Bill Clinton: People like me and Hillary can afford to go to college. The govt can't help everyone.

[Skwmom]

Yes, you and Hillary can Bill, but lots of Americans can't. (And does anyone think their grandchildren will go to a public college or university? Chelsea didn't so she would not have been covered under Bernie's plan.)

---------
Without mentioning Mr. Sanders by name, Mr. Clinton dismissed one of his main campaign pledges, to provide free college tuition for all. “She does not agree that tuition should be free for everybody,” he said of his wife. “People like me and Hillary can afford to go to college. The government can’t help everyone. We should have money to put into jobs and infrastructure.”

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/01/22/faint-praise-for-bernie-sanders-from-bill-clinton-his-slogans-are-easier-to-say/

So we can't help everyone...

BUT OUR GOVT CAN HELP BILLIONAIRES ACCUMULATE OBSCENE AMOUNTS OF WEALTH

Just one example of how our govt helps billionaires:

George Soros has a long record of avoiding paying taxes, while undermining political regimes. But he is not alone in avoiding taxes. Bankers Anonymous outlines how the game is played.

“A manager with Soros’s track record who started with $12 million from investors, took 20 percent of the profits, and reinvested that money tax-free over 40 years, would end up with $15.9 billion. If that same manager paid federal, state, and local taxes on the fees and related investment gains before reinvesting them, the figure would shrink to $2.4 billion…”

(Will he and the other billionaires ever pay their deferred tax bill?)

Congress closed the loophole in 2008 and ordered hedge fund managers who used it to pay the accumulated taxes by 2017. A New York-based money manager such as Soros would be subject to a federal rate of 39.6 percent, combined state and city levies totaling 12 percent, and an additional 3.8 percent tax on investment income to pay for Obamacare, according to Andrew Needham, a tax partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. Applying those rates to Soros’s deferred income would create a tax bill of $6.7 billion.”

Note that the deadline for payment is 2017, just after the next election. Image the next puppet taking office using an executive order to further delay or water down the actual collection of the Soros tax obligation. It should be self-evident that the weight of Wall Street influence will be enormous in the 2016 Presidential coronation.

http://www.silverdoctors.com/george-soros-6-7-billion-tax-bill/

[Politicalboi]

1. How can people here support the

We got "ours" camp? Tough shit for everyone else, and please vote for his wife.

Where's Monica?

[Skwmom]

3. What we are doing to the youth of this country is unconscionable. n/t

[CorporatistNation]

2. ALL THE MORE REASON FOR THOSE TRANSCRIPTS TO BE RELEASED EH?

[tk2kewl]

4. sounds a lot like Mitt

"Everyone should get as much education as they can afford."

[oldandhappy]

5. no problem, we can export our best ones

There are a dozen countries where students do not pay and Americans are welcome to attend classes in English. Well educated and now bilingual young people will be highly valued in other places.

[stevenleser]

7. Great, except you totally misinterpreted what he said.

He said that he and Hillary can afford it so the government shouldn't pay for people that can afford it, i.e. it shouldnt be free for everyone meaning those who can afford it.

[Skwmom]

9. So she is for free college know? Hmm.. I thought she was still against it.

[stevenleser]

17. Shes not for free college for everyone. That's what Bill was just saying.

[Skwmom]

23. So she is for free college for everyone except the families of the 1% like her and Bill?

[Gregorian]

10. I actually thought that's what they meant. I still don't like it though.

And for the same reason I don't like insurance versus just covering everyone in America.

[stevenleser]

18. We can disagree about that. But that's far from the context implied by the OP. nt

[hlthe2b]

12. That is how I read it too... very much like saying we need to preserve social security/medicare for

all who should and need to receive it by making sure the ultra rich can't duck under the maximum taxable earnings loophole, nor collect benefits they don't need.

I wish we were not at that point where so few on DU are willing to look for context before drawing conclusions....

[kristopher]

13. So you want it to be a hand-out rather than a right? Right?

Do you honestly think that people in the top 1/10th of 1% economically are going to compete for paid tuition at a public university?

Seriously?

Engage brain before fingers.

[Gregorian]

15. Hand-out versus a right.

I like that.

It's simple, yet deceptively powerful.

[stevenleser]

16. You're the one who needs to engage your thinking processes. The rich dont send their kids to public

universities. End of story.

[kristopher]

19. I used to have a dog that chased her tail like that.

Made me laugh almost as much as your spinning is doing.

[stevenleser]

20. Fortunately all the facts are on my side. You should have done something to help your dog. nt

[kristopher]

21. Seriously, are you OK?

Or do you always just make things up as you go along?

ETA: I put my remark in a box to offer you a chance to explain how you think this exchange has proceeded. I honestly see you going off the rails, so help me understand what your point is. OK?

[Gregorian]

8. When we pay a half trillion dollars per year, the public ends up with indebted, sick society.

Any time people start telling me there isn't enough money, I remind them there isn't enough love. To think that we throw our money down a military toilet, and then expect to have a healthy society. There's your elephant. Weakness and fear. Toss in some hate from the likes of republicans in Congress.

There's money, and we can do it.

[kristopher]

14. Well said. nt

[Beowulf]

11. How many rich people send their kids to public colleges and universities?

Bernie's plan doesn't include free tuition for Stanford, Yale, Georgetown, Williams, Wellesley. The schools rich people send their kids to won't get a dime from this program.

They want this treated as a welfare program to be means tested, not a right for every American. And you know that's also how they view Social Security and Medicare.

[dr60omg]

22. The former president must be suffering from a bit of a brain drain

For those of us who could not afford to go to school at private colleges or universities we were the second generation (after our parents who were educated because of the GI Bill etc) at state universities (or city colleges). Schools that were free or practically free. When I was in college the University of California system was FREE in Florida we paid 125 dollars a semester (in the 1970's) ... My husband paid 600 dollars a year for medical school. I paid a little more for graduate school.

An education like health care should be a right for all people. It should also permit people to go to school without having to drown in debt for the rest of their lives ... but thanks to neoliberal games on Wall Street it seems that young people graduate with an impossible amount of debt and they are drowning.