In carving out his space in the moderate “lane”, Pete Buttigieg came out against the free college plans of Warren and Sanders. Indeed here seems to be campaigning against the universality of public goods:
“There are some voices out there [Warren, Sanders, and others] who say, ‘That doesn’t go far enough, until you include the kids of millionaires — but, I only want to make promises that we can keep. Look, what I’m proposing is plenty bold. We can gather the majority to drive those big ideas without turning off half the country before we even get into office. And that I think is the best governing strategy as well as what I think it’s going to take to win. And Lord knows we gotta win.”
Leftists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have fired back, saying that carving rich folks out creates “cracks in the system”:
“This is a GOP talking point used to dismantle public systems, & it’s sad to see a Dem candidate adopt it,” she wrote. “Just like rich kids can attend public school, they should be able to attend tuition-free public college.”
“Universal public systems are designed to benefit EVERYBODY!” she continued. “Everyone contributes & everyone enjoys. We don’t ban the rich from public schools, firefighters, or libraries bc they are public goods.”
Ocasio-Cortez argued an advantage of universal systems was that “everyone’s invested,” and she said “carving people out & adding asterisks” would cause “cracks in the system.”
Buttigieg imagines that his more limited strategy will strengthen the political appeal. But this presupposes the appeal of political moderation — a pose or aesthetic, in any event — for an actual, tangible benefit. On the contrary: Offering the benefit universally is actually the better political tactic. And there’s lived experience behind it.
It is somewhat ironic to see leftists defend sharing societal benefits with the very rich. But in this case I’m pretty sure the leftists have their strategy right. Public goods — libraries, schools, parks, subways, military- fire- and police protection — these all bind society together. They are therefore popular across class lines. It means that some resources upon which the poor and working class depend, also have constituencies among the professional classes, which typically enjoy more political power. We have this experience in the US with Medicare and Social Security, which still enjoy iron-clad popularity.
As the late historian Tony Judt discusses in his book Postwar, the rise of the welfare state in postwar Europe made life easier for even those of some means:
… Secondly, the welfare states of Europe were not politically divisive. They were socially redistributive in general intent (some more than others), but not at all revolutionary — they did not “soak the rich.” On the contrary, although the greatest immediate advantage was felt by the poor, the real long-term beneficiaries were the professional and commercial middle class. In many cases they had not been eligible for work-related health, unemployment and retirement benefits and had been obliged, before the war, to purchase such services and benefits from the private sector. Now they had full access to them, either free or at low cost.Taken with the provision of free or subsidized secondary and higher education for their children, this left the salaried professional white collar classes with more disposable income. Far from dividing the social classes against each other, the European welfare state bound them closer together than ever before, with a common interest in its preservation and defense.
We currently suffer under the tyranny of an ideal of extreme individualism — every man a John Galt, every home a castle which hoards a sovereign wealth fund of alphabet soup: 401k, IRAs, 529, etc. Perhaps this is because in America, we don’t have the catastrophe of the aftermath of World War II fresh in our memories. We imagine the stock market will go up forever; that we will win all the wars (in spite of evidence); that nothing — war, plagues, tyranny, natural disasters — will shake our nation’s foundations or threaten our safety. If we can’t imagine disaster here, in our own time, to us and our own people — we can’t imagine needing help. The Great Recession with its generational gaping inequality has finally challenged this orthodoxy; can a communitarian, all-in-this-together ethic replace it? If we separate those who have amassed wealth from the benefits of taxation, they will resist taxation all the more.
Wouldn’t free- or nearly-free college be an enormous relief, even to reasonably wealthy people? Wouldn’t 100% universal, paid-up, cradle-to-grave health care be a relief? There’s a distinct sense of defensiveness on Buttigieg’s part — which doubtless rank-and-file Democrats share. But we’ve got to play offense and sell the benefits of social programs, to as wide an audience as possible. Why not keep it simple? Everyone’s in.
Really, what we require from the wealthy is solidarity. The wealthy don’t owe us full-freight tuition. Nor do they owe us philanthropy for their pet causes. No, the rich owe society their taxes, to the benefit of all.
Ryan says
Buttigieg is lying, pure and simple.
1. Warren’s plan isn’t very different than the plan he purports to support, only it would help a lot more students and families who need it. Warren’s plan does not provide anything for the children of millionaires or billionaires, though asks those millionaires and billionaires to pay in.
2. Sander’s plan doesn’t make ‘janitors pay’ for the children of millionaires and billionaires, either. His plan would be funded by millionaires and billionaires. Those millionaires and billionaires are still paying for their children to go to college (via taxes), only now they’re being asked to pay a fairer share of taxes so other kids can go to college debt-free, too.
3. Even beyond the lies and ridiculous Republican framing, Buttigieg’s pitch is based on another favorite Republican argument technique– unicorns. There are barely any children of billionaires, and not that many kids of millionaires. in the grand scheme of things. These kids would receive a grand total of 1.4% of the benefits of a free public university and college plan. Pick an island in the Carribean and stop letting billionaires hide their money there, and I’m pretty sure we could shake free that loose change.
These attacks by Buttigieg, using Republican lies and framing, make it harder to have anything good in society. They’re the same lies that have led to privitizing trains and busses, damaging public transportation, and the same lies and framing that have created school voucher programs and charters, damaging K-12.
There’s no good for working and middle class families with these narratives. Means testing basic public goods chokes them off, ostracizes those who can’t otherwise afford them, and creates burdensome paperwork, language and knowledge barriers such that even those eligible will still go without.
If kids need school lunch, feed them! If society needs teachers, doctors and engineers, give citizens the education to do that job. Hell, give everyone SNAP, and dare to see Republicans try to cut it — I doubt we’d be getting a lot of news like today’s decision by the GOP to try to cut SNAP for 700,000 people.
Making any needed basic or public goods all debt free — the sh*t that keeps society ticking — is the closest thing we can do to make a true meritocracy, but even more importantly a decent society.
Lying MF’ers may not actually care about that, however.
Christopher says
How about “mistaken” rather than “lying”? It does no good for discourse when you accuse someone who disagrees with you of lying. You have to be able to read his mind and know for certain that he knows he is making false statements for that accusation to be legitimate.
doubleman says
Buttigieg knows what he is doing (gross triangulation) or he is nowhere near as smart as he or anyone claims.
So, he’s either some level of smart and lying or very dumb and mistaken.
The evidence for the former is much stronger than the latter.
jotaemei says
If Buttigieg indeed did say
then he obviously is lying. That is, unless, you or him can cite a single person in the Democratic primary for president who used those wards.
doubleman says
It’s a shame that the truly disgusting roll out of his Douglass Plan (man, the cojones to name the plan after Frederick Douglass) didn’t garner more press attention. It should have (rightly) wrecked his campaign, but the pundit class loves the idea of Buttigieg too much.
The ad about debt-free college shows his true colors. His plan cuts off subsidies at $100K of family income. That is not the children of millionaires and billionaires, it’s the children of nurses and teachers.
Yesterday Buttigieg was asked about his “Medicare for All Who Want It” plan and whether undocumented individuals would be included. They would be allowed to buy in but won’t be eligible for any subsidies. So, in other words, they’re out. That’s just the right amount of racism to make old bigots happy but not draw too much negative attention.
He believes in NOTHING except his career. He will torpedo any progressive goal for his ambition.
The thought of Pete ushering in a generation of Petes into government is a terrifying prospect.
Also, does anyone really think he would be a good matchup against Trump?
Christopher says
So no points from you for effort, when he knows he had to make inroads regarding African-Americans?:( I think when it comes to fellow Dems we really should be in this together and give more benefit of the doubt.
doubleman says
The “effort” was completely fraudulent. There was no effort. He tricked people into “endorsing” the plan (it was an “opt out” email) and then lied about who those people were. About half of the people on the list of AA leaders were white. The plan is also mediocre and he still claimed Douglass’s name for it.
If there was a real effort, I would still criticize the bad plan (especially compared to basically any other candidate’s).
On the daily, this guy is showing his true colors, and there is very little good about him.
jconway says
I think if we want to actually win this fight we need to do several things. Emphasize that community colleges, state colleges, and public universities will be tuition free. Sanders does a much better job communicating this than Warren does. Talking about ‘free college‘ is easy to attack the way Buttigieg is doing, since it conjures up the rich kids and celebrity liberals who cheated their way into Harvard and USC and largely got away with it. That scandal and the lawsuit against Harvard by Asian Americans validly proving discrimination (and invalidly trying to end affirmative action for other groups) are the albatrosses that will be hung around the neck of these proposals. Emphasizing that state run technical training programs and technical colleges will also be tuition free is another important point to make.
Not everyone wants to or should go to college. We want to emphasize that every working person is entitled to a living wage regardless of their education levels. We also want to make sure that no one who wants to go to college should be denied this opportunity on account of their income.
This should be paired with real reforms to the way college is being run. Ending the non-profit status of private colleges, ending Pell grants, ending generous tax breaks for upper middle class earner who put away savings for college, and eliminating the education industrial complex has to also happen. Jonathan Last has a really smart article describing how those things can be accomplished too.
This way the Sanders/Warren proposal operates as a public option driving down the costs of private college as well. I think that is another selling point for their plan they should emphasize. Otherwise, it does sound like a giveaway to the middle and upper middle classes who already have a lot of tax policy designed around preserving their wealth.
jconway says
Also we need to gameplan how this would negatively affect our volunteer military. Paying for college is a huge incentive for military recruitment that would go out the window under this proposal. It is also a huge incentive for teacher recruitment and other public service professions. One socially democratic counter would be to substantially raise the wages of those professions, but those future costs should also be considered.
If we really want to be Denmark, and I would still vote that we should be, we are going to have to tax the middle and upper middle classes as well. No more SALT. No more 529s. No more mortgage interest deductions. This is a conversation we have not had as a party or during this campaign. Obama’s modest reforms to 529 and Trumps modest reform to SALT were met with broad opposition from the affluent portion of the Democratic coalition. A portion that our House majority and campaign funds still depends on.
doubleman says
Sanders’s plan specifically calls out trade schools and apprenticeship programs as well. Buttigieg knows that, but he wants to make it seem like it’s about sending rich kids to private elite colleges for free.
It’s simple. In the richest country in the history of the world, everyone can pursue the education they want and we provide for it as a society. Period. That’s it. The means-testing has got to go. (Same thing for health care.)
Absolutely, and when he’s doing it it is clear that it is disingenuous.
This type of plan leading to a large reduction in the military would be an incredible added bonus. Major cuts to defense spending would also help this. The military being the best/only choice for a lot of people has been a failing of our culture.
SomervilleTom says
Amen and hallelujah to your last paragraph.
As terrible as the Vietnam-era draft was, at least its racism was relatively explicit. The coercion of minorities to do our killing for us is, if anything, stronger today than it was in 1966. We whites tell ourselves that it’s “voluntary” (that’s another lie), and ignore the economic reality.
The result is a military comprised of minorities who have no other choice and whites who love war. The rest of us pay our taxes, wash our hands of it, and attend rallies to cheer for chicken-hearts that make other people’s children cannon-fodder.
I think that every American should have to spend two years in public service, where “public service” explicitly includes military service. I think our voters would be FAR less supportive of misadventures like Iraq in 2003 if the men and women put in harm’s way were the children, husbands, wives, brothers, and sisters of those voters.
The fact that military service is the best choice for so many of our young people (especially our young people of color) is immoral and evil given that we are the wealthiest nation in human history.
SomervilleTom says
It’s worth noting that tuition is a tiny part of college cost.
Our candidates seem to use “free college” and “free tuition” interchangably. They are different, as anyone who has had to pay for eight semesters at U-MA Amherst knows by now.
doubleman says
True. Sanders’s plan is about “tuition and fees.” Not sure if room and board falls under “fees” but the direct fees that places like UMass charge (partly because the legislature won’t fund the school nor let it raise tuition) would be covered.
doubleman says
Pete’s plan would be an ok place to get to soon as a compromise bill. As a starting point, it is awful. After going through a process, a plan like his would end up with just an easier way for people to refinance loans at like 4.5%.
It’s the same for health care. Having a good public option would be a great improvement. As a starting salvo, it’s awful.
It’s basic politics and negotiation and these moderate liberals stink at it, but some “smart” “reasonable” people continue to eat it up.
jconway says
I overheard some kids from wealthier schools critique the place I teach for its military recruitment posters and the JROTC program we have. I overheard them saying ‘you only see these things in poor shitholes like here’. I really hope that attitude can stop. I does a disservice to our kids who are thriving and have found a sense of higher purpose in the JROTC program. I know a student who has had two siblings put through college that way and wants to follow in her footsteps. I went to U Chicago with this awesome friend of mine.
I think military service should not be attacked as the last refuse for the poor and non-white. Not saying you were doing that Tom, these snotty suburban kids were. I do worry about them being the canon fodder for the next foolhardy war. I respect the hell out of our military and veterans and respect our students most of whom are considering military careers as a first choice, not just as a last resort. So I’m genuinely torn. There is truth to what you say though. Clearly these posters aren’t in the wealthier schools. In a truly patriotic country they would be, and everyone would feel obligated to give back.
Perhaps universal college could help eliminate that stigma once and for all. You would have to raise my wages, the wages of my wife, and the wages of service men and women substantially to offset the loan savings we would lose under a universal college program. I am not saying I agree with that zero sum approach or the talking points, but it’s something to consider if we hope to make this dream a reality.
SomervilleTom says
If there were easy answers to any of these questions, we would not still be asking them.