Bernie Sanders Quotes

One of the issues I'm really happy about is that recently, Secretary Clinton and I worked out an agreement on higher education, making public colleges and universities tuition free for every family in America earning less than 125,000 bucks. Didn't go as far as I wanted. But that's 83 percent of the population in this country.

The United States has got to join the rest of the industrialized world in making sure that working families of the middle class have benefits that they absolutely need. We are the only major country on Earth that does not guarantee health care to all people as a right. We are the only major country on Earth that does not provide paid family and medical leave. There are many countries around the world which make sure that public colleges and universities are tuition-free. In our country, it's becoming increasingly difficult to afford to go to college.

In the economy today, everybody understands that we need a well educated workforce. This is 2016. When we talk about public education, it can no longer be K through 12th grade. I do believe that public colleges and universities should be tuition free.

We can have paid family and medical leave. We can make public colleges and universities tuition-free. These are not revolutionary, radical ideas. They're kind of common sense.

By making college more affordable for all and more accessible for minority students, the first new higher education authorizing legislation in a decade will help strengthen our nation and America's middle class, and spur a new age of innovation and ingenuity in our country.

Now all of the ideas that I'm talking about, they are not radical ideas. Making public colleges and universities tuition free, that exists in countries all over the world, used to exist in the United States. Rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, and creating 13 million jobs by doing away with tax loopholes that large corporations now enjoy by putting their money into the Cayman Islands and other tax havens. That is not a radical idea.

It's absurd we remain the only major country on earth not to guarantee health care to all people and paid family and medical leave.

I want to make college tuition-free for the middle class and debt-free for everyone else.

Every person in this country who has the desire and ability should be able to get all the education they need regardless of the income of their family. This is not a radical idea. In Germany, Scandinavia and many other countries, higher education is either free or very inexpensive. We must do the same.

We have got to make sure that every qualified American in this country who wants to go to college can go to college -- regardless of income.

Let's take a look at NAFTA. Trump said that NAFTA was a bad deal and he was going to get rid of it in the first 100 days. Now, that's also off the table. He's made a lot of promises that he can't keep. He has distorted information. I do not think he should not be president of the United States. And I think our allies and people in other countries are looking at America and saying, "This can't be. How did this happen?"

In Germany, college tuition is free. In America, college tuition is increasingly unaffordable. In a highly competitive global economy, which country do you think will have the best educated work force and a competitive advantage? We must make tuition free in public colleges and universities and substantially reduce interest rates on student loans.

I have a plan to make tuition debt-free for public colleges and universities.

In order to make the tough decisions we have to know what our values are and who we're fighting for and our priorities and if we are spending $300 billion on tax cuts for people who don't need them and weren't even asking for them, and we are leaving out health care which is crushing on people all across the country, then I think we have made a bad decision and I want to make sure we're not shortchanging our long term priorities.

As president, I will fight to make tuition in public colleges and universities free, as well as substantially lower interest rates on student loans.

I'm interested in getting John Kerry elected President. And then I'm interested in doing whatever I can to see that Democrats retain Democratic values. And the thing I'm most interested in is health insurance for everybody. We're the only country in the industrialized world that doesn't have that, and we need that.

We are going to have the candidate of food stamps, the finest food-stamp president in the American history, in Barack Obama, and we are going to have a candidate of paychecks.

I'm going to try to get everybody who makes less than $125,000 in their family, which is the vast majority of people, to be able to go to a public college or university totally tuition-free. And if you make more than that, debt-free.

Do we substantially increase military spending and prepare for endless war in the middle-east, or do we make college affordable for all Americans, regardless of income. My answer: I will soon be introducing legislation that will make public colleges and universities tuition free.

That generation really has to fight for a new political language, social movements, and alliances with students from other countries. They have to convince labor, parents, and the general public that the fight over higher education is a fight that benefits everyone in a sustainable democracy and not just faculty and students.

I heard governor Romney here called me an economic lightweight because I wasn't a Wall Street financier like he was. Do you really believe this country wants to elect a Wall Street financier as the president of the United States? Do you think that's the experience that we need? Someone who's going to take and look after as he did his friends on Wall Street and bail them out at the expense of Main Street America.

If you look at virtually all of the issues of importance to the people of America - issues like making public colleges and universities tuition-free - Hillary Clinton is now on record for doing that for people making $125,000 a year or less. You know what? That is pretty revolutionary. That will transform the lives of millions of families in this country. That's what Clinton stands for.

American critics of welfare statism are often surprised to learn that countries like West Germany, with a much more comprehensive welfare state and a statistically larger public sector, have fewer government employees per capita than the United States does.

Let's provide family leave that is paid and access to affordable, high-quality childcare.

There is a route to the presidency in this country, and it's called the Electoral College, and both candidates base their campaigns on winning the Electoral College, not the popular vote. And in that pursuit, Donald Trump won in a landslide or near landslide. And in that pursuit, Barack Obama and his agenda was repudiated. And not just this year. In the 2010 midterms, the 2014 midterms, and this election.