Raimondo Lifts Line, “The Hardest Part of College Shouldn’t Be Paying for It" from Clinton

Raimondo Lifts Line, “The Hardest Part of College Shouldn’t Be Paying for It" from Clinton

The cornerstone to Governor Gina Raimondo’s State of the State speech on Tuesday night was officially unveiling her proposal to provide two years of free college education to Rhode Island families at Rhode Island public colleges. 

The key line of her speech, “Because the hardest part of college shouldn’t be paying for it,” was met with great applause.

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But for some, the payoff line had been heard before. GoLocal found that the key line to the Governor’s speech had been delivered by Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in a Democratic Presidential debate held on October 13, 2015.

Ironically, Clinton attributed the line to “a young student in Nevada [who] said to me, the hardest thing about going to college should not be paying for it” during the debate with Bernie Sanders, Jim Webb, Martin O’Malley, and Rhode Island’s Lincoln Chafee.

The debate was moderated by Anderson Cooper.

The line is a verbatim match to Clinton. Raimondo’s ten page speech included 69 footnotes sourcing everything from RI Commerce Corp documents and her own press releases. 

Efforts to reach David Ortiz the spokesperson to the Governor were unsuccessful.