[applause] everyone in: america understands that democracy is successful the nation and economy has the best educated workforce in the world. [applause] and, 30-40 years ago we had the best educated workforce in the world. not today. today, we have hundreds of thousands of bright, young people who did well in high school and want to go to height -- and what to go to college but are unable to do so for one reason. their families collect the money. -- lack the money. that is unfair to those young

people. that is unfair to the future of our country and that is why i year 2016,t in the when we talk about public education, we have to be talking about making public colleges and universities tuition free. [applause] i am told that this is a radical idea. i do not believe it. talk to the people in germany, talk to the people in scandinavia. talk to your grandparents. agohis country, 50 years could go to a major university virtually tuition free. [applause] sen. sanders: the other part of

the equation that we have to deal with is the incredibly oppressive burden of student debt that is resting on the shoulders of millions of americans. anybody here dealing with student debt? [applause] sen. sanders: i rest my case. what kind of debt are we talking about? 50? how much? $85,000. how much? $200,000. it's like a vermont auction. the young women here, raise your hand. she is $200,000 in debt. $200,000 in debt. you engage in this

campaign, it is important to take a deep breath. and understand that in many instances the status quo does not make sense. people who want nothing more in life than to get as good an education as they can should not into $200,000 in debt. [applause] guy,sanders: i talked to a and i mention this issue in every speech that i did, i talked to a guy in nevada a few months ago, 55 years of age, he has been paying off a student debt for 25 years. than here in debt today was when he took the loan out. and he is worried that when you get social security, they are going to garnish his social security to pay for student loans. this is crazy.

this is crazy stuff. what we want is a nation which encourages people to get all the education that they need, not punish people. [applause] that is why, we have introduced legislation that allows people with student debt to refinance their loans at the lowest interest rate that they can find. [applause] sen. sanders: now, i have been criticized like about 12 times a too ambitious. but in america, we could just not afford it. we cannot do it germany and scandinavia do. peopleot allow our young

to go to public colleges and universities tuition free. we cannot lower student debt, it is just impossible, it is too expensive. [booing] sen. sanders: and then people say, well, bernie how are you going to pay for it? and i will tell you how. we pay for it through a tax on wall street speculation. [applause] please or member that -- or hernders: please this, that when wall street greed and illegal behavior nearly destroyed our economy, they went to congress for a bailout, which they got. now, it is wall street's turn to help the middle class of this country. [applause]

now i know, that here in south carolina, you have a state run by pretty conservative people. know that many conservatives refuse to accept science with regard to climate change. [booing] i am a member of the senate committee on the environment and the senate committee on energy and i have talked to scientist all over this country, and all over the world. so, let me tell you, in south carolina, regardless of what your leaders may tell you, climate change is real. [applause] sen. sanders: climate change is caused human activity. [applause]

change isrs: climate already doing devastating harm in this country and around the world. that is the fact. [applause] let -- sen. sanders: let me tell you something else, in terms of what science has said, they say that if we do not get our act together and a very short window of opportunity, this planets, by the end of this century, is going to be 5-10 degrees fahrenheit warmer, more droughts, more floods, more extreme weather disturbances, more a certification of the ocean. more rising sea levels, more international conflict as people fight over limited natural resource is. now, let me tell you this, as well. the reason that republicans refuse to recognize the scientists, is not because they

are done, not because they cannot read science. the reason has everything to do with a corrupt campaign finance system. [applause] sen. sanders: if a republican candidate for president came up here and told you what i just told you, that climate change is real, caused by human activity, on that day, that candidate would lose his funding from the fossil fuel industry, the koch brothers, the coal companies, and all of that. say, to my republican colleagues, worry less, about your campaign funds, worry more about your grandchildren and your great grandchildren. [applause]

sen. sanders: in america, we have, as you all know pass to the affordable care act, which has done a lot of good things for our people and i'm on the committee that helped write that. affordable care act has companyed insurance affinity of pre-existing conditions. [applause] we have done away with discrimination against women were forced to pay higher premiums than men. [applause] sen. sanders: we have added some 17 plus million people to the ranks of the insured. it me say, if i may, not that want to be involved in local politics here, it is incompetence of all to me that when we pass the affordable care

act to expand medicaid in every state in this country, that the governor of south carolina rejected that proposal. [booing] sen. sanders: we do not know and we may never know how many people will die or get much sicker than i should have because they did not have the medicaid that the congress provided for them. i would hope, i would hope, that the republican leadership here would get beyond right-wing political ideology and serve the needs of the people of this state. [applause] sen. sanders: my view is while the affordable care act has done some very good things, we have got to do better.

[applause] sen. sanders: so, let me stand before you and tell you what i believe. and that is, that i believe that health care is a right of all people, not a privilege. [applause] sen. sanders: i believe that it is wrong that we pay the highest prices in the world for that 29tion drugs, million americans have no health insurance and many of you are underinsured with high deductibles and copayments. that is why i believe in a medicare for all, single-payer program. [applause] sen. sanders: when we talk about this country, and what are the

issues are that we have to address, let us be clear. american,s, that no black, latino, or white should be fearful of walking down the street and getting shot by a police officer. [applause] sen. sanders: i am the former mayor of the largest city of vermont and i worked very hard with police officers and i believe the vast majority of police officers are honest and hard-working and have to do a very difficult job. but, when a police officer breaks the law, like any other public official, that officer

must be held accountable. [applause] i believe that we must he militarized local police department so they do not look like occupying armies. [applause] sen. sanders: i believe that we need to make police departments like the communities that they serve. in my state of vermont and many parts of this country, we have a problemre i say, huge with substance abuse. and overdoses regarding harrowing. this is a very serious problem. in my view, we have got to look at substance abuse and addiction as a health issue, not a

criminal issue. [applause] sen. sanders: in the last 30 years in this country, millions of americans have received criminal records as a result of the possession of marijuana. [booing] and what that means, is that if you have a criminal record and you are applying for a job, you know what, you may not get that job. i believe is that when we have a federal controlled substance act, which lists marijuana as a schedule one level, alongside carolyn, -- heroin, that is done. -- dumb.

[applause] i believe that we should take marijuana out of the federal controlled substance act , and not make it a federal drug. [applause] by the way, where this becomes a racial issue is that it turns out that the black community and the white community smoke marijuana at about the same rate, but blacks are four times as likely to be arrested than whites. [booing] my friends, what this campaign is about, is asking all of you to imagine what this country can be. need to be we do not a country which has the highest

rate of childhood poverty of any major country, at the same time as we are seeing a proliferation of millionaires and billionaires. [applause] sen. sanders: we do not have to be a country where young people cannot afford to get a higher education while millions of others are being crushed by outrageous student debt. we do not have to be the only major country on earth that does not guarantee paid family medical leave. , or provide health care to all people. as a right. [applause] we do not have to be a country in which millions of our brothers and sisters work 9, 10, 11 bucks an hour and

are going nowhere in a hurry. [applause] the only way we not justerica, electing a president, obviously i'm here to ask for your support, it is much more than that. it is to create a political revolution. [applause] sen. sanders: and what that revolution means, is that you understand that you and you and you, have the power to determine the future of america. that is what people thought and died for, and that is where we are today. americanslions of stand up, and say, you know what, in this great country, we

can be so much more. we do not have to have a political system owned by billionaires. we don't have to have a rigged economy. we don't have to have a broken criminal justice system. we, if we stand together, if we do not allow the donald trump's of the world to divide us up by race, or where we were born -- [applause] sen. sanders: if we stand together, and demand that the united states government represents all of us, not just the 1%, there is nothing we cannot accomplish. thank you all very much. [applause]

[applause] ♪ ♪