 Bernie has popularized the idea of free college here in the United States, but we all know that when he initially floated this idea when he was running for president back in 2016, Hillary Clinton's response was the same response that we see from centrist Democrats like Pete Buttigieg. You know, today she said, well, why should we pay for Donald Trump's kids to go to school for free? That's ridiculous. Now, this notion that, you know, making public colleges and universities tuition-free and canceling all student loan debt is a giveaway to the rich. It's just disingenuous and, quite frankly, it's idiotic, because rich people, most of the time, you know, they're going to send their kids to private schools. They're going to go to Ivy League schools, right? And this only applies to public colleges and universities. So we've been having to defend against this, and I think that we pretty much made a fool of anyone who floated that until, you know, the 2020 election cycle when you have individuals like Mayor Pete and Amy Klobuchar insisting that this is a giveaway to the rich. It's a giveaway to the rich. Now, first of all, if rich people are heavily subsidizing these programs, then we have no reason to exclude them, and universality is important. Second of all, Bernie was actually asked about this, because now this is kind of an argument that's being applied to student debt cancellation, and he spoke about this at the Public Education Forum, and Ali Velshi of MSNBC asked him the question, and I wanted to share his response because his answer here was just impeccable. Do you propose canceling college debt? I sure did. So you and I have a lot of conversations about the way things go, where I come from in Canada, and how some of these things work better. Here's my one question about canceling student debt. Even if it's from public universities, there are people graduating from professions who do very well in high demand, engineers, coders, and other professions. Philosophically, I know you want to cancel that student debt. Economically, given how much it costs, is there a way to look at this where you don't cancel the student debt of people whose debt doesn't need to be canceled? Well, I look at it a little bit differently. Number one, trust me that those people who make a lot of money who are very wealthy are probably not going to be voting for me, because we're going to be raising their taxes very substantially. But what I have to say is I do believe in the concept of universality. You know, in Canada, whether you're rich or you're poor, you can take advantage of the healthcare system. In this country, Donald Trump's grandchildren could go to a public school if they wanted, even though he's a billionaire, or he says he's a billionaire. We don't know that's true. All right. So I look at it the other way. I think what is simpler and more straightforward is, A, making all public colleges and universities tuition free for all people, and B, canceling all student debt, and in this case, paying for that through a modest tax on Wall Street speculation. So Bernie didn't really emphasize this point, but I think it really is important to state that if rich people and elites are heavily subsidizing these programs, if they're paying the most into these programs, then I don't care if they're going to send their kids to public schools. Again, in reality, they end up sending their children to private colleges, nine times out of 10, private charter schools and private colleges. So I don't care if maybe a couple of billionaires send their children to public school. As AOC put it, economic integration is incredibly important for social and cultural reasons. On top of that, Bernie Sanders says that universality is incredibly important. Everyone pays into it, and everyone has access to that benefit. And I want to get to his quote here. He says in Canada, you know, whether you're rich or poor, you could take advantage of the healthcare system. In this country, Donald Trump's grandchildren, they can go to public school if they wanted to, even though he's a billionaire. So he says, I look at it the other way. What is simpler and more straightforward is A, making all colleges and universities tuition free for people and B, canceling all student debt, and in this case, paying for that through a modest tax on Wall Street speculation. Now I want to expand on two ideas here. So the first area where I want to expand is to really get a little bit more into the details as to why we should cancel everyone's student loan debt, including people who will one day be able to easily pay it off and make a lot of money. Because again, this goes back to this notion that they will be subsidizing the system. So if you finish college and you make a lot of money, you get a career where you have a six or seven figure salary. Your student loan debt should be canceled as well, because with all of that money you're making, you will be paying back into the system. The money you make will be funding free college for the future generation. And furthermore, once we make public colleges and universities tuition free, student debt isn't going to be an issue going forward. So we need to cancel all student debt, make it easy, don't means test it so certain people can apply to make sure that they're eligible and others won't be, and I'll explain why we don't want to means test these types of programs. Because means testing is incredibly divisive. It makes it more difficult for poor people and working class people to access the benefit if it's means tested because they have to prove that they're eligible for said program. They have to prove using documents and whatnot that they qualify and it's just a big headache. And it pits the working class and the middle class against each other because if the middle class is excluded from this benefit that the poor gets, well then that means that public perception of that program will go down. It's going to be viewed as a welfare program and there's not going to be public support for that program as there are for other universal programs like social security, right? So if you want to make sure that these public programs are protected, then means testing is not the way to go. If you want it to last anyways, right? This is why social security has essentially been untouchable and publicans and Democrats haven't been able to even partially privatize it. It is because it is a universal program and nobody wants it touched. Everyone pays into it. Everyone gets it. Everyone loves it. Period end of story. Now another video that I want to show you centers on the issue of students who can't afford school lunches and also how they have debt. Now there's stories that pop up all the time about students paying off the lunch debt of their classmates by selling cookies and cider and whatnot. But this doesn't need to happen. And I know that perseverance porn is something that the media loves, like these stories how somebody perseveres through, you know, a horrible time. In fact, some more news just did a really great long segment on this where he talked about how these stories about how people have to pull their sick days in order to give it to someone, a coworker with cancer. That's not like a feel good story that shows how broken our system is. The point is, you know, these types of stories about kids having to raise money to pay off the school lunch debt of their fellow classmates. That doesn't have to happen when you live in the richest country ever. And, you know, Bernie Sanders was asked about this. He was asked what he would do about this. Would he allow for free lunches? And his answer here was just phenomenal, predictably. In our schools, and I've done stories on this, it's called lunch shaming. Children coming into school, and for one reason or another, their lunch bill has not been paid. This government spends about $14 billion across the country on subsidizing low and free lunch program. But still we have some children who, they go into the classroom, into the lunch room, find out they haven't paid their debt and the money is thrown into the garbage can. Some people have said, and I'm asking you, should the government subsidize lunch in public school for all children, regardless of their income? And you know what? And breakfast and dinner as well. And this gets back, this gets back, this, hold on. This gets back to the point you raised a moment ago. I believe in universality. You got a whole lot of money. You don't. You're treated differently at the lunch room situation nonsense. You both are treated equally, but I'm going to have you pay more in taxes to make sure that all kids get a decent education, a decent nutrition. I absolutely love that answer. He says, you know, he supports free school lunches and breakfast and dinner as well. Think about what this means to students across this country. It means that even if your parents are poor, you will not go hungry while you're at school. You will eat. And he also brought up once again this notion of universality. Some people will in fact pay more into these programs than others, but what matters is that we're all treated equally. It will be free at the point of service to everyone. That is how you craft good public policy. And Bernie gets this and I'm really glad that he's taking the time to explain the importance of universality because the Democratic Party, they're addicted to means testing, right? And they think that this is a way to kind of stick it to the rich. But if you truly want to be more hard on the rich, as you say you do, you would increase their taxes, but not very many of them want to do that, right? Or if they do, they want to do it only to a small extent, which wouldn't actually make a difference. It wouldn't be enough to fund social programs. So at the end of the day, every time Bernie Sanders talks about policy, he demonstrates to people that he understands why we need to go for these types of universal programs. And it reinforces the fact that he is the best in this race.