Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a well-received hit on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s cuts to higher education in the state Thursday evening while debating the plausibility of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) free public college plan.
“I think, again, both of us share the goal of trying to make college affordable for all young Americans, and I’ve set for a compact that would do just that for debt-free tuition,” she said, referencing her plan for debt-free college.
But she argued that Sanders’ plan wouldn’t be feasible because it would rely in part on state governors, who would be obliged to pay for a third of the cost of making public college free for students.
“If you don’t have some agreement within the system ... it’s hard to get to where we need to go,” she said.
The audience at the debate loved her critique of Walker, a Republican who proposed a state budget in 2015 that would have slashed $300 million from the University of Wisconsin system over two years and cut $127 million from public primary schools. Clinton has gone after Walker in the past, but this time she did it in his own state, where the crowd was surely aware of the cuts.
“Sen. Sanders' plan really rests on making sure that governors, like Scott Walker, contribute $23 billion on the first day to make college free,” she continued. “I’m a little skeptical about your governor actually caring about enough higher education to make any kind of commitment like that.”
Walker, who dropped out of the Republican presidential primary in September, responded via Twitter with a non sequitur to defend his record on education:
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