I had an interesting comment thread with a couple of Bernie folks today. I am a reader of this website, not a poster so I thought I would take a stab at it.
One of my favorite quotes is by Socrates:
“Let us examine this question together ... And if you can contradict anything that I say, do so, and I shall be persuaded.”
I wish that our country was able to approach politics in this manner, more willing to work together to find the best solution and willing to bend our own ideas to meet those who have shown us a new way to view an issue.
Today I stated in a thread that I was opposed to three Bernie Sanders campaign pledges, single payer health care, tax payer funded 4 year university education and higher taxes on the middle class. For this post I will focus on tax payer funded 4 year higher education for anyone interested and why I am opposed to this idea. I choose this idea because a couple of website members attacked me in what I felt was an ad hominum attack because I am opposed this idea.
Their argument was this, if I did not agree with Bernie Sanders that we should fund higher education with tax money it was because I was either uniformed or informed but not intelligent enough to see why they are correct or because I was wealthy enough to afford it and thus opposed on selfish grounds. I asked them if it was possible we as Democrats could disagree and both be reasonable? They did not seem to think so.
The fact is I have thought about this issue very deeply and have decided Bernie Sander’s “free college” idea is simply not a practical solution to a valid problem defined as “college tuition is too expensive”.
Here are some problems with tax payer funded college and I will lay these out as hypothetical situations that may occur once his plan is implemented.
1) A student changes her major mid stream and requires additional time to complete her degree. Will this additional time be paid for? If so how much additional time? If not, why not? Does the student lose the ability to change majors that would require more time? If a student that can afford tuition without public money then have an unequal advantage over the student who cannot pay for extra time? I don’t know the answer to this and Bernie never address this.
2) A student flunks out of school because she is medically depressed. Will she be able to return once she is able to function enough to complete her course work? What if the depression was not diagnosed at the time she flunked out? Will she be allowed to be diagnosed post leaving and then return? If not, why not? Are we going to punish people suffering from depression by taking away their opportunity at a higher education? What if the student cannot afford the medical care needed to cure the depression?
3) A student become pregnant and her and the father decide to take time off from school to take of the child. How much time off will they be allowed? 6 weeks? 1 year? 5 years? Undefined?
4) A student has a family issue that requires her to leave school. Can she go back after it is resolved?
5) A student flunks out because she is just drinking and partying the whole time. Is there a penalty for that? If there is how will it be defined?
If these sorts of legal contingencies have been addressed in a meaningful way by Bernie Sanders please let me know and I will be convinced.
My belief is low interest loans combined with increased Pell Grants and scholarships could accomplish the same goal while not having the government absorb the legal contingencies associated with a new tax funded benefit.
I hope this shows some Bernie Sanders supporters that other Democrats can disagree with Bernie Sanders and it’s not because we are thoughtless or uninformed. Furthermore I feel Bernie Sander’s used things like “free college” as a wedge against HRC without being held accountable for the actual practical realities of his ideas. It’s much easier for a politician to offer free stuff that to explain how it will work.