Dem Rep. Jones on Manchin Fears of Entitlement Society: I Thought We Were Past ‘Such Outdated Notions’

On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY) praised Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) for “calling out the intellectual laziness of Sen. Manchin when he said that I think 1.5 trillion should do it and we don’t want to move towards what he called an entitlement society.” And said that he “thought we had advanced beyond such outdated notions.”

Jones said, “You know, Jake, what you call social welfare, I call strengthening our economy. When we talk about high-quality, affordable child care in this country, the expansion of Medicare to include dental, vision, and hearing — which is a reminder to me of my having watched my grandmother work well past the age of retirement just to pay for the high cost of prescription drugs and medical procedures not fully covered by Medicare — and of course planet-saving climate action. This is non-negotiable when it comes to whether we can have a vibrant economy moving forward deep into already this 21st-century economy. And of course, we’ll make — we’ll create millions of good-paying jobs in the process. This is something that obviously is under negotiation. I appreciate Sen. Sanders for calling out the intellectual laziness of Sen. Manchin when he said that I think 1.5 trillion should do it and we don’t want to move towards what he called an entitlement society. I had thought we had advanced beyond such outdated notions. And of course, companies, the biggest corporations in America get the most entitlements when we look at tax breaks and the subsidies that are given to the coal industry in West Virginia for example.”

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