Sen. Bernard Sanders introduced a bill Tuesday that would make college tuition free and pay for it with a “Robin Hood tax” on Wall Street, drawing fresh attention to the liberal agenda fueling his Democratic campaign for president.
The bill, dubbed the “College for All Act,” would provide free tuition to every public college and university in the U.S. and allow every American with student loan debts to refinance their loans at lower interest rates, which Mr. Sanders said was needed to address a student loan crisis that is “strangling” college graduates.
The free tuition would cost about $750 billion over 10 years, but Mr. Sanders said it would easily be covered by a small “Robin Hood tax” on financial transactions that would generate an estimated $300 billion billion.
The extra money could pay for other vital programs, he said.
“This is not a radical idea,” Mr. Sanders told reporters at a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol. “Only in a Congress dominated by Wall Street and big money would this be considered a radical idea.”
Mr. Sanders, a Vermont Independent who caucuses with Democrats, currently is the only announced challenger to frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. He has been testing Mrs. Clinton’s allegiance to the left by pushing a liberal agenda that also includes breaking up Wall Street banks and expanding Social Security.
“It is a national disgrace that hundreds of thousands of young Americans today do not go to college, not because they are unqualified, but because they cannot afford it,” Mr. Sanders said. “This disgrace has got to end.”
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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