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(CNSNews.com) -- When asked whether the Democratic Party should embrace socialism given that Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist, won the primary in New Hampshire, Senators Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said, "no." Republican Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) remarked that "at least a third" of the Democratic Party in Congress already has embraced socialism.
At the Capitol on Wednesday, CNSNews.com asked Carper and Brown, “A self-proclaimed socialist just won the New Hampshire Democratic primary, do you think it is time for the Democratic Party to embrace socialism?”
Sen. Brown said, “No. I don’t follow that logic. I think it is time for the Democrats to fight for the dignity of workers and show workers we’re on their side.”
Sen. Carper said, “No, no.”
CNSNews.com also asked the two senators, “There is a whole block within the Democratic Party that believes themselves to be socialists. What response should the Democratic Party have to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren?”
Brown did not respond but Carper said, “It's a think tank, there’s plenty of room for all of them. From that side of the spectrum all the way over to Joe Manchin,” senator for West Virginia.
Also at the Capitol on Wednesday, CNSNews.com asked Sen. Rubio, “Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire primary, who is a self-professed socialist. Do you see this as the Democratic Party embracing socialism?”
Rubio said, “Yeah, absolutely, at least a third of it has. I see it as a broader trend that we've seen now especially in the Trump era -- ideas that 1just 10 years ago would have been dismissed as wacky are now either broadly embraced by the Democratic Party or have found their way into the mainstream."
CNSNnews.com then asked the senator, “What do you think is the proper response to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.”
Rubio said, “I think he [Sanders] is far left. I mean some of the things he proposes and others is far to the left of anything we’ve seen from liberals in the past. I think the proper response is to lay out to the American people in an election exactly what it is they are talking about doing, why it doesn’t work, and win. Rejection at the ballot box is the most powerful response.”
“We must recognize that in the 21st century, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, economic rights are human rights,” Sanders said in a speech last June. “That is what I mean by democratic socialism.”
In the 1970s, Sanders advocated for the nationalization of major industries in the United States and he supported a 100% tax on people earning over $1 million a year. "Nobody should earn more than a million dollars," Sanders said, as reported by CNN.
In a 1973 letter, Sanders wrote to then-Sen. Robert Stafford, “The oil industry, and the entire energy industry, should be owned by the public and used for the public good -- not for additional profits for billionaires."
"I believe in socialized medicine, public ownership of the drug companies and placing doctors on salaries,” Sanders said in 1976. “The idea that millionaires can make money by selling poor people drugs that they desperately need for highly inflated prices disgusts me.”
Today, Sanders is still pushing for a nationalization of the health care industry, a single-payer, government-run program – “Medicare for All.”
Sanders supports a massive effort to implement what he calls a Green New Deal, “a ten-year, nationwide mobilization centered around justice and equity during which climate change will be factored into virtually every area of policy, from immigration to trade to foreign policy and beyond.”
The goal is to reach “100 percent renewable energy for electricity and transportation by no later than 2030,” only 10 years from now, “and complete decarbonization of the economy by 2050 at latest.”
Sanders also proposes “college for all,” and the cancellation of “all student loan debt for the some 45 million Americans who owe about $1.6 trillion….” He also proposes a “workplace democracy” for workers, housing for all, “greening” of public schools, and a major “tax on extreme wealth.”