unconvinced
I assume you refer to the “plan” set forth here . I have no quarrels with the goals, but the legal and practical means to this end elude me.
I’d love to be wrong about this, but Sanders’ plan (if we may so dignify what reads to me more like wishful thinking) looks to me as though it relies on catching a lot of favorable breaks, some of these less plausible than others. That’s not the same as saying “I’ve got mine, Jack,” as you seem to believe.
cordially,
The Sanders plan would make tuition free at public colleges and universities throughout the country.Again, how is this to be enforced? President Sanders can’t simply issue an executive order abolishing tuition at public universities. He cannot by fiat withhold existing federal funding until they comply. Congress, I suppose, could pass a law to accomplish this end, but I doubt whether “Bernie” will have a complaisant legislative branch (the Republicans will be as obstructive as it lies in their power to be, and some of our own DINOs will bestir themselves to resist the initiative, and the law in any event would generate multiple suits, with no guarantee that the Supreme Court would take the administration’s side. Suppose, as discussed earlier, the free tuition will be underwritten by a benificent federal government?
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. More than 1,000 economists have endorsed a tax on Wall Street speculation and today some 40 countries throughout the world have imposed a similar tax including Britain, Germany, France, Switzerland, and China. If the taxpayers of this country could bailout Wall Street in 2008, we can make public colleges and universities tuition free and debt free throughout the country.Hey, I’m cool with a transaction tax. These guys are making zillions with nanosecond trades based on tiny fluctuations: they’re skimming, and the rest of us might as well skim their skim. For the moment I’ll take the site’s word for the $75 billion figure as representing potential revenue from this initiative, but again, I doubt whether the Masters of the Universe will direct their pets in Congress meekly to sign off on this, and I particularly doubt whether the public universities, most of whom are feeling pretty strapped for cash already, won’t just take the sums they are offered and raise existing tuition by close to that amount. Lookie! Free money!
I’d love to be wrong about this, but Sanders’ plan (if we may so dignify what reads to me more like wishful thinking) looks to me as though it relies on catching a lot of favorable breaks, some of these less plausible than others. That’s not the same as saying “I’ve got mine, Jack,” as you seem to believe.
cordially,
