The Jan. 28 editorial “A campaign full of fiction,” about the presidential candidacy of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), resembled the adolescent sniping that has characterized GOP debates this season.

The editorial objected to Mr. Sanders calling bankers and financiers the “bad guys” and complacently asserted that Wall Street has already undergone reform. Was that referring to the pathetically weak Dodd-Frank rules, which are already being eroded? The same forces that created the housing bubble are back — and when the bubble bursts again, the taxpayers will pay the price and many will lose their jobs, and no one will go to jail.

Radical campaign finance reform might change a lot of people’s opposition to the “Sanders agenda,” as it would slow down the propaganda machine that molds public opinion.

The tax increase needed for single-payer health care would not exceed the outrageous insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays that are a huge drain on the economy. For the middle class, they amount to a “death tax,” as any prolonged illness means that the medical industry, rather than heirs, gets whatever is left. As far as the chimera of “rationing health care,” ask any Canadian if he would prefer our system.

The status quo is quite healthy and almost immovable and doesn’t need the editorial board to defend it.

Howard Schmitt, Green Tree, Pa.