overhaul of the tax code in three decades – will benefit middle-class taxpayers.

And most will, in fact, pay less in taxes in the next few years, according to an analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation, the nonpartisan congressional committee that evaluates tax proposals.

But the same analysis concluded that the majority of the bill's benefits will go those making $100,000 a year or more.

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Sarah Anderson, deputy chief of staff for the Michigan Republican Party, said in a news release on Sunday that the vast majority of Americans are benefiting.

‪“In the two months since the passage of the Republican tax cuts, millions of Americans have received bonuses and increases in wages," the statement said. "Companies are investing in America – investments that will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs."

Anderson said Sanders is calling for higher taxes "and the implementation of his socialist agenda."

Samantha Keener, who drove in from Clio, north of Flint, to hear Sanders, said she's not happy with the Republican tax plan.

"That's one of the reasons I'm here," said Keener, who had her 1-year-old daughter, Melody, on her knee. "We've actually had this planned for three weeks. The moment we found out this was happening, this has been our plan. Everything is planned around it."

In his speech, Sanders urged people to run for political office and support progressive candidates.

The criteria for running for office is "having a heart full of compassion and love," he said. "It is having the courage to stand up to powerful special interests, and it is a willingness to work hard, knock on doors and talk to your neighbors. We need candidates to run for school board, city council, state legislature – all the way up."

The Repeal the Trump Tax tour was in Wisconsin on Saturday. A rally is set for Indianapolis on Tuesday, according to the group's website.

Contact Ken Palmer at (517) 377-1032 or kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @KBPalm_lsj.