Washington, D.C. – Today, Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet joined Katy Tur on MSNBC to discuss the urgent need to pass voting rights, extend the Child Tax Credit expansion, and save this democracy.
Bennet on the state of this democracy:
“Look, even if you don’t have faith in the system, even if you lost faith in the system, that needs to force you to work harder to change it. You know, Congressman Lewis sacrificed his skull on the Edmund Pettus Bridge to those billy clubs for the sake of the democracy…women fought so they could get the right to vote — the self-evident right to vote — for more than 100 years. So we are not entitled to lose faith in this.
“The system is corrupt, the system doesn’t work. The system’s not competitive with those totalitarian societies around the world right now. And we have to make it so. We also have to create an economy here that when it grows, grows for everybody, not just the top 10%. Because if that’s what we’re going to continue to do, economically, we’re not going to save the democracy either. Two things: protect the right to vote, get an economy that when it grows, grows for everybody and will be just fine.”
Bennet on extending the Child Tax Credit expansion:
“We cut childhood poverty in this country almost in half. We cut hunger in this country in a quarter. You would think the least we could do is figure out how to extend that until politicians can figure out how to reach a deal. I’ve seen this place in chaos at the end of the year when tax cuts for rich people were expiring – and nobody had any trouble figuring out how to extend those tax cuts into January, into February. The least we could do for the 61 million kids across America who are getting the benefit of this tax cut is to extend it. And we should find a way to do that.”
Bennet on changing Senate rules to pass voting rights legislation:
“…We ought to protect the right of millions of people across this country to vote because it’s being taken away. It’s being suppressed all over the country.
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“Look, we need to get to a 51 vote threshold in the Senate. And I think we can do it in a way that works for everybody. We ought to make sure that the minority in the Senate has the right to debate by actually having a real filibuster on the floor, not sitting in your office with your remote control, but out on the floor, having a debate in front of the American people. That’s the way it was supposed to work – and also the chance to offer amendments, which people in the House don’t get to do to affect legislation and have further debate in front of the American people. But then at the end of the day, 51 people need to be able to decide.”
Watch the full interview HERE.