As the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates move closer to socialism and provide free everything for everyone, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar has started to present herself as an almost moderate.
During a CNN town hall, Klobuchar broke away from the others when she declared that America is not ready for Medicare for All, not for free four year college, and brushed aside the Green New Deal.
I’ve seen many publications describe Klobuchar as pragmatic. As a full blown libertarian, I cannot call her pragmatic, but it is nice to see a Democrat actually giving thought to the problems we face rather than throwing money at them or ignoring them.
Klobuchar described “America’s growing debt as a major constraint on policymaking.” We have hit $22 trillion and it goes up every second of the day. This lack of money obviously places these socialist dreams at a stalemate. From Reason:
The most striking example of Klobuchar’s relatively disciplined stance came during a question posed by a college student, Griffin Sinclair-Wingate, who said he graduated from college in 2017 and pays more towards his student loans each month than his rent. He asked whether she would support free four-year college tuition for all, including for undocumented and formerly incarcerated individuals.After a bit of meandering about wanting to make it easier for college grads to refinance their student loan debt and called for expanding eligibility for federal Pell grants, Klobuchar gave a straight answer.”No, I am not for free four-year college for all,” Klobuchar said. “If I was a magic genie and could give that to everyone and we could afford it, I would…I’ve gotta tell the truth. We have a mountain of debt that the Trump administration keeps making worse and worse, and I don’t want to leave that on the shoulders of these kids too.”
If America provides a free tuition to all college bound people then the debt will grow even more, which will affect them in the future. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who jumped into the race this morning, estimated in 2016 that it would cost the government $75 billion a year to provide free tuition.
Klobuchar didn’t squash the idea of Medicare for All, but instead believes it would work in the near future. She explained that “her focus would be on improving the Affordable Care Act, expanding both Medicare and Medicaid and creating a public option.”
She praised the Green New Deal presented by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but stressed to everyone that legislation goes through many changes before it becomes law. She called the details “aspirations,” but “we know there’s going to be compromises.”
Like Eric Boehm wrote at Reason, Klobuchar is in no way a fiscal conservative. She wants to expand government, implement more programs to battle against climate change. The senator promised to re-enter the Paris climate deal and implement all the “clean power rules” from the previous administration. Despite her views on the debt, she wants to continue spending on healthcare and education.
However, like I said above, it’s refreshing to hear a Democrat actually think about policy instead of relying on socialism to solve problems.
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