L. FULLER
Editor in Chief
Every story has two sides to it. Staff Writer Connor Hoffman asked me to respond to his column this week with my opposing views. This article reflects my personal opinions and does not reflect the views of The Leader.
“It was basically a liberal versus liberal debate about who was going to give away the most free stuff,” said Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican candidate, on Fox and Friends the day after the Democratic Presidential Debate.
While The Leader Staff Writer Connor Hoffman cited this clearly snide comment as having “summed [the debate] up perfectly,” I would like to counter that with, “who doesn’t love free stuff?”
I will not pretend to have as much political knowledge as Hoffman might, but as a registered Independent and a regular college-going twenty-something, I will admit that the thought of Senator Bernie Sanders in office intrigues me. I will admit that the thought of free college and healthcare sounds ideal.
For Hoffman to accuse the Democratic candidates, specifically Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, of having ideals but no substantive plan for carrying them out is misguided. (Although, make no mistake — Clinton does not support the idea of tuition-free college.)
During the debate, each candidate was given one minute to answer questions and 30 seconds to respond to anything any other candidate said. That hardly seems like enough time to go over every single detail to every single plan. Public administration, especially at the federal level, is a multi-step process.
“None of the five candidates that were on the stage were able to actually provide any details to the plans they suggested,” said Hoffman in his column this week. “Senator Bernie Sanders … provided such little information on how he was going to pay for [his] programs.” He went on to explain how the only detail Sanders mentioned about his free college program was a small 0.1 percent tax on Wall Street that wouldn’t come close to fixing “the huge rising costs of college in this country.”
Hoffman is right. A 0.1 percent tax wouldn’t subsidize the total cost of tuition at all public universities in this country. But, even though Sanders didn’t have enough time to mention it at the debate, his Wall Street plan actually involves a speculation fee of 0.5 percent on stock trades, a 0.1 percent fee on bonds and a 0.005 percent fee on derivatives, according to his website.
Clinton, however, is a topic that Hoffman and I can mostly agree on. She’s not our favorite. However, while Hoffman said he was “almost half convinced that she is a robot,” I’d say she was just extremely prepared.
The former secretary was clearly the most prepared candidate there, not only in terms of debate preparation, but also in experience. No one handled the foreign affairs questions as well as she did — questions that the country is extremely concerned about, and an area where she has a clear upper hand.
But if she mentioned one more time that she was a woman, I might have punched something. While it would be a great achievement for women if she were to win the presidency, it would be a great shame if she won only on account of novelty. I also don’t want to hear Clinton talk about how she worked all throughout her college career. No matter what she says, she’s part of the campaign finance problem that Sanders’ platform rests on combating.
I haven’t decided who my own personal frontrunner is. Afterall, I can’t vote in any primaries so I’d rather wait to see what happens. But after the Republican Presidential Debate, I’d say the Democrats did a fine job being on stage in a civilized, professional manner.