The Actual Cost of Sanders' Program Proposals
First it needs to be understood that Sen Sanders is basing the cost to pay for his proposed programs on a flawed analysis by Yale University that has been panned by analysts from both the left and the right.
Washington's premier budget analysis group, the Center For Responsible Federal Budget, just released their analysis based on the program funding sketch Sanders provided last week.
www.crfb.org
----- Summary:
Even after factoring in the revenue generating proposals Sanders submitted to pay for his program proposals including a wealth tax, and an income inequality tax on CEOs and corporations, AND even after raising taxes according to the marginal tax rate by up to 50% on middle class Americans, it still leaves a $20 TRILLION GAP which is the entire size of our current national debt.
The only way to close that gap is through huge tax increases.
Sanders' sketch already bakes in a 10% across the board tax increase on all Americans to pay for his programs.
An additional 20% across the board tax increase would be required to make up the difference.
That means a typical middle class family making $80,000 yearly would pay a tax rate of about 60%, and as you go up the income scale, that increases to about an 80% to 90% tax rate.
Not implementing those tax increases would incur more additional debt than this country has accumulated in it's 244 year history.
Note: This is a conservative estimate because the CRFB didn't factor in the Green New Deal, which they found hard to score.
Lastly, understand that for what you pay, the government determines who, what, when, where, and how services are provided to you.
----- Analysis of Sanders' Rebuttal:
Sanders argues that if you factor in his various tax rate increases cited above, and given that you're decreasing costs for the middle class on their premiums, overall in the end, the middle class is going to save money on their health care, and he's right. The numbers show that single payer systems in Europe are far more efficient. We spend much more on healthcare than some of those countries do. Our system is broken.
The problem is Sanders relies on that flawed analysis by Yale University I mentioned at the beginning, and he needs to be more forth coming about what it's really going to cost, not just regarding paying for Medicare For All which is where the big gap is, but in paying for his other proposals, such as cancelling out student debt.
Under the systems that Sanders cites, such as in Denmark, what they have there is a huge Value Added Tax (VAT), a sales tax essentially, that disproportionately hits middle class and lower income people because they're taxing goods, in addition to their much higher income tax rates.
He mentions a tax on Wall Street speculation - taxing their transactions. The problem with that is, it will fall short because once you start taxing anything, you're going to see less of it occurring, so the numbers won't add up in real life versus how they seem to theoretically.
These are some of the facts and trade offs that Americans need and deserve to be made clearly aware of when considering their options to make a fully informed decision.
Food for thought. Hope it helps.