The Speech: A Historic Filibuster on Corporate Greed and the Decline of Our Middle Class

In the wake of President ObamaÕs deal with congressional Republicans to preserve Bush-era tax cutsÑtax cuts that gave colossal breaks to the wealthiest AmericansÑ Senator Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, publicly denounced the deal as an Òabsolute disasterÓ and decided to do something about it.

On Friday, December 10, 2010, Senator Sanders galvanized millions of Americans with an eight-and-a-half-hour filibuster decrying the tax deal and all it symbolized: the bankrupting of the middle class, corporate greed, and the impotence and corruption of todayÕs Congress. As Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel noted, ÒThe good Senator from Vermont spoke for millions of struggling working and middle class people who feel their voices arenÕt being heard in a system dominated by well-funded lobbyists and corporate insiders.Ó

Reprinted in its entirety and with a new introduction, The Speech is a PeopleÕs State of the Union address, an anatomy of working and middle-class America rarely heard in the rarefied walls of the Senate.