Rep. Ayanna Pressley said Friday all public transit should be fare-free, and her idea got huge applause at a gathering of diehard progressive activists.
Pressley, a member of the freshman squad, made the comments off the cuff as she was touting her criminal justice legislation aimed at radically decreasing the number of people incarcerated, abolishing private prisons and decriminalizing low-level offenses related to poverty.
“Like why are we locking kids up for evading fares?" Pressley said of turnstile jumpers. “They don’t got it!
"Deal with the root problem. Public transit should be free anyway!”
The Howard University crowd burst into cheers. She paused for 10 seconds as the audience continued to erupt.
“Yeah,” Pressley said, emphasizing her free-fare point.
Her comments came at an event with her fellow squad members – Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. – where they spoke to “The Rising Majority” activists who are working on racial justice, immigration rights, climate change and economic equality issues.
The squad touted the power of the progressive movement that helped propel them into office in 2018 and how they intend to make real governmental changes. The hashtag for the event was #squadup and a banner on stage read: "Building an antiracist left for radical democracy.”
Although they are only freshmen, the four squad members have an outsized national profile and their ideas can take hold swiftly in the party, such as Ocasio-Cortez’s push for the Green New Deal.
Love that Western Civilization is now being run by the world’s remedial students, who’ve destroyed every land they’ve had control of, because the world’s honor roll students won’t defend what they’ve built and given to everyone.
Lol….also I love some dem’s default playbook moves (everything should be freeeeeeeee [i.e. taxpayer paid, so NOT FREE]) and how the gullible university students/public lap it up like morons.
If she thinks public transit should be free then cars, insurance, gas, maintenance costs, etc. should be free as well.
Who will pay on the salaries of the people that work in the transportation system and provide transportation to everyone?
Same as always. Higher taxes on whites to provide third-world hordes a modern civilization, and repair the damage every time they fail to keep their impulses under control, which as we know is damn near impossible.
See North Korea, oops! I meant Venezuela for your answer! Lol!
It should be obvious … but the free stuff crowd is easily led down the road to ruin.
Once you flood public transit with infinity african mobs with nowhere to be, and all the whites and asians flee to cars or uber for safety, you’ll see the same morbidly obese sistahs writing articles about how #CarsBeSoWhite and ride services are a human right they should get for free.
They’re a swarm of locusts demanding and then destroying everything we build for them, before moving on to the next crop.
The state is parasitic and all action it takes, except for self-destruction, is moral evil.
Gee, I wonder what percentage of that THEFT is committed by whites?
Amazing. She doesn’t understand how taxes work yet she’s in government.
Stupid comments like this does more to hurt the Democrats than help them.
A comprehensive public transportation system benefits everyone; however saying it should be free is idiotic.
There are plenty of free transportation systems in high trust and ethnically homogeneous societies.
Key part being: in a sensible, cohesive, high-trust society. All kinds of stuff will work there that could never anywhere else. From free transit to generous social benefits to just being courteous and helpful to random strangers that will never pay you back directly.
Paying it forward by letting someone merge into traffic, knowing the next guy will let you in. Leaving free samples or halloween candy unattended, or ensuring a public resource like a campground or park is in better condition than you found it. When you’re contributing to help your fellow man, and everyone would be ashamed to take advantage of a generous system, it works.
When your homeland is filled with shameless, opportunistic, low-impulse-control hordes, then any favor you do goes unrequited, everything that isn’t bolted down gets stolen for scrap, and any time you relax you get taken advantage of.
Which is why giving the africans free run of the train system will be a total chimpout, just like doubling my taxes so doctors can spend millions on Duhbonica’s morbid obesity-related ailments.
WORKING TAXPAYERS !!! As usual .
What the hell is that all about ? 
Sounds like he’s suggesting that fare jumpers who want mass transportation to be free of charge had no intentions of paying for it anyway. They want the people who pay their fares and don’t break the law to pay for them.
And now we understand she does not have a basic grasp of the English language.
“They don’t GOT it?”
What is free is the ability of your legs to carry you anywhere you want to go.
Can’t afford public transportation? I’ll bet people will find a way to afford it when they get tired of walking.
It really does. I have to ask: is she stupid or ignorant?
Why don’t you research it and pose some relevant statistics instead of just random “wondering”?