In a recent appearance on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, Democratic candidate for president Bernie Sanders was asked on a few instances how he would pay for the programs he is running on, like tuition-free college, universal health care and an increase in Social Security.
Sanders explained that Americans will have to be more engaged in the process to make real change happen.
“What we do is we have to make a movement if you like to correlate what we’re talking about, because on every one of the major issues I’m talking about, the American people agree,” Sanders said. “Do the American people agree that public colleges and universities should be tuition-free, as they are in many other countries? Do the American people agree that the largest corporations and the wealthiest people, who today are doing phenomenally well while the middle-class shrinks, do people believe they should have to pay more in taxes? The American people say yes.”
When Maher suggest that taxing the top 1 percent will not pay for these programs, Bernie shot back, “Not true. Not true,”
“What I’m saying is there have been articles out there that have been really unfair and wrong. For example, what they are suggesting is that if we move to a Medicare-for-all single-payer program, which guarantees healthcare to all people, it would cost a lot of money. That’s true. But what they forget to tell you is it would be much more cost-effective than this dysfunctional system we have right now, which is the most expensive per capita on earth.”
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