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Published On: Sat, Jan 21st, 2017

Bernie Sanders: More ‘Pie in the sky’ ideas

During the recent confirmation hearing of Donald Trump’s Education Secretary nominee, Betsy DeVos in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Vermont socialist Senator Bernie Sanders asked DeVos the following question:

Would you work with me and others to make public colleges and universities tuition free through federal and state efforts? 

DeVos, mostly not impressive during the hearing, was spot on with this answer:

Senator, I think that’s a really interesting idea and it’s really great to consider and think about. But I think we also have to consider the fact that there is nothing in life that is truly free. Somebody is going to pay for it.

Sander’s reply, Well yeah, you’re right. Somebody will pay for it.

Sanders claimed on his campaign website:  The cost of this $75 billion a year plan is fully paid for by imposing a tax of a fraction of a percent on Wall Street speculators who nearly destroyed the economy seven years ago.

This is not exactly true as the states would be on the hook for a third of the bill.

However, economics professors, Robert Archibald and David Feldman at the College of William and Mary in Virginia analyzed his proposal and concluded it’s economically and politically unrealistic. 

The Manhattan Institute’s Preston Cooper writes:

Advocates of federally funded “free” or “debt-free” college assert that society, as well as the affected individuals, would benefit from moving more students through higher education. Instead, experience in the U.S. and elsewhere suggests that the opposite would happen: more students would enroll in college; a high percentage (a higher percentage, quite possibly, than now, as more ill-prepared students enrolled) would continue to drop out; wage premiums for graduates would decline; colleges that desperately need to improve outcomes for students would face even fewer incentives to reform; and taxpayers would foot a skyrocketing bill.

Image/Prawny

Maybe Mr Sanders should look at the most likely reason college tuition is so high (Hint: It’s the federal government).

A huge reason the price of college is so high right now is government “help.” The federal government has subsidized students for decades, allowing colleges to raise their prices at rates far in excess of household income and even health care, and encouraging students to demand ever-greater luxuries. Use other peoples’ money and your incentives to demand efficiency wither, Neal McCluskey with the Cato Institute writes.

Mr. Sanders continues to rename things that should be considered, and are, consumer goods, as rights. That is really the crux of the problem.

How long until Sanders puts a bill up for a vote for “universal basic income” like his fellow socialists in France?

Maybe Sanders thinks there is a “money tree” in the back yard. That money tree is achieved by government force.

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About the Author

- Writer, Co-Founder and Executive Editor of The Global Dispatch. Robert has been covering news in the areas of health, world news and politics for a variety of online news sources. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the website, Outbreak News Today and hosts the podcast, Outbreak News Interviews on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify Robert is politically Independent and a born again Christian Follow @bactiman63

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