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Sen. Bernie Sanders: Billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are ‘off taking joy rides on their rocket ships’
MSNBC ^ | April 1, 2022 | Megan Sauer

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 ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Vermont
KEYWORDS: apparatchik; berniesanders; besos; bezos; blueorigin; branson; commies; elonmusk; jeffbezos; marxists; megansauer; musk; richardbranson; spacex; starlink; tesla; vermont; virgingalactic
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

An old, jealous, bitter socialist.


21 posted on 04/02/2022 11:36:14 AM PDT by moovova
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To: cableguymn

This.🙄


22 posted on 04/02/2022 11:38:27 AM PDT by BiteYourSelf ( Earth first we'll strip mine the other planets later.)
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To: SmokingJoe

And it is NOT “corporate welfare” as he ridiculously claims. The article says “Congress is currently considering sending $10 billion to NASA, which would funnel those funds to a private company in a high-value contract for moon landers.”

The government buys lots of stuff from private enterprises. FDR wanted the government to make EVERYTHING for WW II, but saner heads prevailed and used private industry to make arms.

Every US space venture has used private contractors to build launch vehicles and spacecraft. Congress appropriating money to buy a moon lander from SpaceX. The Apollo program spacecraft had five major manufacturing assemblies: the service module, command module, lunar module, launch escape subsystem, and the spacecraft-LM adapter. All but the lunar module were built by North American Rockwell. The lunar module was produced by Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp., Bethpage, N.Y.

Why didn’t the old commie rail against those companies that built the equipment that took us to the moon in the 60s and 70s getting “corporate welfare”? How is SpaceX any different?

He is one disgusting and thoroughly despicable curmudgeon who HATES the private sector and success.


23 posted on 04/02/2022 11:39:03 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (“Sorry, I’m not a biologist.”)
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To: libertylover

And Sanders has not only not ever had a real job himself, he has never created a single job. That’s what really ticks me off about people who hate success. They want everybody to be a miserable failure just like themselves.


24 posted on 04/02/2022 11:40:17 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (“Sorry, I’m not a biologist.”)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

I’m not really an Elon Musk fan boy like so many. He did get lots of help from the federal government.

But his spaceships are privately funded and he can do what he wants with them.

Then again, hearing stuff like this, from a guy that was unemployed until he was in his 40s and now owns 3 houses, whose wife got away with stealing millions, is as ridiculous as he is.

As for Walmart, they’re beggars to the government trough. I go to Walmart. Probably on my way there later today. But, lets not hold them up as some hero. They want a store and demand tax breaks from the locals, when they can build there stores with their pocket change.


25 posted on 04/02/2022 11:40:26 AM PDT by qaz123
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To: cableguymn

So far Musk has not gone for a “joy ride” in his rockets.


26 posted on 04/02/2022 11:41:22 AM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom
“Today in America, multibillionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson are off taking joy rides on their rocket ships to outer space.”

True but irrelevant. All THEIR money can from people who gave it to them willingly in a free exchange, unlike where YOU go for money.

27 posted on 04/02/2022 11:42:11 AM PDT by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Says the man who owns how many houses, and the same man whose wife bankrupted Burlington college to the point it had to close.


28 posted on 04/02/2022 11:44:56 AM PDT by mass55th ("Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway." ~~ John Wayne )
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To: KarlInOhio

Thanks for tracking that down. It does come across as a bailout for the loser in the competition and that is not justified unless, as you point out, NASA needs two suppliers. But that rarely happens.

Sanders did his usual job of using irrelevant communist agitprop to paper over the real argument against spending that $10 billion as a payoff to Cantwell and Bezos. He clearly does not understand the issues at play.


29 posted on 04/02/2022 11:45:20 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (“Sorry, I’m not a biologist.”)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom
There's some lyrics in this song," Sailing on their ego trips, Blast off in their space ships...no care for you no care for me:

Bob Marley So Much Trouble

30 posted on 04/02/2022 11:45:27 AM PDT by Karliner (Heb 4:12 Rom 8:28 Rev 3, "...This is the end of the beginning." Churchill)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Musk’s wealth is almost 100% invested in his companies. He’s only mega-rich on paper, and he doesn’t care. Last year, he paid $11B in taxes. Not enough for Bernie. What Bernie really wants is to take his companies away from him.


31 posted on 04/02/2022 11:45:53 AM PDT by ETCM
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To: KarlInOhio

That Cantvotewell bit seem to be some of the pressure being applied to SpaceX by the FAA and EPA to shut them down - at least in Texas.

SpaceX’s development is characterized by rapid prototyping with each failure improving the next. Slowing it down or halting it entirely places SpaceX in financial difficulties - which is the point.


32 posted on 04/02/2022 11:46:21 AM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Did he make that statement from his mansion in the Hamptons?

You know -The one that was the bribe for dropping out of the race in 2016.


33 posted on 04/02/2022 11:47:03 AM PDT by airborne (Thank you Rush for helping me find FreeRepublic! )
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Maybe Elin Musk could win his approval like the DNC did last time, and give Bernie a house. A nice beach house on the Sea of Tranquility with a lovely view, and a one way rocket ride to get there.


34 posted on 04/02/2022 11:49:17 AM PDT by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Bernie Sanders. self-appointed scold and arbiter of how people should spend their money. No commie like an old commie. And this hypocrite has never done an honest day’s labor in his entire miserable life.


35 posted on 04/02/2022 11:51:18 AM PDT by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Suppo)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; cardinal4; ...

36 posted on 04/02/2022 11:51:26 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (What's his FR nick?)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Envy is part of the socialist condition.


37 posted on 04/02/2022 11:55:20 AM PDT by Track9 (You are far too inquisitive not to be seduced…)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

I am showing my age but I refer to Bernie as today’s Alan Cranston with a dash of William Proxmire blended in! Cranston [CA] & Proxmire [WI] were US Senators of my young adulthood. Both were very LEFT and both were near Luddites!

I feel it is probable that BS Bernie is anti-Space as are many LEFTISTS because it takes money better spent on THEIR social projects! I would remind this wasteful Socialist (but I repeat myself) that we are still paying the RUSSIANS for taxi service to the International Space Station (ISS). While SpaceX (Musk) is making good headway here, Russia’s Roscosmos is still being used and they charge us a very pretty penny!


38 posted on 04/02/2022 12:05:36 PM PDT by SES1066 (More & more it looks like Brandon's best decision was Kamala! UGH!)
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To: ETCM
Musk’s wealth is almost 100% invested in his companies. He’s only mega-rich on paper, and he doesn’t care. Last year, he paid $11B in taxes.

Unrealized capital gains, which Bernie wants to tax now. That $11B was from sales of stock (realized capital gains).

Bernie and the Democrats would love to tax us now on our unrealized capital gains (401K's, invested retirement plans, etc.).

39 posted on 04/02/2022 12:13:45 PM PDT by roadcat
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson are advancing things and not trying to destroy things like you Bernie and the Dems


40 posted on 04/02/2022 12:13:59 PM PDT by butlerweave
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