Quid Pro Quo

In his stump speech, Senator Bernie Sanders compares his "free college for all" proposal to the GI Bill.  Sanders points out that the huge influx of college educated men and women in the late 1940's and early 1950's spurred the unprecedented economic growth of the country in the decades that followed.  And while he is correct in giving credit to the program, Bernie conveniently fails to point out that the former soldiers of that time had already paid a huge debt to the country before they got the free college--while he wants to give that same benefit to today's youth just for showing up.

Even the most-ardent anti-government spending Tea Partier would agree that the men who stormed the beaches at Normandy and Okinawa, who endured the brutal cold of the Ardennes and the sweltering heat of the Philippines, who parachuted into live fire or were shot down in their planes and managed to survive, or those that were attacked by the Kamikaze on their ships certainly deserved a free college education and health care for life.  The same goes for those who fought in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, the Middle East or who chose to spend years away from their homes and their families to serve their country at any time in the past 70-years.

And now here comes Senator Sanders with his pitch for free college and health care because having to work your way through school is "too much of a burden" on modern young adults.  Not being able to have pizza with your friends down at the Quad is certainly as traumatic as watching six of your buddies get gunned down by a machine gun.  Having to delay buying a house for a few years is just as big a sacrifice as not seeing your wife and kids for four years.  And developing Type 2 Diabetes from a life of lounging on the couch and drinking soda is equally devastating as losing part of a leg from stepping on a land mine.

You know, Bernie could also point out in his speech that the GI Bill is still around.  Give the rest of us two or three years service--and we will be more than happy to provide you with the same free college education that he is promising you for doing nothing.  The same goes for your health care--provided you want to put up with the embarrassingly poor service provided by the single-payer VA system that mirrors the "Medicare For All" program that Senator Sanders also wants to foist upon all of us.