(PatrioticPost.com)- Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is set to take to the road to push his progressive spending agenda, especially in swing districts that could prove pivotal in the 2022 midterm elections.
This week, Sanders is taking trips to West Lafayette, Indiana, as well as Cedar Rapids, Iowa. There, he’ll promote the $3.5 trillion budget that he helped craft. It’s a key part of the Build Back Better initiative that President Joe Biden has been touting since he ascended to the White House.
It’s also an extremely expensive spending plan that will push forward many of Sanders’ progressive ideas.
Sanders has said that he is very confident that even blue-collar workers will come around to these liberal standpoints. In the last two presidential elections, former President Donald Trump was able to make great inroads with this class of voters, as well as white working-class voters.
Now, the Vermont senator is heading out to districts that are traditionally conservative but that have low voter turnout. In both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, Trump easily captured these districts.
But, as Sanders wrote in an email blast meant to raise funds:
“I want voters in red states, blue states and purple states to understand that Congress will soon be voting on the most significant piece of legislation to benefit working families since the New Deal and the Great Depression, and that not one Republican will vote for it.”
The White House is apparently very supportive of Sanders’ plan to reach out to Republican strongholds in pushing their spending plan. A source who is familiar with the Vermont senator’s thinking recently told media outlet The Hill:
“The best way to right this ship is to find ways to serve the longstanding needs of the working class. The more people know it, the better. We’ve been doing a pretty extensive level of outreach.”
Some of the initiatives that Sanders is hoping to pitch to conservative voters would be considered very progressive. That includes what he terms as “more equitable access to child care,” which Democrats think will garner support from people all across the country.
To that end, the budget — which Democrats plan to pass in the Senate using the budget reconciliation process — would extend the increase in the Child Tax Credit. Under Biden’s economic stimulus package passed in the fall, the boost in the tax credit only applied for 2021. Democrats want to extend that for multiple years.
Stumping on programs like this that put money in working families’ pockets proved successful for Democrats in the recent past, and they hope it’s going to do the same this time around.
In the Georgia Senate runoff elections, for example, both Democratic candidates — Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff — were able to defeat their Republican challengers in part because they boasted about the $1,400 stimulus checks Biden’s White House was about to deliver.
Those victories in Georgia ultimately gave Democrats control of both chambers of Congress.
