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Anyone else hear the NPR hatchet-job on Bernie yesterday?
The 4pm hour (CDT)
I was driving a borrowed car when I turned on the radio. It was set on NPR. Two NPR personalities were discussing the upcoming contest between Trump and Clinton (apparently, it's all over but the shouting). No mention of Sanders until the two NPR personalities philosophized about why he was behind (he is? News to me). They mentioned the so-called $18 trillion increase in government spending Bernie has proposed as a possible reason (but what the hey! This is New Plutocrat Radio!). They failed to tell the whole story.
According to the Washington Post--
No, Bernie Sanders is not going to bankrupt America to the tune of $18 trillion.
The big policy headline today comes from the Wall Street Journal, which delivers this alarming message:
Price Tag of Bernie Sanders’ Proposals: $18 Trillion
Holy cow! He must be advocating for some crazy stuff that will bankrupt America! But is that really an accurate picture of what Sanders is proposing? And is this the kind of number we should be frightened of?
The answer isn’t quite so dramatic: while Sanders does want to spend significant amounts of money, almost all of it is on things we’re already paying for; he just wants to change how we pay for them. In some ways it’s by spreading out a cost currently borne by a limited number of people to all taxpayers. His plan for free public college would do this: right now, it’s paid for by students and their families, while under Sanders’ plan we’d all pay for it in the same way we all pay for parks or the military or food safety.
But the bulk of what Sanders wants to do is in the first category: to have us pay through taxes for things we’re already paying for in other ways. Depending on your perspective on government, you may think that’s a bad idea. But we shouldn’t treat his proposals as though they’re going to cost us $18 trillion on top of what we’re already paying.
And there’s another problem with that scary $18 trillion figure, which is what the Journal says is the 10-year cost of Sanders’ ideas: fully $15 trillion of it comes not from an analysis of anything Sanders has proposed, but from the fact that Sanders has said he’d like to see a single-payer health insurance system, and there’s a single-payer plan in Congress that has been estimated to cost $15 trillion. Sanders hasn’t actually released any health care plan, so we have no idea what his might cost.
But health care is nevertheless a good place to examine why these big numbers can be so misleading. At the moment, total health care spending in the United States runs over $3 trillion a year; according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, over the next decade (from 2015-2024), America will spend a total of $42 trillion on health care. This is money that you and I and everyone else spends. We spend it in a variety of ways: through our health-insurance premiums, through the reduced salaries we get if our employers pick up part or all of the cost of those premiums, through our co-pays and deductibles, and through our taxes that fund Medicare, Medicaid, ACA subsidies, and the VA health care system. We’re already paying about $10,000 a year per capita for health care.
--more--
Washington Post
The big policy headline today comes from the Wall Street Journal, which delivers this alarming message:
Price Tag of Bernie Sanders’ Proposals: $18 Trillion
Holy cow! He must be advocating for some crazy stuff that will bankrupt America! But is that really an accurate picture of what Sanders is proposing? And is this the kind of number we should be frightened of?
The answer isn’t quite so dramatic: while Sanders does want to spend significant amounts of money, almost all of it is on things we’re already paying for; he just wants to change how we pay for them. In some ways it’s by spreading out a cost currently borne by a limited number of people to all taxpayers. His plan for free public college would do this: right now, it’s paid for by students and their families, while under Sanders’ plan we’d all pay for it in the same way we all pay for parks or the military or food safety.
But the bulk of what Sanders wants to do is in the first category: to have us pay through taxes for things we’re already paying for in other ways. Depending on your perspective on government, you may think that’s a bad idea. But we shouldn’t treat his proposals as though they’re going to cost us $18 trillion on top of what we’re already paying.
And there’s another problem with that scary $18 trillion figure, which is what the Journal says is the 10-year cost of Sanders’ ideas: fully $15 trillion of it comes not from an analysis of anything Sanders has proposed, but from the fact that Sanders has said he’d like to see a single-payer health insurance system, and there’s a single-payer plan in Congress that has been estimated to cost $15 trillion. Sanders hasn’t actually released any health care plan, so we have no idea what his might cost.
But health care is nevertheless a good place to examine why these big numbers can be so misleading. At the moment, total health care spending in the United States runs over $3 trillion a year; according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, over the next decade (from 2015-2024), America will spend a total of $42 trillion on health care. This is money that you and I and everyone else spends. We spend it in a variety of ways: through our health-insurance premiums, through the reduced salaries we get if our employers pick up part or all of the cost of those premiums, through our co-pays and deductibles, and through our taxes that fund Medicare, Medicaid, ACA subsidies, and the VA health care system. We’re already paying about $10,000 a year per capita for health care.
--more--
Washington Post
Kudos to Paul Waldman for correcting WP. But the simple fact remains: NPR chose to omit this information in an effort to discredit Sanders. But it's what the Oligarchs want, so NPR obliged.
It just reinforced the sad fact that if we don't get Bernie in November, we'll get burned for the next four years.
17 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Sander's plan has been known for over half-a-year, yet NPR chose to omit the details, hoping to scare Americans with the $18 trillion "increase" in government spending!
NPR did a disservice to American voters. But you can bet the Oligarchs are happy!!
