WASHINGTON—Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt., the Senate’s longest and strongest supporter of workers, just won re-election to a fourth six-year term. But now he says he’ll probably be going out—but not quietly—when the six years are up.
Sanders, the leader of the Senate’s progressive bloc, still blasts excessive military money, denouncing endless wars abroad and fighting against so-called “moderates,” pundits and the chattering class, who want to push the Democratic Party, which he caucuses with, in a pro-corporate direction, shunning unions and workers. He’s been a Socialist in party registration and philosophy.
Sanders, who is 83, off-handedly discussed retirement in an interview with Politico. He covered his last two years, which was his first term chairing the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. And, given the senatorial math in the 2026 off-year election, he hopes to chair it again.
“I’m 83 now. I’ll be 89 when I get out of here,” in January 2031. “You can do the figuring. I don’t know, but I would assume, probably, yes,” when asked about retirement.
Assuming final results from Pennsylvania show a GOP win, Republicans will hold a 53-47 Senate edge in the coming Congress, meaning Sanders will yield his committee chair to right-wing Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. Cassidy and Sanders often clashed on labor legislation, nominations and oversight hearings. Sanders will remain the panel’s top Democrat/independent.
But in 2026, the GOP will defend 20 Senate seats—including Cassidy’s in deep-red Louisiana–to the Democrats’ 13. A flip of four seats puts the Senate back in Democratic hands and Sanders back in the Labor Committee chair.
Mentions pro-worker bills
In the interview, Sanders cited pro-worker committee accomplishments, including helping to push through progressive portions of Democratic President Joe Biden’s agenda, notably reviving the economy from the coronavirus-caused huge economic depression. He also cited holding corporate chieftains accountable for their greed, for the economic malaise workers suffered in the last five decades and for rampant labor law-breaking.
Sanders still has unfinished business, and being in the minority for the next two years won’t help.
It includes raising the federal minimum wage to a living wage, comprehensive pro-worker labor law reform, cutting the military budget and ending the arms race, and enacting Medicare For All, which he has championed ever since he came to Congress, as Vermont’s lone U.S. House member, in 1991.
“We are the only major country on earth that doesn’t guarantee health care to all of its people. And we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs,” he repeatedly says.
He also championed those causes, and a progressive agenda, including when he sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020. Sanders was runner-up both times, to Hillary Clinton and Biden, respectively, and his loyalists from his first run established progressive organizations to carry the torch. Evidence surfaced after Sanders ended that first campaign that the Democratic National Committee, the party’s management, put its thumb on the scales for Clinton.
Sanders intends to keep carrying the progressive torch in the next six years. He’s already blamed party leaders’ push to the center for the fact that Biden’s VP, Kamala Harris, lost this year’s presidential election to the Republican nominee, convicted felon and former president Donald Trump.
The party in general and Harris in particular listened too much to the chattering class of pundits and political consultants and not enough to the party’s working-class base, Sanders says. That base, he said, is more concerned about jobs, inflation and how to pay the rent, the medical bills, educate their kids for a new and uncertain economy and put food on the table. Working-class Americans are hurting, he told Politico.
Voters, says Sanders, prefer plain-talk politicians who concentrate on such kitchen-table issues, and not push excessive military intervention and foreign wars. Which is a big reason, Sanders said in a recent floor speech, reprinted in The Guardian, that he will again vote against the annual military money bill now pending in the Senate.
The Republican House majority loaded the military bill with “social issue” provisions targeting transgendered people, diversity, and in vitro fertilization, then passed it 281-140 o December 11, with 200 Republicans and 81 Democrats voting for it.
“Today in America, 60% of our people live paycheck to paycheck, 85 million people are uninsured or underinsured and 21.5 million households are paying more than 50% of their income on housing,” Sanders began. “We have one of the highest rates of childhood poverty of almost any developed country on Earth, and 25% of older adults are trying to survive on $15,000 a year or less.
“In other words, the United States has fallen far behind other major countries in protecting the most vulnerable, and our government has failed millions of working families.
Struggle to just get by
“But while so many Americans are struggling to get by, the United States is spending record-breaking amounts of money on the military. In the coming days, with relatively little debate, Congress will overwhelmingly pass the National Defense Authorization Act, approving close to $900 billion for the Department of Defense. When spending on nuclear weapons and ‘emergency’ defense spending is included, the total will approach $1 trillion. We now spend more than the next nine countries combined.
“I don’t often agree with Elon Musk, but he is right when he says the Pentagon ‘has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800 billion is spent.’” Musk, a trillionaire, co-chairs Trump’s government-cutting campaign.
“Very few people who researched the military-industrial complex doubt there is massive fraud, waste and cost over-runs in the system,” Sanders continued. “Defense contractors routinely overcharge the Pentagon by 40%, and sometimes more than 4000%.
“In October, RTX–formerly Raytheon–was fined $950 million for inflating bills, lying about labor and material costs, and paying bribes to secure foreign business. In June, Lockheed Martin was fined $70 million for overcharging the Navy for aircraft parts, the latest in a long line of similar abuses. As a result of massive consolidation in the industry, a large portion of the Pentagon budget now goes to a handful of huge defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, RTX, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman.”
The contractors spend their billions of defense dollars on dividends and stock buybacks–$61 billion—to rich investors while pocketing $57 billion in profits since 2022, he added.
“These companies–like the drug companies, insurance companies, Wall Street and the fossil fuel industry–spend millions on campaign contributions and lobbying. In the recent election cycle, defense contractors spent nearly $251 million on lobbying and contributed almost $37 million to political candidates. Surprise, surprise! Most members of Congress vote for greatly inflated military budgets with few questions asked.”
The military-industrial-complex costs lives, too, which is another reason Sanders opposes the military money bill. “When contractors said they couldn’t ramp up production” of more planes, ammo and bombs for Ukraine “without more taxpayer support, Congress repeatedly appropriated emergency funding, with roughly $78.5 billion going to buy equipment and services from the major defense contractors.
“They jacked up prices…Lockheed Martin and RTX raised the price of the Javelin missile system from about $263,000 per unit just before the [Ukraine] war to $350,700 this year. Similar price hikes took place for Patriot missiles and other weapons. Make no mistake: Every time a contractor pads its profit margins, fewer weapons reach the frontlines. The greed of these defense contractors is not just costing American taxpayers; it’s killing Ukrainians.
“The United States needs a strong military, but we do not need a system designed to make huge profits for a handful of giant contractors. We do not need to spend almost a trillion dollars on the military, while half a million Americans are homeless and children go hungry.”
“In this moment in history, it would be wise for us to remember what [President] Dwight D. Eisenhower, a former five-star general, said in his farewell address in 1961: ‘In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.’”
Actually, what Ike originally planned to say, his papers reveal, was he called the combine “the military-industrial-congressional complex.” Then he crossed out “congressional.”
“What Eisenhower said was true in 1961. It is even more true today,” Sanders concluded.
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