We could save some money by doing away with public education entirely, but shortly after this country was founded, we as a nation made an almost unique commitment to providing free public education (Imposed on people! With taxes!), and the result has been by far the most productive, innovative society the world has ever seen. It's the best investment the world has ever seen, but certainly there is an upfront cost.

Wouldn't you have been annoyed from the get go, since you were paying for something in 2016, that a 1st term congressperson, in a sparsely populated area gets for almost zip?

Or, how about me? Retired military. I'd pay next to nothing, even in a private hospital with Tri-Care. Monthly premium: $23.16 for me & $23.16 for my wife. $46.32 total.

Sorry to ruin your day.

What's fair? - Everyone on the same level playing field.

My question was directed at someone who expressed a preference against free college education on the grounds that they'd paid for theirs. I am in favour of free college education and universal health care.

I'm glad that you and your family get good coverage cheaply. I'd prefer it to be free for you, along with everyone else.

Who would rack up 250K in debt and expect the taxpayer to pay for it. The endowments can pay 100% of the tuition of Harvard and dozens of schools.

The schools if the government is going to pay for it will all suddenly, double their rates. To help kids and society of course.

http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/colleg...blic-colleges/

Here is a list of schools and none of them have 50K in average debt on graduation. The right is right, you don't need debt just put an extra 10% tax on graduates that accept education money.

K-12 the kids are not allowed to work. Thus, there is a reason why their education is free. However, in 1920 is was a privilege to get to go to high school. Did it help poverty? Probably not.

In the 1920's, did a middle class worker need a H.S. education to perform the tasks of the average job available to them?

A little more detail for people who like to imagine that big revenue is going to come from taxes on billionaires and corporations. Here's a chart (source) that breaks down the tax changes proposed by Sanders to pay for universal healthcare and his other policy priorities. Spoiler alert, it involves massive tax hikes up and down the line!

When did Dr Modern transition from posting walls of intellectually heavy text to embarrassing drivel like this?

For basic fairness, this should at least account for private health insurance savings.

Someone in the 75k range probably pays way more for private health insurance than those 9% increase, so they actually end up with more money to spend.

Ya, Sanders was pretty clear about this in the last town hall he did. This isn't a big shocking reveal imo.

You seem to have misunderstood the point of the chart, and spewed out a programmed talking point like the Rubot. The clearly stated point was that big tax hikes on billionaires are not where significant amounts of revenue come from. They come from huge tax hikes on the rich and moderate tax hikes on the middle class.

This chart is both purposefully misleading and categorically untrue. For one, payroll tax is paid by the employer, not you.

My point, of course, was that if you support a publicly-funded universal basic income, there's no reason to oppose publicly-funded higher education, or efforts to reconstruct the cost of college. Or are you arguing that cash transfers are the only morally acceptable form of redistribution? Further, as chezlaw pointed out, your attitude of "I paid, therefore you should pay, too" is part of a broader psychological tendency that has a very real (and negative) effect on policy outcomes. I was making fun of you for clinging to this need to see others punished as you were punished, saying that others could pointlessly obstruct the passage of a universal basic income on similar grounds to those you're invoking to defend your right not to be taxed for other people's college costs.

Why is the range of policy options here limited to the Sanders plan?

I was commenting on your "Spoiler alert, it involves massive tax hikes up and down the line!", because that made it seem like mid/lower incomes would be worse off, when that clearly isn't the case.

The payroll tax is roughly half employee half employer. Furthermore, characterizing the forced extra cost to employ you as not a cost to the employee is really dumb. If anything, the cart understates how much payroll tax you're paying.

Go to a school where you can complete a year of co-op work for income.

For instance my student debt in ontario looked like this:

15k per year

3 years of schooling = 45k

1 full year of work making 70k/yr.

Paid off over half.

Owe 20k after I'm done


Other places here (Waterloo) you come out having made money. Waterloo has a 4 month study term and then a 4 month work term, repeating. Lot's of students work for companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, etc.

It's up to you to make sure you're not surmounting crazy amounts of debt. There's smart ways to accomplish things and in the end you live a better and happier life than someone who hasn't gone to school at all, even if you owe money.

Unsubbing, btw.

I think it makes it seem like there would be massive tax hikes on people of all incomes, which is quite clearly true.

It's not, but the Sanders plan is an example of what a very progressive politician is forced to do with taxes to create big increases in revenues. Do you think he could have funded his policies solely by taxing billionaires and corporations, but just decided not to?

Note how I didn't claim that your comment was wrong in any way, it just isn't particularly balanced.

The article is double counting stuff.

forced taxes for employing you are taxes on the employee. Sorry bro. It's not magic money, it's largely coming from your theoretical paycheck.

They're not double-counting anything. The idea that employer-side payroll taxes aren't borne by the employee is silly. I'm not sure why they are so excited about the 2.2% income-based premium being treated as an income tax rather than a payroll tax. I had assumed that the premium would be based on net income rather than gross wages. Is this not true?

Well you did so very poorly by failing recognize how a benefit given to every single person (but intrinsically more helpful to poors and students) is very different than a benefit given to small portion of people (and a well off portion at that).

Basically your attempted sarcastic zinger was awful because it was used in a place that didn't apply.

oh and josh, I used to be self-employed. Guess what happens when you're self-employed wrt payroll taxes?

I support free college and grad school for anyone who's increased future contributions to society from getting an advanced degree are greater than the cost of the schooling in today's dollars. However, a program that provides free college to anyone who wants it is not the answer. Additionally, if you're going to offer free college you need to make sure that extends to all universities and not just public ones as the private schools will be better fits for many kids.

That's pretty impossible to determine tho isn't it?