Live Coverage Of The First Democratic Debate

College affordability is a big issue regardless of political affiliation: An April Gallup poll found that while 61 percent of U.S. adults believe that education beyond high school is available to anyone who needs it, only 21 percent believe it’s affordable.

Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders clearly see a political advantage in attacking Hillary Clinton as being soft on Wall Street. They want to break up the big banks and reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act’s separation of commercial and investment banking operations. Clinton has said that “too big to fail” remains a problem but hasn’t endorsed bringing back Glass-Steagall. Clinton’s defense: O’Malley and Sanders are living in the past. The financial crisis showed that many of the biggest threats to the economy come not from banks but from enormous non-banking financial institutions like the insurance company AIG. And in recent years, numerous studies have highlighted the risks posed by the “shadow-banking sector” and other, less-regulated corners of the financial industry. That argument may or may not play politically, but it’s one that many experts endorse.