What Sanders Says Socialism Would Look Like in U.S. If He Won Presidency

Noting that he’s “perhaps the most progressive member of the United States Senate,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) described today how, as president, he would do socialism in America.

“When we talk about Democratic socialism, I think it is important to realize that there are countries around the world, like Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, who have had social democratic governments on and off for many, many years. And we can learn a whole lot from some of those countries,” the 2016 Democratic presidential contender said on CBS this morning.

“For example, the United States is the only major country on earth that doesn’t guarantee healthcare to all people as a right. And if you look at the healthcare systems in those countries, you know what, not only that they cover all their people, much more cost-effective than we are. We end up spending almost twice as much as they do,” he said.

In terms of education, Sanders said, “all of those countries in Germany, Austria, many other countries, you know what they say? That, in a highly competitive global economy, all people, regardless of their income, should be able to get a college education. College education is free in those countries. That makes a lot of sense to me.”

Another area is the country’s child care system, the senator continued, which “is a total disaster.”

“Those systems are much better. By and large, what they do is many of these countries have higher voter turnouts than we do. They have governments which do a lot better job representing their middle class, rather than a billionaire class, which has much power today in our economic and political landscape,” he said.

Sanders added that it’s “fair to say” he’s more liberal than the most liberal Democrat.

“If elected president, I will have a litmus test in terms of my nominee to be a Supreme Court justice. And that nominee will say that we are going to overturn this disastrous Supreme Court decision on Citizens United, because that decision is undermining American democracy,” he said. “I do not believe that billionaires should be able to buy politicians.”

Sanders said he’s drawn about 90,000 contributors for his campaign since his announcement, with the average donation $43.

“I don’t think we are going to outspend Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush or anybody else. But I think we are going to raise the kinds of money that we need to run a strong and winning campaign,” he said.