Posted on 04/02/2022 11:17:31 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
On Wednesday (March 30, 2022), at a meeting of the U.S. Senate Committee on Budget, Sanders raised an issue that’s been a regular part of his political platform for many years: wealth distribution. “Anyone who thinks we do not have an oligarchy right here in America is sorely mistaken,” he said. “Today in America, multibillionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson are off taking joy rides on their rocket ships to outer space.”
Sanders appeared to be citing the three billionaires’ spaceflight companies: SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, respectively. All three U.S.-based businesses have played a large part in redefining — and even reviving — national conversations around modern space exploration.
Musk, Bezos and Branson have each poured large sums of their own money into those companies: Bezos, for example, spends $1 billion of his own Amazon stock per year on Blue Origin. But while his brief trip to space in a Blue Origin rocket last July could be deemed a “joy ride,” it’s doubtful that he’d call his spending frivolous.
Rather, Blue Origin’s mission statement defines the company’s goals as essential to humanity’s future survival, emphasizing that “in order to preserve Earth, our home, for our grandchildren’s grandchildren, we must go to space to tap its unlimited resources and energy.”
Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, similarly told Time magazine in December that his “goal overall has been to make life multi-planetary and enable humanity to become a spacefaring civilization,” thus preserving the planet. In October, SpaceX was valued at $100.3 billion following a secondary share sale.
To Sanders, those plans are more displays of opulence than humanity-enriching endeavors, especially considering “over half of the people in this country are living paycheck to paycheck,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
This is SO RICH coming from a man who has zero accomplishment in his entire miserable life except railing against the rich who earned their money and getting elected to office as a communist in Vermont.
Amazon now employees almost ONE MILLION people in the USA. Walmart employs 1.6 million people in the USA. 1 out of every 169 people in the country’s workforce works for Amazon, while about 1 out of every 100 people in the U.S. workforce is employed by Walmart.
What do we want? More bureaucratic central control of every aspect of our lives by people like crotchety Sanders? Or entrepreneurs creating jobs and wealth for everybody?
Just butt hurt that his request for a free ride was declined.
He’s just jealous.
It’s no business of his what private individuals do with their own property.
Sad thing is, you could put textbooks worth of numbers in front of that idiot, showing how private companies do everything better than government, and he’d throw it away without even looking at it.
Not at all like joy riding in a Communist paradise for a honeymoon…
Look who’s talking.
“over half of the people in this country are living paycheck to paycheck,” he said”
Whether you are poor, middle class or rich the key thing to me is be self-sufficient and not feed off the public dole. One can’t say that about Bernie Sanders who has never had a real job from what I can tell.
FU BERNIE, you old grifting millionaire scumbag Commie with 3 dachas and a fugly criminal wife. Musk would jerk the slack out of you so hard you’d have to lay down to take a shit!
What do we want?
*************
Anything that sounds free and easy. Americans love the notion of getting something for nothing. Especially when its gotten at the expense of productive people.
Are ya jealous bernie? Envy Green isn’t a good look on you sir
The millionaire socialist speaks
Has Bernie ever earned a dime that didn’t come from public funds?
I don’t think musk has been to space.
And, Bernie should do a little more research about the governments reliance on Space X.
So what, Bernie? It’s their money.
He’s just jealous.
Envy, the sin of Commies everywhere. They are only happy when everyone is poor. He covets his neighbors Rocket Ship.
All communists think they have a right to other peoples’ money and what they do with their time.
And the hypocrite with THREE mansions is criticizing someone else about extravagant use of money while others live paycheck to paycheck.
I’m sure there are folks in the vicinity of his two other mansions who would love a break from their circumstances.
Good point. I was wondering just how many employees these people have and you answered it - LOTS!
The order would come through the Endless Frontier Act, a bill to beef up resources for science and technology research that’s being debated on the Senate floor this week. An amendment was added to that legislation by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., to hand over $10 billion to NASA — money that most likely would go to Blue Origin, a company that’s headquartered in Cantwell’s home state.So it is not so much corporate welfare as old fashioned Congressional pork. I have to agree with Sanders (gag, gag, gag) on this unless NASA really needs a second source. Musk won the contract and there is no need to pay for the losers too.Cantwell’s amendment is no sure bet though: Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced a last-minute amendment Monday to eliminate the $10 billion. “It does not make a lot of sense to me that we would provide billions of dollars to a company owned by the wealthiest guy in America,” Sanders told The Intercept Tuesday.
The Bezos space company had been competing against SpaceX for a contract to put astronauts on the moon, the first such trips since 1972, but lost the bidding process with a price tag twice that of SpaceX. NASA announced the award to the Elon Musk-owned company last month.
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