Navy Yard

Clinton, Sanders keep sniping after Brooklyn debate

April 15, 2016 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., right, and Hillary Clinton speak during the CNN Democratic Presidential Primary Debate at the Brooklyn Navy Yard Thursday. AP Photo/Seth Wenig
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As if their two-hour televised debate at the Brooklyn Navy Yard wasn’t enough time to attack each other, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders continued sniping at each other long the cameras were turned off at Thursday night’s CNN-NY1 debate.

Post-debate, the two fierce rivals vying for the Democratic Party nomination for president had their campaigns hit each other hard over a variety of issues, including her ties to Wall Street and his health care reform ideas. And in some cases, the campaigns did not even wait until the debate was over. While the debate was still going on, news organizations, including the Brooklyn Eagle, were getting emails from both sides.

The Sanders campaign charged that Clinton is too cozy with Wall Street because she has accepted campaign contributions from the financial sector.

In an email to news reporters, the Sanders campaign evoked the name of a progressive icon, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), in its criticism of Clinton’s relationship to the big banks.

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The Sanders campaign claimed that in her 2003 book, “The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke,” Warren accused Clinton of flip-flopping on a key piece of legislation during her time in the Senate because of contributions she received from Wall Street.

“And years later, Clinton voted to give Wall Street a $700 billion taxpayer bailout with absolutely no strings attached after the financial industry crashed the economy,” the campaign wrote in the email

Clinton served as a U.S. senator representing New York from 2001 to 2009.

Clinton’s campaign fired back at Sanders, sending an email mail blast defending the candidate’s stand on holding Wall Street accountable.

“Hillary Clinton has a long record of standing up to Wall Street and fighting for Main Street. As [a] U.S. senator from New York, she warned against abuses nearly a year before the crisis hit and she called for action to help at-risk homeowners restructure their mortgages. Hillary Clinton has proposed the strongest, most comprehensive plan to tackle Wall Street risk and in the financial sector,” an email from the campaign read.

Sanders’ proposal on health care reform was also a source of contention between the two campaigns in the hours after the debate.

Sanders is proposing a single-payer, Medicare-for-all system; a plan that Clinton dismissed as pie-in-the-sky.

“Bernie Sanders has put out a lot of plans that sound too good to be true. And oftentimes, that’s because they are. Sanders is making promises he can’t keep. Sanders says his health care plan will save workers thousands of dollars in costs, even though progressives sympathetic to the goal of expanding coverage say it just doesn’t add up,” the Clinton campaign wrote in another email.

The non-partisan Tax Policy Center found that Sanders’ plans would raise taxes by $4,700 on working families, primarily to pay for his health plan, according to the Clinton campaign.

The Sanders campaign sent an email touting support from 134 of the country’s top economists and health care experts for the Vermont senator’s proposal.

“Bernie Sanders’ Medicare-for-all plan for universal health care in the United States is the right way to ensure affordable access to health care for all Americans. The Affordable Care Act has made important strides in expanding health insurance, especially for low-income and young Americans. But 29 million people in this country remain uninsured, and many more struggle with high co-payments and deductibles. We agree with Bernie Sanders that we must build on the proven record of over 50 years of the Medicare program. Bernie Sanders’ single-payer system would cost less than our current system because a single-payer system wouldn’t spend huge sums on advertising, marketing, executive pay and billing, as private insurers do. The Sanders single-payer system would empower Medicare to negotiate fair prices for drugs and procedures,” a statement signed by the economists reads.

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich was among the economic gurus who signed the document.

Clinton and Sanders will square off in the New York Democratic Primary on Tuesday.


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