Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and a small business owner from Pennsylvania — who voted for Donald Trump — shared a heated moment during CNN’s town hall on Monday when Sanders was asked why the Obama administration is against business owners.
The debate, which was moderated by CNN’s Chris Cuomo, took place at George Washington University.
“I don’t think this administration — the Obama administration you’re referring to — is so against the business owners,” Sanders said when asked by Jim Jacobs about the increased regulations on small businesses, making it difficult for them to survive.
A visibly irritated and stunned Jacobs said, “really,” to which Sanders firmly replied, “Yeah… Obama did raise taxes on the top one or two percent. And you know what? I would have gone further.”
Sanders, who has made the war against the top earners of this country, pointed out his belief that those in the top one percent — those in the millionaire and billionaire classes — “should be paying more in taxes.”
Earlier in the town hall, he said it was important to “continue to raise the kinds of revenue you need from the wealthy” through taxation.
Jacobs, who said he is neither a millionaire nor a billionaire, noted, “you haven’t lived until you put a payroll on your credit card,” alluding to his own struggle to keep his small business afloat amid crippling regulations.
“The devil is in the details,” Sanders said. “We’ve got to see what these regulations are. It’s very easy to blame Barack Obama for everything, by the way. Some of those regulations may be state, may be local,” the Vermont senator said.
“But some of them, if you’re talking about — you know, you have some folks out there who really want the freedom to pollute our air and pollute our water,” Sanders said. He added, “they want to get rid of those regulations. I don’t agree. I don’t agree. We have got to protect our environment.”
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