2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: On opening college education for all who can benefit [View all]geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)1) federalism issues. lots of states opted out of the Medicaid expansion, which provided a lot higher percentage of federal money with a lot fewer strings attached. How many states are going to jack up taxes and surrender control to the federal government over their budgeting decisions in order to participate?
2) This will cost a lot of money--a lot--and it's not been established that Sanders has made all the numbers add up. His proposed tax on financial transactions is several times higher than what is recommended for such taxes before they start to seriously throw the entire financial system out of whack. And, getting it through Congress would be difficult even with Democrats in charge. Also, what's to control tuition costs on the other end?
3) There will be increased competition for seats at schools offering free tuition. Not everyone will get in to one of those schools, since there are limited seats. That will create a system of winners and losers, with nothing being done to ease the burden on the losers. And who would win and who would lose under this system? Upper middle class families who could hire tutors and coaches for standardized tests and whose kids attend good school districts in affluent neighborhoods. Who would lose? Everyone else.