In a fiery speech in Los Angeles, the Vermont senator criticizes ‘grotesque’ levels of economic inequality
Billionaires are “treading on very, very thin ice,” Bernie Sanders warned on Wednesday during a fiery speech in Los Angeles, imploring California voters to fight “grotesque” levels of economic inequality by approving a proposed tax on the state’s richest residents.
The Vermont senator railed against the “greed”, “arrogance” and “moral turpitude” of the nation’s “ruling class”, calling it “fairly disgusting” that some ultra-wealthy tech leaders have fled California – or are threatening to do so, if the proposed wealth tax becomes law.
“Never before have so few people had so much wealth and so much power,” Sanders thundered on stage at the Wiltern theater, where a raucous crowd of longtime supporters shouted “shame”.
Though the 84-year-old two-time presidential candidate has railed against the billionaire class for decades, his remarks on Wednesday were an exceptionally scathing – and at times personal – indictment of the top 1%. Comparing America’s highest earners to the oligarchs and monarchs of past centuries, he said the US billionaire elite “no longer sees itself as a part of American society”.
