Bernie was out campaigning this weekend. He was blathering all the "fee" stuff like college tuition.
Doesnt that idiot understand NOTHING is free. Someone has to pay. He of course is pandering for votes.
He is a typical democrat, he will raise taxes. The bottom line is he wants to be a fine fellow with YOUR money.
There's a tendency among right-wingers to imagine that it will come as a revelation to people on the left that things like state-financed college education are only "free" in the sense that it doesn't come with any direct charge to the recipient of the benefit. But, of course, that actually comes as a revelation to exactly nobody. When politicians speak of these things as "free," it's just a short-hand way of referencing the topic, not an attempt to deceive anyone. Seriously, try to find yourself ANYONE who imagines these things won't have to be paid for, one way or the other. That's simply not a misapprehension that exists outside the world of right-wing paranoid fantasies.
The strong support a wide section of the American populace shows for things like "free college" isn't based on wrongly expecting these things will have no cost. Rather, it's based on an idea that paying for them by way of government will be both more equitable and cheaper. And, of course, they have a lot of basis for those notions, in light of experience in other wealthy nations where, in fact, more extensive government involvement in things like childcare, higher education, and health care consistently results in lower overall per-capita costs, more equitable distribution of costs across the society, and, at least in the case of health care, better outcomes.
Will taxes go up to pay for these things? Yes, probably. But keep in mind that the US currently pays radically low levels of tax relative to every other major wealthy nation. We could hike total taxes by 10 points, relative to GDP, and we'd still be taxed less than the Germans, the French, Scandinavians, Italians, etc. We could hike them by 5 points and still be taxed less than Brits or Canadians. And 5% of GDP is equal to over a trillion dollars per year. So, yes, we can definitely afford "free" college, healthcare, etc., while still remaining a relatively low-tax nation. And, judging by practical experience, the net result of the higher taxes and lower out-of-pocket expenses will be a large net benefit for the large majority of Americans (e.g., for most, the increased taxes most people would pay to finance Medicare-for-all would be far less than the savings they'd experience on healthcare).
So, why do right-wingers continue to whine about this push for these "free" programs? That's easy: that's what they've been ordered to do. Their handlers at the right-wing propaganda outlets have told them to be very upset about these things, and they do what they're told. And why do the right-wing propaganda outlets oppose them? That's easy, too. The right-wing outlets do what the ultra-wealthy want them to do, and although these "free" programs are a net savings for a large majority of Americans, they're a large net increase in cost for the very rich.
