Whenever I hear, “How you gonna pay for it?”, I always want to ask, “Do you think we’re not paying for it NOW?”

Take healthcare. Sanders correctly points out we already pay more than anyone else in the whole damned world, per capita and as a percent of GDP, for a system which isn’t even universal, and has one of the lowest levels of satisfied citizens. We’re already paying for it.

Take college tuition. You USED TO be able to get a college education at a state school for nearly free. The cost of a private college, for me, was less than 40% of median income, back in the late 1970s. Now, the formerly free state school costs 50% of median income, and my college costs 100%.

That money isn’t magically appearing from nowhere. No, it’s being loaned to young people by banks, which then have their hooks in them for decades after. The money that former students pay for their loans is money that goes to the top 1%, and doesn’t get spent to buy goods and services.

We’re all paying for it already, and we’re largely paying it to the wealthiest people in society, who found yet another way to transfer wealth from the rest of us to their own pockets.

So, instead of asking, “How you gonna pay for it?”, how about if you ask, “How are we going to reorganize higher education so it’s not just another cash cow for the rich?” Society benefits from not only a more educated populace, but also from a middle class with money to spend.