"Expand public transit and make it free? And who's gonna pay for that?" Me you fucking goofy bastard. I pay taxes. give me healthcare instead of buying another 700,000 tear gas canisters for the police to spray on my friends.

Or they could stop spending so much on the military. The US spends more on the military than the next 10 countries combined. We could get by on half the military spending with cutbacks and spend that on social systems and modern infrastructure.

"But making things free is Communism! Freeloaders! Bootstraps! Argharghargharghargh..."

"Don't worry, we can cut ob subsidies and be able to afford it, I mean we don't want to give free handouts right ?"

abolishing the military industrial complex (including demilitarizing the police) would also solve climate change)

*Makes every road a toll road* Well, who would pay for this if everyone could just use it for free? (Obviously not fuel tax, that pays only a tiny fraction)

Or (also) use the money spent on fare-evasion-prevention (which doesn't work).

About 50¢ of every dollar of federal taxes goes to the war machine. Of course there’s nothing better that spending could go to like healthcare, infrastructure, or environmental issues. But hey we’re safe from scary foreigners! 🛌

But how will my freedom be protected if the Pentagon isn’t spending 1,000,000,000,000.02 dollars on jet aircraft that explode on the runway?

In downtown Detroit, the streetcar on Woodward is now free (at point of use) thanks to a grant from the State of Michigan, and it is the greatest thing. We *can* have nice things, we just have to be willing to pay for them.

That's a great idea except whenever it's tried in the US, free mass transit becomes free housing, whose residents don't want to share with guests just trying to get to work or go shopping. 🤷‍♂️ There are difficult reasons we can't have nice things.