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2016 Postmortem
Showing Original Post only (View all)Washington Post opinion: Sanders is selling a fantasy agenda [View all]
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has attracted a passionate following because he is selling his followers a fantasy. And not just any fantasy but one of epic proportions. A group of respected, nonpartisan experts offered the public a sense of the scale on Monday, releasing the most thorough analysis * yet on Sanderss plan and finding that it is profoundly flawed.
* http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/analysis-senator-bernie-sanderss-tax-and-transfer-proposals
The analysts found that Sanderss program is very progressive, jacking up taxes massively on the rich and providing a range of new benefits to the poor. Though every working person would face higher payroll taxes, the value of these benefits would leave 95 percent of households better off.
But there is a massive catch. Sanderss assurance that he has a plan to pay for every spending program he has introduced to date is wrong. And not just wrong, but extravagantly so. Even with his large tax increases, Sanders would fall $18 trillion short over just 10 years. Factoring in interest costs, his plan would add $21 trillion to the debt over a decade. That is more than the roughly $19 trillion the Treasury already owes. And the picture would probably get much worse as time went on.
Sanderss health-care plan is the big budget-buster. It alone would cost $32 trillion over 10 years more than twice the new revenues that Sanders would raise, Len Burman, the director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said on Monday. When reporters have asked Sanders about the costs of his health-care plan in the past, the senator has typically responded that other countries maintain functioning single-payer systems as though he has not proposed a specific plan that should be assessed on its own merits. Burman pointed out Monday that other countries do not promise their people as much as Sanders does.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/05/09/confirmed-sanders-is-selling-a-fantasy-agenda/
* http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/analysis-senator-bernie-sanderss-tax-and-transfer-proposals
The analysts found that Sanderss program is very progressive, jacking up taxes massively on the rich and providing a range of new benefits to the poor. Though every working person would face higher payroll taxes, the value of these benefits would leave 95 percent of households better off.
But there is a massive catch. Sanderss assurance that he has a plan to pay for every spending program he has introduced to date is wrong. And not just wrong, but extravagantly so. Even with his large tax increases, Sanders would fall $18 trillion short over just 10 years. Factoring in interest costs, his plan would add $21 trillion to the debt over a decade. That is more than the roughly $19 trillion the Treasury already owes. And the picture would probably get much worse as time went on.
Sanderss health-care plan is the big budget-buster. It alone would cost $32 trillion over 10 years more than twice the new revenues that Sanders would raise, Len Burman, the director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said on Monday. When reporters have asked Sanders about the costs of his health-care plan in the past, the senator has typically responded that other countries maintain functioning single-payer systems as though he has not proposed a specific plan that should be assessed on its own merits. Burman pointed out Monday that other countries do not promise their people as much as Sanders does.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/05/09/confirmed-sanders-is-selling-a-fantasy-agenda/
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This is total BS.. Study after study shows SINGLE payer would save a huge amount of money
Baobab
May 2016
#40
No, he's making the only promises that will work, also Clinton is locking in bad policy
Baobab
May 2016
#69
We're already spending $3.2 trillion per year on health care. We see this crap that rates Bernie's
brewens
May 2016
#80
Within 7 hrs, Jeff Bezos' WaPo Squeezes Out 4 Anti-Sanders Stories From 1 Tax Study
RiverLover
May 2016
#51
What utter shit. Bernie has the best record on minority rights by leaps and bounds
cali
May 2016
#11
But Clinton wants to give all our service jobs to Africa and Asian firms. Here! How generous.
Baobab
May 2016
#70
They definitely would have called JFK's plan to send a man to the moon a fantasy agenda.
Vinca
May 2016
#17
We have a choice. We can spent the trillions on killing people or helping people.
Vinca
May 2016
#44
At the beginning of this process I had a favorable view of him also. That is no longer the case
still_one
May 2016
#35
They're pulling out all stops now. Panic is upon them. WP lost its' journalistic credibility
silvershadow
May 2016
#29
P.S. Any analysis of proposed legislation by GAO would include models for stimulus effect.
pat_k
May 2016
#33
You cannot stimulate an economy which is as far in debt as that of the US (or Japan, Britain)
Albertoo
May 2016
#34
wholly crap are you wrong. You must love hearing yourself talk, I sure hope so, cause no one else
litlbilly
May 2016
#41
As a matter of pure principal, does anyone really have a problem with Bernie's policy goals?
Fast Walker 52
May 2016
#65
I am starting to think that Hillary's supporters, especially the brand new to DU ones, actually DO
djean111
May 2016
#66