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Sen. Sanders said, “It is an absolute outrage. The average veteran is not a wealthy person. The average veteran is elderly, and the average veteran is struggling. The reality is 76% of the people who receive food stamps they’re either elderly. They’re either disabled, or they are in families with low income kids, and to cut those programs is to simply make people in this country go hungry. And I gotta tell ya, Ed, these are the same folks who are cutting food stamps for kids and for veterans, who want to give huge tax breaks to billionaires and corporations. That is not what the American people want.”

Ed Schultz asked Sen. Sanders what he says to Republicans. He answered, “Well, what I say to them is that they have got to listen to what the American people want, and what the American people want, Ed is not to cut, make these drastic cuts in the food stamp program, not to hurt our veterans, not to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, the WIC program. What the Republicans are trying to do is balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable people in this country. Meanwhile, at the same time, they’re working as hard as they can to provide huge tax breaks or maintain huge tax breaks for large corporations. One out of four corporations in this country does not pay a nickel in federal taxes.”

Sanders told Republicans that they can’t keep beating down on people who are already hurting. While the media is infatuated with the ACA website, one of the stories that they have mostly ignored is that Republicans cut food assistance for children, seniors, the disabled, and veterans. The day to day survival of the people who are struggling the most is much more important story than whether or not healthcare.gov is working at any given moment in time, but you wouldn’t know it by watching the news.

Sen. Sanders was right. What Republicans are doing to people who were already struggling in this country is outrageous. The senator from Vermont wants Republicans to listen to the American people, but the odds of that happening are slim and none. Republicans have been ignoring the wishes of the American people for years, and as long as the media doesn’t call them out on starving kids and vets, they will continue to ignore what the people really want.

With no one else to speak for them, it is up to every American citizen to hold Republicans accountable for their disgraceful treatment of our children, seniors, citizens with disabilities, and our veterans. America’s veterans deserve more, even if Republicans refuse to give it to them.