 Please help me in welcoming Senator Bernie Sanders to the podium. Thank you, Caroline, very much for that generous things reduction. And let me thank all of you for being here and let me thank your officials for putting this together and testing a few day status. Mostly I want to hear from you. We don't have a whole lot of time so I don't want you to be shy. Ask any question that's on your mind or any comment you'd like to make. Let me say a few words as we begin. We'll start off with the bad news, then the good news, and then we'll open it up. I think in politics and in government it's important to be honest with people to tell people where we are as a nation, as a state, or whatever. And the truth is, and I don't think I have to tell you this, I think you already know this, this country has a whole lot of problems. And the goal of course is working together throughout this country that we're going to address those problems. And I think we can, but it's important to lay the problems right down on the table. Or maybe at the top of my list, and this is certainly not a Vermont or an American issue, it's a global issue, is the crisis of global warming. And I know that you all have thought about it, and I expect that many of you are studying it. And what the scientists and people are studying this issue the most are telling us is that we do not get our act together. That's just not America, that's China, that's Russia, that's the entire world. If we do not stop emitting the huge amounts of carbon that we are emitting into the atmosphere right now, the planet that you will be raising your kids in will be a planet that will be increasingly uninhabitable and unlivable. So at the top of my list is transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. And the good news is I think we're raising consciousness on this and we're making some progress. We recently made a largest investment in world history, I think, in terms of solar and wind and energy efficiency, but we have an enormous amount of work to be done in that area. Other areas that concern me, other areas of education, I want to talk about that as well. It's important that you guys for a dozen different reasons, all the reasons that you know, get the best quality education you can regardless of the income of your families. And what I talk about education, that means from childcare through graduate school. And clearly one of the issues that I will be tackling as the chairman of a relevant committee is how we can create a situation where all the kids in this country who have the desire and the ability to get a higher education are able to do that. And right now one of the problems that we have and we're working on it is many young people are leaving school deeply, deeply in debt. So people leaving college 30, 40, 50,000 dollars in debt. If you want to go to medical school, the average debt is 250,000 dollars. Talk to dentists to leave dental school 3,400,000 dollars in debt. That is not acceptable. So one of the issues we have to deal about is how we create a system in which all people regardless of the income can get the best quality education that they need and not leave school deeply in debt. Another issue that we're working very hard on is health care. We are the only major country on earth, many of you don't know this, but the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people as a human right. And the result of that is that health care in this country for a lot of reasons, primarily the greed of the insurance industry, health care in this country is very, very expensive. As a nation we are spending 13,000 dollars for every man, woman and child family of full of 52,000 dollars just on health care, huge expenditure. In fact it's unsustainable. So the challenge there is to have the debate, and I want you to be thinking about it, we'll talk about it in a minute, is health care a human right? Should it be available to all people regardless of their income? And should people have the same right to get health care as you do walking into the school? No one asks you how much money your family makes when you walk into the school, no one cares when you have a lot of money, you don't have anyone. You have the best education, this system can offer you regardless of your income. Many countries treat health care in that respect, we don't. So the issue of health care is an issue that concerns me. Another issue that we have to deal with that is a real problem in this country is some 60% of American workers are living paycheck to paycheck. That means you go out, you do your work, you work 40 or 50 hours a week at the end of the week, you haven't, you don't have any money you can put into the bank. You've got to go out and pay your bills, your housing, your insurance, your child care bills or food bills, you don't have any money saved. Meanwhile we have more income and wealth inequality today than we have ever had in the history of this country. Now you don't see a whole lot of that on TV or in the newspapers and the reasons for that, but you've got three people in America. Three people who own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. Three people who own more wealth than the bottom 160 million Americans. You have more and more concentration of ownership where a handful of large corporations control everything that you interact with. How do we deal with that issue? We have a political system today which is significantly corrupt in the sense that big money can buy elections. So for you and your parents, your parents go out and they have political activities to vote. They vote for the candidates they like and that's great. We'll increase voting turnout. But if you are a billionaire, you can spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in every state in this country on 32nd television ads making sure that the candidate you want gets elected. It's not democracy, I don't think so. So how we create a political system which ordinary people can get the people they want elected rather than billionaires is another issue that we are dealing with. So those are some of the issues that concern you. That's the bad news. Let me tell you about the good news. The good news is that there are a wide variety of reasons. Some good reasons, some not so good. All of you in this room have enormous opportunity, economic opportunity as you look at the future of your career is what you want to do. As a nation, we need more doctors. We need more nurses. We need more dentists. We need more mental health professionals. We need more teachers. We need more postal workers. You name the job that's out there, we need workers meeting you. And I'll give you an example of how serious the problem is. I'm on a committee in Washington in the Senate called Energy and Public Works in Energy. And in that committee, we were able to, working with other senators, bring over $2 billion into the state of Vermont to improve our infrastructure. You know what infrastructure is? Infrastructure, roads, bridges, water systems, wastewater plants, broadband. $2 billion into the state. And if you talk to people in Montpelio, what they will tell you is we don't have the workers today to do the work that needs to be done. We need to rebuild our transportation system in many respects. We need to improve broadband. We need to get solar panels up on rooftops. We need to build wind turbines. And we don't have the workers in this state right now in order to do that. So when we talk about higher education, some of you, I suspect many of you are looking forward to going to college. That's great. We want you to go to college. We want you to get the best education you can. Some of you are good with your hands. And you don't want to go to a four-year college. You want to go to a school where you can learn to be an electrician or a plumber or a carpenter. We desperately need those skills. And in fact, the wages out there for those jobs are extremely good right now. Extremely good. So there are enormous opportunities, and I'd like to talk to you about it and get a sense of where you're coming from, the kind of work you guys are interested in doing, but enormous opportunities out there for you all. All right. Last point that I want to make, I want to open it up on this point. These are, from a mental health perspective, very, very difficult times for our country, and I think countries all over the world. The truth is that in the United States, we've long had serious problems with mental health. We don't have the number of psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors that we need. That's been longstanding. COVID has made it worse, much worse. And it has had a very significant impact on people your age. Your lives have been radically disrupted. I mean, I walk around with a mask, you know, as soon as I leave here I'm going to put this mask on. I don't want to get COVID. All of you have to deal with it. You have to deal with the isolation, not going to school, not socializing, not playing ball, doing theater, doing the things that you would love to do, being with your friends for free, not being with your grandparents. It has had a very significant impact on all of our lives. Nobody in this state, nobody in this country has escaped that. And the debt toll is high. We've lost over a million people, tens of millions of people have been made ill. And the psychological impact of that is significant. So the point that I want to make, and I hope we can discuss it, is if you are struggling right now, or somebody in your family is struggling, do not think you are the only person who is struggling. Millions of people in this country are struggling. And one of the manifestations of that, I hope we can discuss this as well. And it worries me very much when I'm on this committee that's going to deal with these issues. We lost last year over 100,000 people to drug overdoses. And we used to think that years go by, this is a problem for New Jersey, this is a problem for New York. Not a problem for Vermont. We don't have to worry about that wrong. We do have to worry about it. It's impacting our state as much, I don't know as much, but it's impacting our state in a very significant way. Addiction, terribly serious problem. People are turning to drugs in a way that is rather frightening. I was around the state last month and we went to schools and went to police departments. Everybody's, every place you go, people are talking about mental health problems. Because when people feel desperate, when they feel lonely, when they don't have any hope, drugs becomes an alternative. You've got a short time. But I want all of you to know, I don't hear election and you know this stuff already, that things like heroin will end you up in two places, either in jail or dead. And with fentanyl being put into the heroin, I mean it's just an awful, awful situation. So I don't have to give you election, you know this, your parents, your teachers already said that about drugs and all that stuff. But people are turning to those things because of isolation and the way out of it is at least to talk to your friends. I know it's hard, but the point is you are not the only person who we're struggling, your friends are struggling to. And to the degree that we can break through those barriers and talk to each other, we got a shot at not doing crazy things that can ruin our lives. All right, that's my speech. And I'm sticking to it. Let's open it up for questions and comments on any issue. All right, I see somebody right there. Have you got a mic running around? Yeah, we got two. Some of them are on either aisle. Just be loud. Give me a name if you could. My name's Gio. I may not be political. I've been really curious about this. Do you still have your mittens? I do. Has it told me where they are? You don't have to allow me to gain access to them. And you know that they were developed right here as a friend of yours. Did you expect them to blow up? No. Look, I have been in politics for a long time and talking to television cameras is not something that I am unfamiliar with. But I'll tell you what happened. After President Biden's inauguration, I walked back to my office and my press guy said, Senator, something is going on. And then it exploded. My God, yes, I was shocked by the kind of attention that I got. Yes, please stand up. Yes, please stand up. Do you think it's possible for the American government to deal with companies like Nestle and their enslavement of African people in the West Coast? That's an issue some of us have worked on for a long time. Sometimes in the production, it's not just Nestle. We enjoy products sometimes, and we don't know where those products came from. And in fact, I was in Ghana many, many years ago and we had made some progress. It was children producing the chocolate that we eat. So I think there is a growing consciousness about understanding how the product, whether it's a pair of sneakers that you're wearing or the food that you're eating, where is that product manufactured? Who is doing the work? What kind of environmental impact might be happening as a result of us consuming those products? So the answer is I think we are making some progress on that, but we certainly have a long way to go. Okay, I see a young lady right here. Samantha, and I was wondering what the process for transitioning from our capitalist society to a more social instruction in terms of healthcare and university, what's that process and how are we working on that? Well, I got a book that's coming out in a month. Excuse me. Here is the issue, and I know when you use words like capitalism and socialism, people get very nervous. But what I want to tell you about, and we deal with this a little bit in the book, it's important for all of you, and with the internet you have the opportunity. I was just talking to some of your teachers and I gather you're already doing it virtually, you're communicating with kids around the world. Countries, every country in the world does things differently. It's important for us to learn from other countries. There are some things that we do better than other countries. There are other things in other countries that are better than us, for example. Just for example. Some of you will have family and friends in Canada. In Canada, if you developed a serious illness and you needed a major operation and you were in a hospital in Canada, Montreal, for three weeks or a month, and you had all kinds of sophisticated drugs being used to treat you, what is your bill when you leave the hospital? Anyone know? Zero. Because in Canada, they believe that healthcare is a human right. They don't buy in large, with some exceptions. It is a publicly run system, like Medicare is in this country. And they end up providing quality care to all of their people at about half the cost that we spend. So, I am maybe the lead advocate in the U.S. Congress for a Medicare for all. And basically what it does, it gets rid of insurance companies. Because insurance companies function, what's the function of an insurance company? To make money. So, they are the middle guys. Their job is to make as much money as they can by making sure you get less healthcare. They pay their executives, you know, millions of dollars every single year. So, it's a system that is absolutely dysfunctional. Despite spending twice as much per person on healthcare, they've got 85 million Americans who are uninsured or underinsured. So, this is an issue that I believe passionately in. I believe that healthcare is a human right. I want everybody in this room, and your parents, your grandparents, to be able to go to the doctor that they want to go to and not have to take out their credit card or their wallet. And we can do that by saving huge amounts of money by getting rid of hard insurance companies whose only function is to make as much money as they possibly can. Okay, I see a question right here in the middle. Can we get a mic? Oh, he's looking at his phone. This is going to be a hard question. So, obviously our country has experienced high inflation recently. Do you think that even in the situation of high inflation that we've experienced, social security benefits should be increased? Yeah, okay. Good question. Excellent question. We are experiencing a high inflation rates. Is inflation strictly an American issue? Only a few have been declared to our country. No, it's worse in many other countries around the world. Generally speaking, the causes of inflation are COVID and the breakdown of supply chains. So the companies might not even get the products, the components that they need to make the products that they sell. The war in Ukraine brushes terrible invasion of Ukraine's hyped up energy prices. And the other part of it, which I talk about a lot, doesn't get all that much discussion, is what I would call corporate greed. So if you look at the price of gas, which has gone down, but if you look at gas prices, and these companies are owned by large companies like Exxon Mobil and Shell and others, you'll find that in recent months, recent years, their profits are record breaking. So they have used the pandemic and all of the confusion to jack up prices. And it's not only in energy. It is in food and in other areas as well. And it's in prescription drugs as well. So we have to connect down on corporate greed. But in terms of social security, I do believe that we have many, many elderly people in this country who are having a hard time making it on $15,000 or $16,000 a year. And I do believe we should increase funding for social security. The way you do that is by lifting the cap, right now people make a million dollars contributing to the same in social security as somebody who makes $140,000. That's wrong. Lift that cap. When money can come in, we can expand benefits. Make life a little bit easier for many seniors. Okay, I see a hand. Bring it back down. Mason, why do you think we're having a hard time finding people to work with? That's a good question. A few reasons, I think. Number one, in this state at least, as I understand it, and somebody can jump in and correct me if they have better facts, I think the number of young people your age who are in high school right now in Vermont is substantially less than what it was 45 years ago. So what you are seeing is birth rates are going down. In, you know, prior generations, it was uncommon for families that five or six kids today that is very, very unusual. So we have less people, fewer people entering the workforce. And it's certainly true in this state. Second of all, COVID has had a real impact on the way people choose to go to work. And in addition to all of that, we have a childcare crisis so that many people, especially women who would like to go to work are unable to leave their kids, their little kids, because they can't find affordable childcare slots. A childcare cost you $15,000 or $20,000 a year for a child, and you make it $40,000 or $50,000 working, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So those are some of the reasons. But bottom line is, we do have a major, major shortage of workers in Vermont and in many other parts of this country. That's the bad news. But the good news for you is that means there are enormous opportunities for you out there. You name the job, you can get it. Yes. You don't think it has anything to do with the fact that people were rewarded for not working? No, I don't. I think that's a myth. I know it's a political statement. You know, we gave... I won't go into the whole thing. No, I don't believe that people are being rewarded for not working. I think there are a lot of reasons why we have a labor shortage. Yeah, right there. Yes, stand up. Or my mom has worked day and night and she has her job. She has been treated the best at her job like she has to take shifts for people constantly and nobody can help her and the... And like people can just be jerks to her and I want to know, are you planning to do something like that allows people that are working more in work spaces to have honestly better lives and so how? That's an excellent question and obviously the answer is that there's some use in that. You have some work places where people are treated with respect, indignity, their concerns are heard. You have other places where people are treated like God and she has no question about it. In fact, you have some employers who have a business model that says, look, we're going to pay low wages, we're going to treat people like garbage and if they quit that's great because we'll hire other people the next day and we don't have to think about any benefits because people are turning over all the time. One of the ways, just don't imagine the whole answer to that question, obviously we want all workers to be treated with respect. One of the areas that I'm working very, very hard on and we're seeing some success is the growth of unions. Anybody here know what a union is? Somebody tell me what a union is and why unions are employed. Let me get some hands here. Yeah, I see your hand right there. Why is a union employed? Hold the thing up to your mind. Exactly. That's right. You got it. So what a union does is if you don't have a union, you're working in a large company, a company can do anything it wants you. You have no workforce. If you have a union, you have a contract. 40 hours, I'm going to be paid certain things. I'm going to get certain benefits. These are all the working conditions. It is a legal contract and a company can't violate it. We are seeing a growth in unions all over this country and it's chairman of the committee that deals with that and I'm going to do my best to make it as easy as possible to workers to join unions. That's a source of protection. It helps to address the concern that you raise. All right, let me do this. I have some other questions but I want to throw back the question to you. I want to get back to this issue of mental health. I want to get to the issue of drugs. Raise your hand if you know anybody who does drugs above and beyond marijuana. Okay. Raise your hand if you know anybody who is struggling with addiction issues. All right, I want to... All right. My question is why are so many people, young people in particular struggling, doing drugs dealing with addiction? I see a hand way in the back there. Stand up. Stand up. So a lot of the time what I notice is that a lot of the problems are being solved with prescription drugs. And like that just leads wrong to me. How are we... And that's going into the economy too. I use big companies that are selling these drugs and are trying to fix things so they don't actually work. And that leads to more addiction tendencies too. Very good point. As part of the problem which has been a minute on that there is what was a company called Purdue. Have you heard of Purdue? Purdue manufactured an opiate product which was advertised as a painkiller. So if you had to make a shoulder you'd take it and use your pain. What they forgot to tell you is that if you took it enough you'd become addicted to it. And this particular company which is about as ugly as it gets because of corporate greed they suddenly noticed that there were communities in America where they were selling all kinds of drugs way beyond the population. And they really did know what they were doing is feeding the drug habits of people. They knew it. And you know what they did? They hired more salesmen to sell more of their drugs to get more people addicted. In other words they wouldn't do nothing and it doesn't do. Heroin dealing will give you free heroin to get you addicted and it charges you later on. That's the extreme case. But in general I think there is an understanding that doctors have been prescribing too many painkillers and in Vermont and around the country we're cutting back on the people need relief from pain. That's the problem. And some of these drugs work very well but I think it has been overdone. It's not part of the problem. It's a real part of it. On one other hand, what else? See him right here. The question is and I was interested in it right now. You were talking about climate, very, very important issue. If you could hold all of that and I'll get back to that in a minute. I wanted to stay on mental health and I wanted to stay on drugs. And I know sometimes it's hard to talk about it Yes. All of my close friends. Sorry. I know many of my peers myself included have or even ourselves have the issues with vaping in particular and I was wondering if you adopted your mind in terms of our relation. I know it's a huge issue. Let's talk about vaping. How many people here know folks who vape? Ooh. All right. See, this is why it's very good for me to do these meetings. As in Washington, I sit around in committee meetings with people who know nothing about the real world. This is the real world. All right. Tell me why you're vaping. Let's hear it. Stand up. Get a mic. Hi. Hi. My name is Lucia Hart. One of the reasons, at least when I was in middle school that people would tell me was that they would get their older friends credit cards and they would buy them online because online there's not as a restrictable policy for buying it because they don't ask you for age education if they do, then it's as easy as just clicking the bot and checking as if you're a robot. All right. I'm still not answering one question. Why? Because people find it easy because when some people can't at least for my community when I was in Burlington, people couldn't get the drugs. So vaping was as nice as drugs when they couldn't get them. Okay. We got a lot to talk about. All right. Let's stay on vaping. One honest video. Raise your hand. What does it do for you? Everybody raised their hand and they know somebody. I guess one or two of you are vaping. So I'm going to hand you. Stand up please. Also like the voting mechanism I know someone who does it because they think that it helps with stress and it helps a bunch of things that it doesn't actually help with. They were just told it does. You raised the very important issue. Now we're getting the issue of doctor's prescriptions. This is more important. All right. We are living in difficult times. Everybody in this room deals with stress. I deal with stress. Everybody is under stress and COVID has made it worse. Is vaping the solution to dealing with stress? All right. I want more discussion about people who know people for themselves and think and tell me why. I see a hand in the back. Stand up. Yes. I saw another hand. I see a hand over there. Oftentimes I have heard that people turn the drugs to avoid their problems rather than excessive therapy. Okay. I don't know how to say what I want to say but I'm sounding like somebody who's lecturing you and telling you what you've heard before. People are living with stress. People are living in pain. The truth of the matter is that all drugs will do is give you temporary relief and long-term make the situation worse. They don't work. Some of these serious drugs will have the impact of getting you in jail or killing you. It's a fentanyl thing. You all aware of fentanyl? Yes. Many of the drugs are laced with fentanyl which is more dangerous than normal. The issue here, if you are dealing with stress if you are dealing with isolation if you've got family problems everybody has a family problem how do you deal with it other than dealing with drugs? Okay. How do you deal with it other than vaping? Let me get some new hands. Yeah, right there. My ideal for my stress anxiety is I knit or use other coping mechanisms like that and reaching out to my family and friends. Good. Reaching out. Do we reach out enough? Do you talk to your friends rather than sitting around? I don't want to be in a lecturing mode. But you guys is it comfortable to sit around and be honest about family problems with your friends? Yes or no? Somebody tell me why not. Tell me why not. I see you can't wait. They're waiting for you. Sometimes friends grow up in different situations and they don't always understand it can be very hard for other people to understand problems that are happening in your family that they can't ever even almost dream. Good. But is that not a reason to at least look at what you're dealing with problems? And if drugs are just a temporary solution or not solution to that problem communicate with other people seems to me to be a better direction. Am I right? Am I wrong? Why? What's your experience? Well tell me about it. If we don't want young people to get addicted to drugs which we certainly don't what's the alternative? By the way this is not just a local problem this is a national problem it is a huge problem. How do we deal with it? Do things like I'll give you another example if you're out doing theater if you're playing ball is that an antidote relating to your friends in chorus or whatever it may be is that an antidote to loneliness and isolation? Yes. There are other kind of programs here that allow you to do that. All right talk to me more get back to David. I'm attracted to the degree to help but none the less more comments on why people are vacant. I've got a hand right here. There's a strong social element There's a strong social element. Strong social element that means she's vaping and you're vaping and you're vaping I can join you in vaping together Is that what you mean by that? Pure pressure? All right, what about that? Because somebody does something that is not good or a group of people do it do you feel pressure to have to do the same? Well how many of you do? It's natural everybody all your friends are doing something why are you doing it? Are you not an issue with drugs? Yes. Then you get lured into it because other people are doing it. Who wants to talk about that? I see a hand right there. Okay Do you want to hold it a little bit closer? Okay, I forgot what I was going to say. Pure pressure. So one of my friends often be a vape on the bus and they said it would just make everything go well in all realities it just kind of masked it for like 10 seconds and then it's another hit another hit All right, that's it I think Jordan said it well All right All right, let me ask you this and this look guys this is tough stuff I don't have the answer to it you don't have the answer to it nobody has the ability to answer to it this is tough stuff I think in difficult times everybody your parents, me, you, my family everybody is dealing with stress All right Why are we dealing with stress? What are some of the stress factors that are out there? Let's talk about that for a moment Yup Stand up Issues that should be getting solved aren't being solved What are your issues? Anything from either inflation or personal issues or just anything in the world Do you feel a little bit overwhelmed by the issues at society? Personal Yeah But ones that can't control how to distress the rules All right Let me get to questions Yes, please stand up Personally I feel like people have been telling me that our generation is supposed to fix the climate and the diet and although it is a problem we need to take steps it's very stressful to think that you are the one who has to fix the world It's always been a thing for us Excellent point Are things like climate change something that are you know I started my remarks by talking about because it's real Maybe I can tell you don't worry about it it's not a problem I could be lying to you it is a problem but you should not feel that A you caused the problem or B that somehow for some reason you are the only people in the world who are obliged to try to solve it You should be blaming my generation for allowing this to happen Most things should be blaming the crooks and the fossil fuel industry for allowing it to happen Let's talk about stress some more I want to get some more hands I want to see a hand right over there I want to get the people how you made a first comment A couple of things that get me stressed out is like homework or master in chemistry or done School and general You're coming up sort things and just trying to get somewhere on time Okay, good I mean the dilemma here and again no one has the magic word your parents, your teachers want you to get the best education that you can to go out and make a difference in the world but you know you all have to work on a way to make it not perfectly stressful Let me get the other hands What are the stresses that are out there Hi, so a lot of the things that are really on me are all the bad news our future seems really complete and you have to juggle that with personal stresses I have to worry about both the fact that there are countries out there that are sinking and also I have to turn in my homework assignment for tomorrow It's hard to be hopeful for what comes next but now we're interested in the economy and the climate Thank you for the invitation to worry about countries going underwater and getting your homework in on time That's not a joke, that's real You've got your day to day things that you have to do, right and you're looking at the world Let me just say something before you get too depressed about the future I've had the opportunity to go to every state in the country and I've been with large groups, small groups probably millions of people and what I want to tell you is there are especially of your generation there are great people out there your generation I think is the most beautiful generation and the smartest generation in the history of this country You know that? Let's go seeing how young people all over this country just an incredible amount of decency your generation is the most anti-racist the most anti-sexist the most anti-homophobic the most anti-xenophobic the most compassionate generation we've ever had So be proud of this There are wonderful young people all exactly with the same issues as you are dealing with and they are tough issues believe me they are tough but that does not mean that they are in solitude Let me give you one example I often talk about this in 1941 What happened in 1941 in America? Anyone know? Right Although Pearl Harbor was Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan on December 7th, 1941 Why do I mention that? At that particular moment the United States of America was totally unprepared to fight a war in the east against Japan and a war in the west against Hitler and Germany We didn't have the armed forces We didn't have the training We didn't have the equipment, the tanks, the guns the plates that we needed You know what? Essentially, in two and a half years we won the war We turned what people thought was impossible into a victory The point that I am trying to make is that sometimes things look bad but change can happen and does happen pretty quickly It can happen Can we solve the climate change issue? It's going to be tough We are going to need the cooperation of all of the countries on earth China is the major We have to work with China, they are concerned about the issue There are cities in China which will be underwater unless we deal with the issue They are not done, they are smart We have to deal with Russia We have to deal with Europe We have to deal with Latin America Deal with countries around the world Progress is being made We have a long way to go but I don't want you to feel the situation is unsolvable Can we solve it? All right Right there I am a senior in high school When you talk about sources of stress I think it's hard to go a day or two without talking about problems Who's gotten it here? The holidays and stuff It's the first thing You are a senior Do you know what your plans are for next year? With the college admissions process we are so selective Kids are applying to over a dozen colleges because they are trying to get into the school to help them get jobs and stuff It's a big snowballing thing I think college stress is a huge thing It is Absolutely And it's expensive too applying for a dozen schools How much does it cost to apply to a school? How much? $50 $50.12 is $600 It's hard to point people worried about college What about the affordability of colleges? Is that an issue? Who wants to tell me about that? Raise your hand on that All right What do I see? Hi, I'm Aloha Stand up Aloha My question is What is your plan to retain your promoters by making college in housing affordable? Okay This is my view I was asking you to question and you asked me to It's a good politician All right This is what I think I've kind of been a leader on this in the country 100 or so years ago your kids your age in Essex were sitting in high school Not for work What were they doing? They were working on phones in factories Whatever And what happened is 100 plus years ago in Wisconsin and elsewhere working class people say you know what it's not right that our kids can't get an education when children of the wealthy are able to go to these fancy private schools And out of that came the concept of public education and you are sitting right now in a very good school It means that when you walk in the door today you take it for granted anybody say oh that's 50 bucks oh you're taking biology that's another 25 bucks You walk in the door you don't pay anything out of your own pocket Is school free? Are your teachers not getting a salary does it cost money to pay the election bill? Of course it does It's funded publicly In this case by local property taxes and revenue in my federal revenue but 120 years ago people said it was important for kids to be able to get an education to get a fair shot at life Now over all of that period it has not really changed what we say today kids get K through 12 maybe pre K through 12 the world has changed technology has changed jobs have changed Truth is you need more education and training to do the work of today than people 50 years ago that is why it is my view, not a radical idea it exists in countries around the world that we should expand the concept of public education beyond 12th grade through college through graduate school so I believe in free tuition and public colleges and for president talking about that issue and I'm happy to say that when we begin to see New Mexico is moving pretty aggressively in that area there are medical schools now in America where tuition is free it's going to happen because the education you need must go beyond 12th grade and some of you don't have the money to pay for the colleges you would like to go so that is my strong view we are gaining on it but we have still a long way to go to make that happen other questions we have time for about one more question I have a question about another intersection with mental health Vermont's highest gun violence rate is suicide by firearm what is your solution to the intersection between mental health and gun violence and is there a specific legislation that will support to address this one of the reasons I don't have to I should have mentioned earlier when I talked about the problems gun violence in this country is all of the charts and I don't even it's one of those issues I don't even like to talk about because it's so painful to be thinking about what goes on in schools what we have seen with MRI in terms of what happens to kids with guns is very complicated we need sensible gun safety legislation in this country there are people who the history of their lives of violence and criminal activity should not be owning guns we need extensive background checks of the people who are purchasing a gun I mean stop it most Americans in the biologic agreement the problem we have is we have what is called a gun law people like the NRA that are very powerful politically to make certain that we don't do what should be done we're making some progress we've got a lot of way to go let me just say thank you very much for participating in this discussion