Bernie Sanders has announced a new plan to wipe out all college debt and to make higher education a “human right.”
The cost of his plan is a mere $2 trillion. To raise that money, he wants to tax evil Wall Street.
Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have been competing for ownership of this issue. It’s no coincidence that Bernie unveiled this plan two days before the first Democratic debates.
Cara Korte reports at CBS News:
Bernie Sanders proposes total elimination of student debtDemocratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced a plan Monday to eliminate $1.6 trillion in student debt currently held by 45 million Americans. And he’s looking to Wall Street to pay for its cost.Sanders, along with Reps. Pramila Jayapal, Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are proposing a Wall Street tax — a tax of 0.5% on all trades, fees on bonds and derivatives. According to Sanders, the tax would raise $2.4 trillion over 10 years.In addition to debt forgiveness, Sanders would make all public colleges and private historically black colleges and universities tuition-free.”We are entering a proposal which will allow every person in this country to get all of the education that they need to live out their dreams because they are Americans,” Sanders said at a press conference Monday morning.Sanders said millennials, a key demographic for his campaign, have been “sentenced to a lifetime of debt” upon graduating from college.
Here’s a video of Sanders announcing the plan:
Will there be refunds for all the suckers who paid off their student loans before now?
Robby Soave of Reason points out some of the main problems with the plan:
Aside from its staggering cost, the policy is flawed in the same way that so many plans to cancel student debt are flawed: It rewards people who made unwise investments and transfers money to comparatively well-off people. The primary beneficiary of a college degree is not society at large, but the degree holders themselves, who tend to be more privileged and have better financial prospects than those who don’t have college degrees.Making college free, of course, would encourage more people to attend. This would likely worsen the sort of “credentialist arms race” that the economist Bryan Caplan warns about in his excellent book, The Case Against Education.
Bernie is getting support on this from Ilhan Omar and AOC. Isn’t that shocking?
Featured image via YouTube.
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