In nearly every speech, every interview Bernie Sanders has given over the past 30 years,

he's called for us to join the rest of the modern world in offering universal health care, a living wage, and other basic

social supports like free child care and paid family leave.

We're the wealthiest country in the world, he's argued.

Other countries handle it just fine, he's pointed out.

And our people are suffering desperately because we don't have these things.

On paper, we have two major parties in this country. One that

builds itself as believing that the role of government is to support the

well-being of working people and to provide a basic standard of living for all, and another which

believes that government is a hindrance to free markets. But both parties seem united in the belief that when it comes to basic social programs

enjoyed the world over, America is unique and so far as we just can't afford it.

How do we pay for it is the question that has dominated

not just right-wing commentary

about the Democratic primary,

but intra-party discourse as well.

The plan is going to cost at least $30 trillion over 10 years.

That is more on a yearly basis than the entire federal budget.

I don't see any point in taking away Americans choice to have employer-based health

insurance and to force them to pay 33 trillion dollars in taxes.

That is until the coronavirus.

The sheer magnitude of the crisis before us has thrown the stakes into stark relief.

And folks across the political divide are now four water-down versions of the policies

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