Those evil far-right extremists at Vox are doing their best to highlight how stupid it is to back the Democratic Socialist agenda (which is pretty much the Democratic Party’s agenda)
My new study @voxdotcom:
The Democratic Socialist proposals would cost $42 trillion over the decade and $218 trillion over 30 years — according to CBO and liberal scores.https://t.co/81yQCrbrNM
— Brian Riedl ???? ???????? (@Brian_Riedl) August 7, 2018
From the link
Democratic socialism is having a moment. Sen. Bernie Sanders mobilized millions of voters during the 2016 campaign, nominally as a Democrat but with many self-professed socialists in his bandwagon. And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will likely bring her own brand of socialism to Congress next year, having knocked off New York Rep. Joe Crowley in a primary.
However, the democratic socialist agenda will face resistance not only from other lawmakers but from basic math. Their promises, which include free college, a single-payer health care system, guaranteed jobs, and more, would require astonishingly high expenditures that would cause the federal deficit to skyrocket. Once the costs become clear, most mainstream politicians and voters will surely balk. Making big promises is one thing; paying for them is another.
These involve policy proposals like Medicare for all, paying off the $1.4 trillion in student loan debt (which comes from the high cost of college run by Democrats for worthless degrees from Democrat run colleges), free college for all, a guaranteed job at $15 for all, and much more. And this is $42 trillion over the baseline spending by Los Federales
According to the left’s own sources, democratic socialism will cost $42.5 trillion in its first decade. How would the US pay for it?
Under the most generous assumptions possible, liberal proposals would cut $8.5 trillion on the spending side. To begin with, state governments no longer burdened with health care costs would save $4.1 trillion, according to the Urban Institute. The popular leftist goal of slashing defense spending down to Europe’s target of 2 percent of GDP, for which there is no plausible blueprint, would nonetheless save $1.9 trillion if achieved, according to CBO data. Charitably assuming that the jobs guarantee would reduce antipoverty spending by one-quarter would save $2.5 trillion.
Paying for the remaining $34 trillion would require nearly doubling federal tax revenues. Let’s examine three paths using data from CBO’s menu of budget savings:
Those three recommendations would be 1) taxing all “rich” people and companies. If you took 100% of their money, you’d get the $34 trillion. Second would be a value added tax (national sales tax). Wait, I thought all this stuff was free? Third would be a payroll tax of 37% on top of the existing payroll tax.
Taxing the rich is not enough. America would need to match, or even surpass, Europe’s enormous tax burden on the middle class. There is no evidence that American voters will accept this level of taxation.
Which is why “Democratic socialists are disingenuously cagey about the exorbitant tax burden they require.” Realistically, this isn’t the old saying by Margaret Thatcher about socialists eventually running out of other people’s money: they’re coming directly for your money right from the get go.
Let’s not forget that these are the non-partisan and liberal sourced numbers. When you get to the real numbers, they would be much, much worse.
