The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.
As the presidential campaign plods along, mercifully being whittled to eight contenders, one question lingers: Where are the adults?
Oh, this isn’t solely about Donald Trump, whose adolescent insults long ago morphed from humorous into something trite and tiresome. It’s also not about Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio or Hillary Clinton. Because while we could write a master’s thesis examining the shortcomings of any of the remaining candidates for the most powerful office on earth, today we come to talk about Bernie Sanders.
The self-avowed democratic socialist from Vermont has made great inroads in his campaign for the Democratic nomination. And the mere fact that somebody, anybody, is pressing Clinton rather than allowing the Democratic race to be little more than a coronation has enhanced the process.
But the growing grassroots support for Sanders leads to the most pressing question of the 2016 campaign: Where are the adults?
Sanders’ primary platform, or at least the one that has garnered the most attention, calls for free tuition at America’s public colleges. “When we need the best-educated workforce in the world, yes, we are going to make public colleges and universities tuition-free,” he has said, an exhortation that resonates with young voters who have become the foundation of Sanders’ constituency.
Sounds great! And it will be wonderful when we pair free tuition with a unicorn in every yard and gold-plated streets!
Yet there is a problem with this, and it is a problem that I learned about in college. That is when a friend insisted that we couldn’t be considered adults until we were supporting ourselves and paying taxes.
Secure in the insulated world carefully provided for by my parents, I thought this was absurd. But now I understand the wisdom behind it; now I understand that you don’t really know how the world works until you are paying to help keep it turning.
Anyway, the idea of free tuition has gained some traction, and last week Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., was in town talking to students at Clark College about that very notion. “What I’m overwhelmed with in hearing everyone’s stories, is how complex their lives are in terms of what they are going through to get an education,” Murray told The Columbian. “They have multiple jobs; they are trying to get through college and do three or four jobs.”
Shiny promises
Certainly, getting through college can be a financial burden — either for parents or for students who are paying their own way. But in the end the students are making a personal financial decision, weighing whether or not those burdens pass the long-term cost-benefit analysis.
Creating free tuition would remove that analysis; it’s easy to decide to go to college when taxpayers are footing the entire bill.
And all of that points out another shortcoming of the plan: It would subsidize the wealthy to a greater extent than the working poor it professes to target. Family income is the single best predictor of who goes to college; the wealthier the family, the more likely they will attend. And, as Matt Bruenig writes for New Republic: “At public colleges, students from the poorest fourth of the population currently pay no net tuition … Richer students currently receive much fewer tuition and living grant benefits.”
We could further examine all this minutiae of policy, but that’s not really the point. No, the gist is that our presidential race to this point has devolved into a contest of who can blind the electorate with the shiniest of promises.
Do you really think Bernie Sanders could get Congress to approve a plan for free college tuition, paid for by tax hikes on the rich? Do you really think Donald Trump could build a border wall and get Mexico to pay for it?
The promises are outlandishly absurd, yet the American public is buying them. And that makes me wonder where all the adults went.
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