Sen. Bernie Sanders said that some parts of the U.S. register below a “third world” country, with the water crisis in Flint, Mich., exemplifying a “fourth world” disaster in the richest country in the world.
The water crisis in the struggling industrial town is something that should not occur in a prosperous nation, he said. “Talk about a third world country. You would think it was a fourth world country,” he said at a town hall gathering in Ohio to underscore one of the pillars of his campaign — fighting widening inequality.
“What is going on in Columbus, [Ohio,] and in areas all over this country is a national disgrace,” Sanders told the televised hosted by CNN.
He explained that people don’t realize the U.S. is the “richest” nation in the world.
The “problem is almost all new income and wealth is going to the top one percent,” Sanders said.
Democrats have used the Flint crisis to demonstrate how poorer regions of the country and minorities are ignored.
Democrats debated last week in the once burgeoning automobiel manufacuring town. The water crisis began last year when a state-appointed emergency manager changed the town’s drinking water source to the polluted Flint River. The acidic nature of the river’s water gnawed at the water distribution pipes for the town, releasing harmful levels of lead into the drinking supply.
The state knew about the high lead levels but did not warn the residents of Flint. The federal government also kept data to themselves, allowing months to pass before it was made known.
