This really demonstrates just how terrible most of these candidates are. Money is no object and everything is an entitlement. Who will pay for it all? They don't care and neither should you apparently...
As opposed to genius the Republican plan of handing out tax cuts to the wealthy, subsidies to farmers to fund Trump's trade war, etc., with no plan on how to pay for those?
Saying that billionaires will pay for it and then ignoring follow-up questions that point out that that won't cover the shortfall is not a real answer. And this post is in no way a defense of Republicans. They scream for austerity and entitlement reform when they are in opposition, and then increase spending when they are in power, often exacerbating the problem by passing tax cuts that they can't afford.
As opposed to genius the Republican plan of handing out tax cuts to the wealthy, subsidies to farmers to fund Trump's trade war, etc., with no plan on how to pay for those?
Did you watch the video? They talk about Trump's spending promises as well. Not sure why this is a "what about Trump" moment for some of you guys. Being concerned about the insane spending promised during this presidential nomination is not tacit approval for Trump.
This really demonstrates just how terrible most of these candidates are. Money is no object and everything is an entitlement. Who will pay for it all? They don't care and neither should you apparently...
Sorry for the long post on this. A lot to unpack.
John Stossel always has been a bit of questionable quantity as journalist, hired as a pretty face more so than a investigative journalist, and he really proves it with this video. He glosses over the issues and focuses only on the dollars proposed, never discussing the benefits and long-term impact of such investments. This is what is always missed here, these are investments in the future, not gifts like tax breaks. So lets look at this a little deeper.
Here are the areas where Stossel breaks down spending. Education, Climate Change, Healthcare, Welfare, and then what Stossel calls "the grab bag."
Education - Manufacturing jobs are not coming back. This directly impacts the middle class and their ability to contribute to consumer economy that has developed. New skills and new jobs are required to keep the middle class healthy. To address this and continue to maintain any economic edge the United States still has it will be in the research and development areas and where intellectual property is created. This requires an educated workforce and a lot of specialization. Without access to education the middle class will continue to shrink and the economy become that much weaker. Without the investment in education, and making education inexpensive or free, the United States will continue to see the economy weaken and ultimately crash.
Eliminating student debt is a heavy lift, but it is actually cheaper than the tax cuts Trump just gave the rich. The benefit is the middle class gets an immediate boost to their disposable income, meaning more spending and more demand for goods and services - more homes, more cars, more appliances, etc. Since blue collar jobs are directly linked to spending this raises that segment of the economy as well. This also opens up the possibility for many more people to go to school and get the education they need to improve their lives.
This is where education is a real game changer to the state of the entire nation. Education is not just about learning facts and figures or getting some training to twist a screw. It's about changing people and opening their minds to new ideas and ways of thinking. It is about experiencing things and people in ways you had never imagined before, and breaking down stereotypes. The common refrain in education circles is that education changes lives. Yes, it does. But more importantly, it changes entire communities. When you lift up one family through the opportunity education provides there is a ripple effect. It lifts the others who have relationships with that student and their family. It drives those others to change as well. The entire community is affected, and positively. This is why access to education is so important, as it is a change agent and means to transform communities as a whole. This is a worthwhile investment and has potential for massive returns in the long run.
Climate Change - Stossel provides zero details or discusses what any of the candidates accomplish through this spending. A great deal of more information is needed here, because spending on climate change is already happening ($154B) and it is but a scratch to the surface of what we are facing to keep coastal cities and cities on rivers from being flooded. That doesn't even account for the money being spent by FEMA on response to natural events/disasters made more intense by the effects of climate change. Yes, we are going to have to spend a lot more on climate change related activities, and dismissing them as careless spending is irresponsible.
Healthcare - This is a very complex issue that a simplistic infographic cannot explain. The United States already spends the most of any country on the planet on healthcare, and has some of the poorest outcomes dollar-for-dollar. More spending is required, so all people have access to quality affordable healthcare, but better spending is required as well. Again, details here matter, and Stossel provides none.
Welfare - We are only as strong as our weakest link. Yes, there are people that abuse the system, but that is a small percentage. The current dollars are not covering the increasing numbers of people who require social assistance. This is a systemic problem caused by lack of access to education, loss of good paying jobs to low skill workers, increases in costs on things like housing, food, healthcare, etc., where people have to make choices about what they pay for from that list in a given month. The system needs to be overhauled, but it especially needs more a money injection.
The Grab Bag - What an asinine approach to discussing things that he couldn't actually argue. Things like infrastructure, foreign aid, incarceration prevention, technology access, minority business development, national service requirements,
Just to touch on a couple of these grab bag issues. The infrastructure and foreign aid ones don't need comment as I'm certain everyone understands the benefits of such spending. Same with incarceration prevention.
The technology access issue is a really good one and a great idea. In a data-centric world people need quality access to information and that means high speed network access. Other countries around the world have much better access and much of it is ubiquitous. This is like another channel to education and knowledge, something everyone should have access to, and not controlled by your telco. Canadians have some experience with this, so this issue should resonate. Access to information is a game changer, and it is one of the reasons why congress supports giving that control over to the telcos. They can make oodles of money and help keep the electorate dumbed down in one shot.
Minority business funding is a great issue and one where spending increases would payoff huge. The majority of this spending happens in poor communities and would provide jobs in those same communities. All of a sudden you have an employer, working for their community and raising it up. You also have new business which pays taxes and social security. This is another one of those investments that has potential to pay off huge as the improvements in the community have a great butterfly affect on many of the social problems that plague these same communities.
The national service component is actually really smart, as it could provide much needed support in communities in the areas of education, healthcare and security. This is not something new, just a way to re-kickstart a great idea from the past. It could also be used to reduce the costs of social services and get people off the welfare rolls.
One of things I really laughed at was Stossel complaining about Warren stating that government agencies should be forced to buy only American made products. Hmmm, I seem to recall a 2016 presidential candidate getting elected on such rhetoric. It was nice to see Stossel put Trump is the cross hairs for a very short period and say he wants to increase spending, but he left out the biggest thing already done - Trump's tax cut and massive gift to the top 1% and corporations. That surpasses all of the candidates running for the nomination, yet was never mentioned. I wonder why?
I thought this video was completely disingenuous and filled with misinformation and disinformation. This required way more detail as there are many positive outcomes as a result of the suggested spending. Conversely, all those positive outcomes that Trump promised with his tax cuts has proven to be bogus and nothing but a huge transfer of wealth from the middle class and poor to the top earners in the nation. Outcomes of spending is way more important than total numbers. Right now this government spends like a drunken sailor and the only ones who benefit are the rich and corporations. Its time for the middle class to get a break, and it will only come with big spending. See FDR and Eisenhower for examples.
We need better politicians, but we mostly need better media. The journalism in this country has gone to #### because facts and context don't matter anymore.
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There are really three primary areas of spending that democrats are aimed at at the moment.
1. Measures related to climate change. Just about every policy "climate change plan" put forward by the democratic candidates, other than Biden's and Klobuchar's proposals, are extravagantly expensive... But the justification is that failing to address the issue is going to be considerably more expensive going forward. The correct follow up question is, how does this address the issue. If, for example, you're talking about building infrastructure for coastal cities to diminish property damage when the next big storm inevitably hits, and the one after that and the one after that, that seems like a good investment, because the cost of those improvements now is likely more than offset by the savings later. If you're subsidizing the production of solar cells, the benefits are far more speculative.
2. Education - Depends what you want to do with it. If you're just promising free college, well, that doesn't accomplish very much. A significant number of graduates don't work in their field of study, even though they would like to. It'd be nice if more candidates recognized this and instead of simplistically saying "everyone should get to go to college", focus more of their policy prescriptions on things like technical or vocational training aimed at the economy as it's likely to look over the next few decades. The cost of post-secondary needs to be reigned in, but I think it's actually a matter of tuition needing to come down rather than the government paying the currently inflated cost.
But on the student loan debt forgiveness thing... I'm not sure why anyone complains about that. If you're going to spend government money on anything - and especially a bailout - it's clearly best targeted at people who will actually spend their suddenly-increased disposable income on things that will actually cycle through the economy and create a few jobs, rather than on passive investments. Forgiving student loan debt is a pretty solid economic stimulus. And the debt servicing payments that are being made currently have no economic value to anyone.
3. Health Care. This one's the most baffling... whether you want medicare for all or a public option, for some reason, this is looked at as prohibitively expensive. Realistically, the United States populace pays considerably more for health care now, per capita, because the system is deliberately designed to drive up costs. The incentive is to make treatment as expensive as possible, as it's currently designed, and competitive pressure isn't really having much of an effect. Either demolishing and replacing that system (Medicare for All) or creating a public option whose sole purpose is to give people good treatment for a lower cost (Public Option) are obviously preferable to the status quo, which, again, is ludicrously costly. The democratic proposals, in the long run, will save health care costs.
Basically, the "everyone gets free stuff" analysis is too simplistic. Some policies might look like just buying votes, but you actually have to see what the long-term economic benefit is to determine whether or not it's money well spent.
NOTE: building a gigantic border wall is the quintessential example of money not well spent.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Here's my take on your bit about education. Haven't read the rest yet but will do so later.
Quote:
Originally Posted by New Era
Education - Manufacturing jobs are not coming back. This directly impacts the middle class and their ability to contribute to consumer economy that has developed. New skills and new jobs are required to keep the middle class healthy. To address this and continue to maintain any economic edge the United States still has it will be in the research and development areas and where intellectual property is created. This requires an educated workforce and a lot of specialization. Without access to education the middle class will continue to shrink and the economy become that much weaker. Without the investment in education, and making education inexpensive or free, the United States will continue to see the economy weaken and ultimately crash.
Eliminating student debt is a heavy lift, but it is actually cheaper than the tax cuts Trump just gave the rich. The benefit is the middle class gets an immediate boost to their disposable income, meaning more spending and more demand for goods and services - more homes, more cars, more appliances, etc. Since blue collar jobs are directly linked to spending this raises that segment of the economy as well. This also opens up the possibility for many more people to go to school and get the education they need to improve their lives.
This is where education is a real game changer to the state of the entire nation. Education is not just about learning facts and figures or getting some training to twist a screw. It's about changing people and opening their minds to new ideas and ways of thinking. It is about experiencing things and people in ways you had never imagined before, and breaking down stereotypes. The common refrain in education circles is that education changes lives. Yes, it does. But more importantly, it changes entire communities. When you lift up one family through the opportunity education provides there is a ripple effect. It lifts the others who have relationships with that student and their family. It drives those others to change as well. The entire community is affected, and positively. This is why access to education is so important, as it is a change agent and means to transform communities as a whole. This is a worthwhile investment and has potential for massive returns in the long run.
I have quite a few issues with the opinions that you have stated above. In no particular order, here they are:
- I am 32 and graduated back in 2010 in Ontario. Perhaps things in Ontario are different than in the US. Perhaps I live in a sheltered middle-class bubble. With those possibilities acknowledged, I can't think of a single person that I grew up with that was unable to attend post-secondary education because it cost too much. I know many of them were unable to afford it outright, which required them to get student loans, but if they were accepted into university, they managed to get that loan. Poor grades were much more prohibitive to attending post-secondary education than poor finances. So who are these people that want to attend university and are getting turned down for student loans? How many more individuals will be able to attend post secondary education if it were free? Since you are here extolling the virtues of free tuition, I am sure you have this answer, so if you could share it with me, it would be appreciated.
- Simply attending university does not guarantee one a better living. No doubt you could post statistics that demonstrate that university grads earn more than non-university grads, but that does not speak to the earning power of someone that obtained a degree in something that has little value in the job market. Some of the most visible Sanders supporters are recent grads that are unable to earn a decent living and pay off their student loans. While free tuition would release them of the burden of paying their debt, it would not change their position in the job market.
- Many people attend university when, if they were acting in the best interests of their personal finances, probably wouldn't. Taking courses that you find to be interesting but possess virtually no transferable value in the job market will not serve you well. For some, university is a period of 4 years of self-discovery and fun that is not particularly concerned with coming out on track for a high earning career. Even with the weight of heavy tuition costs, these people still exist. Perhaps these are people that come from well off families that can afford to pay for their own education. Do you think that by removing all financial skin in the game that people would be more or less likely to take their education seriously?
- I would be very interested to see what the correlation is between the cost of post secondary education and the level of government financial assistance with tuition. It would make sense to me that as government sponsored loans become more available, the cost of tuition would also increase, no? What happens when tuition is paid for entirely by the government? What stops universities from raising the cost of tuition? Would that be regulated too? Surely you understand the economic implications from enacting price ceilings?
- Certainly there is need for education, but all types of education are not equally needed. If you are obtaining an education so that you can work in a field where it would be nearly impossible for you to pay off the loan that you took to get that education, I would say that would be a poor financial decision. At that point, I don't understand why the government should be actively encouraging this kind of poor financial decision making. Alternatively, if government got out of the business of guaranteeing student loans, people would have to get regular loans from a bank. Banks would only give such loans to those that are pursuing an education that will allow them to get a job well paying enough to pay back the loan. This would naturally lead to much fewer student loans, but it would also force the costs of tuition to come down, making it less financially prohibitive. If we want the cost of tuition to fall and for people to engage in more meaningful education that has higher value to the economy, it seems to be that the government should be less involved, not more.
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H
I am 32 and graduated back in 2010 in Ontario. Perhaps things in Ontario are different than in the US. Perhaps I live in a sheltered middle-class bubble. With those possibilities acknowledged, I can't think of a single person that I grew up with that was unable to attend post-secondary education because it cost too much. I know many of them were unable to afford it outright, which required them to get student loans, but if they were accepted into university, they managed to get that loan. Poor grades were much more prohibitive to attending post-secondary education than poor finances. So who are these people that want to attend university and are getting turned down for student loans? How many more individuals will be able to attend post secondary education if it were free? Since you are here extolling the virtues of free tuition, I am sure you have this answer, so if you could share it with me, it would be appreciated.
It's definitely the bolded, but also tuition costs in the U.S. are much higher than those in Canada.
It's not the bolded. It's definitely the "in Ontario". The highest tuition I could find in Ontario was $11000 a year, but on average it seems to cap out around $7000. Average in the US in state public school is $20k a year. Private is over $40k.
It's not the bolded. It's definitely the "in Ontario". The highest tuition I could find in Ontario was $11000 a year, but on average it seems to cap out around $7000. Average in the US in state public school is $20k a year. Private is over $40k.
I meant the whole "I can't think of a single person I grew up with who couldn't afford university" statement was likely a product of his middle-class bubble.
EDIT: When considering the cost of university, you have to consider more factors than just tuition. For instance, not everyone has the ability to live at home, rent-free, while they attend university.
I meant the whole "I can't think of a single person I grew up with who couldn't afford university" statement was likely a product of his middle-class bubble.
EDIT: When considering the cost of university, you have to consider more factors than just tuition. For instance, not everyone has the ability to live at home, rent-free, while they attend university.
That's not really a class thing in Canada though. Almost everyone can afford University in Canada. U of C with books is 6K a year. That legitimately is the "I worked my way through college part time" meme as reality.
edit: it's actually $7k a year. Tougher, still within reason. I didn't see your edit and it yet it was there when I hit quote, but yes, not everyone has the option to live at home.
That's not really a class thing in Canada though. Almost everyone can afford University in Canada. U of C with books is 6K a year. That legitimately is the "I worked my way through college part time" meme as reality.
edit: it's actually $7k a year. Tougher, still within reason. I didn't see your edit and it yet it was there when I hit quote, but yes, not everyone has the option to live at home.
I think regional disparities also need to be taken into consideration, too. A kid who grows up in a single-parent household, with 1 or more siblings, in Victoria or Vancouver, and can't live at home is going to have a harder time affording university even with student loans than someone in Alberta or Ontario.
I know the common response to this is "wElL ThEy sHoUlD jUsT mOvE," but moving to a new city costs money, too.
Nobody wants to tackle Ark2's questions about what we expect to be achieved by just putting more people through college?
Education is one of those mom and apple pie subjects that we just treat as an unquestionable good. More education is better - period. There seems to be an assumption that if 70 per cent of people got a college degree, then those people would all just march out with degrees in their hands and into white-collar jobs and the middle class.
Few people seem interested in even basic questions, like what fields of education we have labour shortfalls in. Or what happens to the compensation in a field when you dramatically increase the number of qualified graduates entering it. Or, as Ark2 asks, what you can expect to happen to the cost of tuition if the people paying it have little or no incentive to keep costs down. Or how much student debt is a consequence of getting a degree with poor job prospects.
The post-secondary sector can't be expected to be honest about this stuff. Their ideal world is one where 100 per cent of young adults attends university for 4-6 years, most study psychology or political science or whatever is cheapest to teach, and the government handsomely subsidizes it all. Why would they care about the labour market, or what happens after graduation?
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Here's my take on your bit about education. Haven't read the rest yet but will do so later.
Looking forward to it. Seriously.
Quote:
I have quite a few issues with the opinions that you have stated above. In no particular order, here they are:
- I am 32 and graduated back in 2010 in Ontario. Perhaps things in Ontario are different than in the US. Perhaps I live in a sheltered middle-class bubble. With those possibilities acknowledged, I can't think of a single person that I grew up with that was unable to attend post-secondary education because it cost too much. I know many of them were unable to afford it outright, which required them to get student loans, but if they were accepted into university, they managed to get that loan. Poor grades were much more prohibitive to attending post-secondary education than poor finances. So who are these people that want to attend university and are getting turned down for student loans? How many more individuals will be able to attend post secondary education if it were free? Since you are here extolling the virtues of free tuition, I am sure you have this answer, so if you could share it with me, it would be appreciated.
Fair comments, and written from the Canadian perspective. Here's a little more detail that may allow you to understand the challenges. The average cost per credit hour to attend a major university in the USA is $594. That put the average degree at a cost of just under $72K. Here in the desert, that cost is slightly lower with the costs being between $495 and $550 per credit hour. Not much of a savings, but every little bit helps. A little bit different than the cost of education in Canada.
I work in higher ed and I know thousands of students who have not been able to afford to go to university and had to op to got to a community college first (credit hours as low as $100). I know just as many that couldn't afford to do that because they couldn't get funding. On top of that, loans and grants are only good if you are a good student and don't have life happen along the way. The second you withdraw or fail a class is the second your funding goes away. Then you are stuck with student loan debt you can never get out from under, and don't have anything to show for it. It's a very big problem that needs to be addressed.
Now, who are these people? People from all walks of life. People that had good jobs but have seen them outsourced or eliminated and need to go back to school to get back into the workforce. There are all sorts of students coming out of high school who cannot qualify for loans or grants and the scholarships are not covering much. When you have a scholarship that covers $1-2K, that leaves a massive amount of cost the student has to bear themselves. It is not practical.
How many people would take advantage of more education if they had a chance? Probably another 20-30% of high school graduates. That is what our embedded advisers are tell us anyways. It varies from community-to-community, and mostly on ethnic lines, but those numbers are a fair estimation.
Quote:
- Simply attending university does not guarantee one a better living. No doubt you could post statistics that demonstrate that university grads earn more than non-university grads, but that does not speak to the earning power of someone that obtained a degree in something that has little value in the job market. Some of the most visible Sanders supporters are recent grads that are unable to earn a decent living and pay off their student loans. While free tuition would release them of the burden of paying their debt, it would not change their position in the job market.
Going to university offers a chance to change perspectives and see the world through a completely different lens. You learns new ways of looking at things and the way systems work. To say that going to university is life changing is a gross understatement for students from low economic means. A university degree opens doors. You may not understand that because you already have that key, because of your education, but people who do not struggle to get through those same doors you already have opened and take for granted. And yes, a university degree does change your position in the job market.
Quote:
- Many people attend university when, if they were acting in the best interests of their personal finances, probably wouldn't. Taking courses that you find to be interesting but possess virtually no transferable value in the job market will not serve you well. For some, university is a period of 4 years of self-discovery and fun that is not particularly concerned with coming out on track for a high earning career. Even with the weight of heavy tuition costs, these people still exist. Perhaps these are people that come from well off families that can afford to pay for their own education. Do you think that by removing all financial skin in the game that people would be more or less likely to take their education seriously?
For most, especially those coming from low economic means, going to school is a means to getting out of their current situation. They take it very seriously. The vast majority of students do. Schools that have the "party school" label are falling by the wayside. ASU, once the top party school in the country, now is recognized as being one of the top innovators and best public schools to attend. Dr. Crow has changed the school for the good, and now you require a 3.4 GPA to get a sniff of attending and staying at school. Not a place you go to enjoy your weekend "ragers".
Quote:
- I would be very interested to see what the correlation is between the cost of post secondary education and the level of government financial assistance with tuition. It would make sense to me that as government sponsored loans become more available, the cost of tuition would also increase, no? What happens when tuition is paid for entirely by the government? What stops universities from raising the cost of tuition? Would that be regulated too? Surely you understand the economic implications from enacting price ceilings?
That has actually been the result. The government has not regulated it as needed, so yes, that is a problem. Ironic that now regulation is considered a good thing? And yes, I understand the idea of ceilings.
Quote:
- Certainly there is need for education, but all types of education are not equally needed. If you are obtaining an education so that you can work in a field where it would be nearly impossible for you to pay off the loan that you took to get that education, I would say that would be a poor financial decision. At that point, I don't understand why the government should be actively encouraging this kind of poor financial decision making. Alternatively, if government got out of the business of guaranteeing student loans, people would have to get regular loans from a bank. Banks would only give such loans to those that are pursuing an education that will allow them to get a job well paying enough to pay back the loan. This would naturally lead to much fewer student loans, but it would also force the costs of tuition to come down, making it less financially prohibitive. If we want the cost of tuition to fall and for people to engage in more meaningful education that has higher value to the economy, it seems to be that the government should be less involved, not more.
Banks would never take on this type of risk. A bank's job is to make money, not do what is right for society or its customers. That would be a terrible way to conduct business as the only ones who would qualify for the loans would be the annoying rich white kids who go to school to party. A gross overstatement of the quality of individual, but it would only allow for those with the collateral to get the money to attend. And while you may not agree that a degree in philosophy or religious studies amounts to a helluva lot, those with those degrees would likely disagree. Education opens most minds, and that is the benefit of any degree - philosophy, religious studies, psychology, economics, engineering, or political science - it allows people to think about bigger issues in new and different ways, which benefits all people. Because this is an issue that has great potential to alter society and change the very fabric of the nation, the government is the only institution capable of taking on such a huge task. No private institution could do so without ####ing it up, as we have seen with the economy and healthcare in the United States.
There are really three primary areas of spending that democrats are aimed at at the moment.
1. Measures related to climate change. Just about every policy "climate change plan" put forward by the democratic candidates, other than Biden's and Klobuchar's proposals, are extravagantly expensive... But the justification is that failing to address the issue is going to be considerably more expensive going forward. The correct follow up question is, how does this address the issue. If, for example, you're talking about building infrastructure for coastal cities to diminish property damage when the next big storm inevitably hits, and the one after that and the one after that, that seems like a good investment, because the cost of those improvements now is likely more than offset by the savings later. If you're subsidizing the production of solar cells, the benefits are far more speculative.
2. Education - Depends what you want to do with it. If you're just promising free college, well, that doesn't accomplish very much. A significant number of graduates don't work in their field of study, even though they would like to. It'd be nice if more candidates recognized this and instead of simplistically saying "everyone should get to go to college", focus more of their policy prescriptions on things like technical or vocational training aimed at the economy as it's likely to look over the next few decades. The cost of post-secondary needs to be reigned in, but I think it's actually a matter of tuition needing to come down rather than the government paying the currently inflated cost.
But on the student loan debt forgiveness thing... I'm not sure why anyone complains about that. If you're going to spend government money on anything - and especially a bailout - it's clearly best targeted at people who will actually spend their suddenly-increased disposable income on things that will actually cycle through the economy and create a few jobs, rather than on passive investments. Forgiving student loan debt is a pretty solid economic stimulus. And the debt servicing payments that are being made currently have no economic value to anyone.
3. Health Care. This one's the most baffling... whether you want medicare for all or a public option, for some reason, this is looked at as prohibitively expensive. Realistically, the United States populace pays considerably more for health care now, per capita, because the system is deliberately designed to drive up costs. The incentive is to make treatment as expensive as possible, as it's currently designed, and competitive pressure isn't really having much of an effect. Either demolishing and replacing that system (Medicare for All) or creating a public option whose sole purpose is to give people good treatment for a lower cost (Public Option) are obviously preferable to the status quo, which, again, is ludicrously costly. The democratic proposals, in the long run, will save health care costs.
Basically, the "everyone gets free stuff" analysis is too simplistic. Some policies might look like just buying votes, but you actually have to see what the long-term economic benefit is to determine whether or not it's money well spent.
NOTE: building a gigantic border wall is the quintessential example of money not well spent.
If the government is going to spend a couple of billion (or trillion) dollars on something, I'd much prefer it be spent on national health care than on anything else in your list.
Simply because everyone uses and needs health care.
Free college is a non-starter for me.
First, not everyone would truly benefit from it, in the sense that there are plenty of people who should pay for college (whether because they can certainly afford to do so, or because having some skin in the game incentivizes better outcomes). Second, I'm not seeing how free college would reduce economic inequality.
Student loan forgiveness is something I'm very much on the fence about.
There are many (like me) who took out rather large loans and then paid them back, living below one's means while doing so. Wasn't fun, but that was the deal that was made. So there is a bit of "I did it, so can you" and "where was my bailout" to the issue.
Also, why should Johnny Richpants get his student loans forgiven? (True story: when attending law school, a fellow student, the daughter of the governor, was also on student loans. I don't believe for a second that her family couldn't have paid the law school tuition out of pocket).
Additionally, why forgive student loans for those students who, well, let's face it, didn't do particularly well in college?
Lastly, I'm not seeing how student loan forgiveness would be much more than a one-time economic stimulus and could very well result in housing inflation (money that would have gone to student loan payments would now go to housing payments)---for those who diligently paid off their student loans and are just now trying to buy a house, having housing prices go up even further would be, um, annoying.
Spending money on climate change initiatives? Yeah, that is a complete no for me.
I'm kind of out on Warren at this point, but I like her proposal of eliminating "Right to Work" laws, and it's something that should resonate with blue-collar Democrats.
It's not the bolded. It's definitely the "in Ontario". The highest tuition I could find in Ontario was $11000 a year, but on average it seems to cap out around $7000. Average in the US in state public school is $20k a year. Private is over $40k.
Average public in state tuition is $9970 in the US. The 20k you are saying is a total cost including room and board.
I don't know about other states, but the public community colleges in VA are run quite well and provide a very good option for the first 2 years for about $3000/year and kids can usually continue to live at home as most cities and suburbs have a community college.
There are far more grants and needs based scholarships than Canada has as well.
I don't think the difference is nearly as large between Canada and the US in this area as others make it out to be. One of the larger factors is that more people have to pay for housing as a lot of University's of choice are in small college towns. But I question whether going to those schools really provides that much better of an education (especially for the first couple years) than in town options and are more about parents being able to boast on Facebook.
Some tweaks to the current system to make it more affordable would be good. I know the financial assistance is a nightmare to navigate through, and it doesn't always seem fair to tie aid to parent's income as some parents don't pay for their kid's college and are under no obligation to do so. Also in many divorced and re-married families, it might disqualify kids because of a step parent or birth parent that may not have much to do with that kid.
As far as free for everyone, I really don't like that idea at all. There are plenty of ways to become worldly without going to college if that isn't your thing. Some of the more interesting people I know skipped college to live abroad and then came home and started successful businesses. I know many successful people in the tech sector who skipped out on college to learn their craft in other means. And plenty of people would be much happier and more successful to invest in learning a trade. There is a huge range in what people get out of their college experience. I don't know that getting drunk for 4 years, hanging out at frat parties and scraping your way through classes you hate is the most beneficial way to spend public money in some cases.
As far as free for everyone, I really don't like that idea at all. There are plenty of ways to become worldly without going to college if that isn't your thing.
Okay, but if college is your thing for legitimate reasons, the cost of college shouldn't be a barrier.
Quote:
Some of the more interesting people I know skipped college to live abroad and then came home and started successful businesses. I know many successful people in the tech sector who skipped out on college to learn their craft in other means. And plenty of people would be much happier and more successful to invest in learning a trade. There is a huge range in what people get out of their college experience. I don't know that getting drunk for 4 years, hanging out at frat parties and scraping your way through classes you hate is the most beneficial way to spend public money in some cases.
This entire paragraphs is a mess of anecdotal evidence and pure speculation.
