Robert Reich
Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley; author, 'Beyond Outrage'
Why the Washington Post's Attack on Bernie Sanders Is Bunk
Posted:
The Washington Post just ran an attack on Bernie Sanders that distorts not only what he's saying and seeking but also the basic choices that lie before the nation. Sanders, writes the Post's David Fahrenthold, "is not just a big-spending liberal. And his agenda is not just about money. It's also about control."
Fahrenthold claims Sanders's plan for paying for college with a tax on Wall Street trades would mean "colleges would run by government rules."
Apparently Fahrenthold is unaware that three-quarters of college students today attend public universities financed largely by state governments. And even those who attend elite private universities benefit from federal tax subsidies flowing to wealthy donors. (Meg Whitman's recent $30 million donation to Princeton, for example, is really $20 million from her plus an estimated $10 million she deducted from her taxable income.) Notwithstanding all this government largesse, colleges aren't "run by government rules."
The real problem is too many young people still can't afford a college education...