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Election 2020 The 2020 Candidates: Right, Left and Center!

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The Unaffordable Candidate
Brian Riedl is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on twitter @Brian_Riedl.

This was written in October 2019

It’s been a difficult time for Senator Bernie Sanders, who was hospitalized two weeks ago after suffering a heart attack and whose 46-year-old daughter-in-law has recently died of cancer. Given Sanders’s age (78) and health and familial challenges, his quest for the Democratic presidential nomination looks like an uphill battle. For the time being, at least, he pledges to continue his campaign.

And so long as Sanders remains in the race, it’s worth taking his policy ideas seriously, since he has unveiled expensive new spending proposals on a near-weekly basis. All told, Sanders’s current plans would cost as much as $97.5 trillion over the next decade, and total government spending at all levels would surge to as high as 70 percent of gross domestic product. Approximately half of the American workforce would be employed by the government. The ten-year budget deficit would approach $90 trillion, with average annual deficits exceeding 30 percent of GDP.

The $97.5 trillion price tag is made up mostly of the costs of Sanders’s three most ambitious proposals. Sanders concedes that his Medicare For All plan would increase federal spending by “somewhere between $30 and $40 trillion over a 10-year period.” He pledges to spend $16.3 trillion on his climate plan. And his proposal to guarantee all Americans a full-time government job paying $15 an hour, with full benefits, is estimated to cost $30.1 trillion. The final $11.1 trillion includes $3 trillion to forgive all student loans and guarantee free public-college tuition—plus $1.8 trillion to expand Social Security, $2.5 trillion on housing, $1.6 trillion on paid family leave, $1 trillion on infrastructure, $800 billion on general K-12 education spending, and an additional $400 billion on higher public school teacher salaries.

This unprecedented outlay would more than double the size of the federal government. Over the next decade, Washington is already projected to spend $60 trillion, and state and local governments will spend another $29.7 trillion from non-federal sources. Adding Sanders’s $97.5 trillion—and then subtracting the $3 trillion saved by state governments under Medicare For All—would raise the total cost of government to $184 trillion, or 70 percent of the projected GDP over ten years

Such spending would far exceed even that of European social democracies. The 35 OECD countries average 43 percent of GDP in total government spending. Finland’s 57 percent tops the list, edging France and Denmark. Meantime, Sweden and Norway—regularly lauded as models for the U.S.—spend just under 50 percent of GDP. The U.S. government, at all levels, spends between 34 percent and 38 percent of GDP, depending on how one calculates.

Sanders’s agenda is virtually impossible to pay for. Adding $97.5 trillion in new spending to an underlying $15.5 trillion projected budget deficit (under current policies) creates a ten-year budget gap of $113 trillion. Yet Sanders’s tax proposals would raise at most $23 trillion over the decade.

His Medicare For All financing worksheet contains $16.2 trillion in mostly-broad-based tax increases, which rises to $19.3 trillion after replacing the worksheet’s original $1.3 trillion wealth tax with the recent $4.35 trillion version. Social Security expansion would be financed by $1.8 trillion in new payroll and investment taxes. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the financial-transactions tax intended to pay for Sanders’s college agenda would raise $777 billion. The climate proposal and family-leave proposals each contain approximately $200 billion in specified tax increases. Repealing the 2017 tax cuts—beyond what is already accounted for in other proposals—would raise at most $1 trillion. Sanders has backed away from his previous support for a carbon tax.

Tax rates would soar. Sanders would raise the current 15.3 percent payroll tax to 27.2 percent due to an 11.5 percent Medicare For All payroll tax (with some exemptions), and a 0.4 percent payroll tax for paid family leave. (The full Social Security payroll tax would also be applied to wages exceeding $250,000.) Sanders proposes a top federal income-tax rate of 52 percent. Capital gains and dividends would be taxed as ordinary income, plus a 10 percent net investment-income surtax for the wealthy. The resulting 62 percent top tax bracket for investments would be so far beyond the revenue-maximizing rate that it would produce little actual revenue. Overall, upper-income taxpayers would face a marginal tax rate as high as 80 percent from their federal income, state income, and payroll taxes. They would also be assessed a 62 percent investment tax rate, an annual wealth tax of up to 8 percent, and a 77 percent estate tax.

Yet these $23 trillion in proposed taxes would still leave a staggering $90 trillion budget deficit, or 34 percent of GDP. Closing the rest of the gap—which comes to $66,000 per household annually—is basically impossible. Given that Sanders already maximizes taxes on the wealthy, that leaves the payroll tax or a value-added tax (VAT) to raise the rest. The CBO claims that each 1 percentage-point increase in the payroll tax raises $0.9 trillion over the decade, thus requiring an extra 100 percent rate on top of the 27.2 percent proposal. Alternatively, a European-style VAT would raise $0.4 trillion per percentage point, thus requiring an absurd 225 percent tax rate to close the remaining $90 trillion budget gap. Cutting defense spending to NATO’s European target of 2 percent of GDP would save just $3 trillion. Even seizing all $82 trillion in household financial assets would be insufficient.

Sanders claims that economic growth would produce enough revenue to offset much of these costs. It’s more likely that exorbitant tax rates and the diversion of millions of private-sector workers into government “make-work” jobs would reduce investment, productivity, and growth. Yet even for the sake of argument, permanently doubling America’s trend economic growth rate from 2 percent to 4 percent would raise just under $6 trillion in new revenues over the decade—still leaving an $84 trillion budget gap.

The massive cost of the proposed government-job guarantee has rarely been analyzed and requires a deeper explanation. Sanders would guarantee a full-time job paying at least $15 per hour with full benefits—and nearly guaranteed job security—to anyone who wants one. A report commissioned by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities calculated that a more modest version of this proposal—paying a minimum wage of $11.83—would cost the government $56,000 per full-time employee when including benefits and administrative costs. Factoring in 4 percent annual cost growth, 1 million participants would cost $672 billion over the next decade.

Participation would surely include the 11.3 million jobless Americans who are either actively seeking a job or have stopped looking but still want to work. That would cost $7.6 trillion over the decade. Yet 42.4 percent of the workforce—or nearly 67 million workers—earns less than $15 per hour. Proponents assume that employers will offer large raises and new benefits to keep these employees in their current jobs. Assuming even half of them instead switch to a government job for the higher pay, job security, and/or (likely) easier work, enrollment would increase to 45 million, at a cost of $30 trillion over the decade.

Some costs would be offset by having fewer people collecting health and welfare benefits elsewhere. On the other hand, there is reason to believe that costs would rise further. As stated above, the calculations are based on a $11.83 government wage rather than Sanders’s $15 proposal. Enrollment would surely surge during recessions, and individuals unhappy in their demanding, dangerous, or unstable jobs that pay slightly above $15 per hour might see a government job as a better bet. Many of the 7 million seniors living in poverty, unsure of their work capabilities, could be lured back into the workforce with a healthy wage and job security.

Medicare For All is a major driver of Sanders’s budget deficits. The proposal would essentially replace all health premiums and out-of-pocket expenses with a new “single-payer tax” and federal provision of health care. Despite their assertions that families would come out ahead—that their health taxes would be lower than past premiums and out-of-pocket costs—Medicare For All proponents have failed to design a tax that could replace the current $35 trillion spent by families, businesses, and state governments. Sanders’s Medicare For All legislation includes no tax mechanism, and his worksheet of tax options adds up to just $19 trillion. Fully funded Medicare For All legislation doesn’t exist.

If the 70 percent of GDP spending estimate seems too high to be accurate, consider that no OECD country offers anything remotely similar to Senator Sanders’s proposed job-guarantee program or has nationalized a health system that consumes nearly 20 percent of its GDP.

Sanders’s agenda would result in approximately half the American workforce working for government. Current government employment at all levels is just under 23 million; the job guarantee would likely attract 45 million new participants. More than 16 million private health-care employees would essentially become government employees. Approximately 1 million new employees would likely be needed to staff other policies such as the job guarantee. That’s 85 million total government employees out of a 170-million-person American workforce, minus any individuals overlapping between these groups.

With more than a year to go before the 2020 presidential election, Sanders may well top $100 trillion in promised new government spending. He should be pressed to explain the feasibility of his agenda and how he would finance it.
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Anyone criticizing gov't spending, or the deficit increases in particular, under Trump should have no business voting for Bernie.
 
JGrimez said:
They said Trump wouldn't win.

Bloomberg endured perhaps the most disastrous debate performance ever and his support rose. The powah of the dollar$.
If it was a fair race I think Sanders would win but we're seeing them playing similar dirty tricks to screw Sanders' campaign. I hope to God that the electoral fraud is busted wide open.
If Bloomberg does get the nod, let's see how much of b**** Sanders is and see if he: rolls over and takes it, says nothing to expose them or stand up for himself and then ultimately endorses the billionaire. He's gonna be in a tough position.
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a better analogy is "if we nominate Bernie he will get slaughtered in the general" and "if we nominate Trump he will get slaughtered in the general".

you can't compare Bloomberg to trump. As much as I disagree with his politics, Trump has charisma and he knows how to rally people. Little Mikey can't do that.
 
You still don't seem to get it JGrimez. This all started when you said...

BTW if you don't wanna be put into a cell then don't break the law or enter a country illegally (especially with children).
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You seem to think I'm arguing for a particular political or legal standpoint here, I'm not. I'm arguing that YOU are wrong to cast moral judgements on people you don't know for doing what they may have had little choice but to do.

No matter what the legal policies should be, what the best course of action is, I find it disgusting that you suggest locking someone up who came because they wanted a better life for them and their family deserve it because otherwise "they shouldn't have entered the country illegally". It's judgemental, heartless and cruel.

Even if I believed that locking them up is what we absolutely had to do... I'd still find it disgusting that someone cares so little about other people that they think someone deserves to be incarcerated and brought it on themselves as you suggest simply because they wanted to live somewhere better.

It's the difference between believing someone has to be put to death for the greater good and safety of society, and believing they should be put to death because it makes you feel better to see them "get what they deserve". It may be that what has to happen is the same outcome. But only one of those people would I be able to respect.
 
JessFR said:
It's judgemental, heartless and cruel.
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No need for the grandstanding. I don't respect these emotional arguments that try to character assassinate me - you're going after me as a person instead of attacking my ideas. What I said was these asylum seekers are welcome they just need to go through a point of entry so do it the legal way. That's what border security and the governments requests of them. If you are willing to cross illegally the same way as gangsters and criminals then you should expect to be detained. People often use children to get across the border. If you don't detain people then the problem gets worse. If they are legitimate asylum seekers, apply legally (I will agree that there are problems there). Also tbf if someone is fleeing genuine danger then being in the custody of US govt officials would actually be the safest place for them.
 
JGrimez said:
I would agree to speed up the asylum process. The solution however is not to just allow free travel across the border. If anything if they crack down on the massive costs that result from illegal immigration then they could redirect those funds into improving the asylum process.
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I absolutely agree we should improve the asylum process, for sure. Where we differ, it seems, is that since we are not doing that, I don't think we should be persecuting people where a large portion of those people, I'm quite sure, would legally apply if they were able to do so with the reasonable expectation that they would be heard and their case decided within a few months' time, and not have to worry that their children will be taken from them for a long period of time. I just don't think these people really see that they have another option. Like everyone else, they want to live peacefully, free of violence and persecution, and be able to provide a good living for their families. Our current asylum process does not provide this, and people fleeing intense gang violence do not have the luxury of waiting years for approval.

In an ideal world, immigration should all happen legally. I'm against people who just want to enter the US because it would be better from them, but who are not not refugees, not crossing illegally. But we don't live in an ideal world and currently, asylum seekers from central America are not facing workable timeframes and fear family separation.

Also remember, much of the right and your former criticism of migrants (the immigrant caravans rhetoric) were, in fact, seeking legal asylum at legal ports of entry, and yet people were vilifying them anyway.
 
Perhaps you're right, I probably am targeting you.. I'd like to say I'm targeting your attitude, but I question how much of a practical difference there is between a person and their attitudes, behavior, etc. I just really really don't like seeing people act so heartless towards other people.

But fine, I've said my peace, I'm happy to drop it. For what it's worth I'm not trying to say you're an innately bad person, I just feel it's a really not OK way to treat people.
 
I don't want anyone to be harmed. Unfortunately it's impossible to alleviate everyone from suffering at all times. There are just different ideas and methods to reduce overall harm.

Xorkoth said:
I absolutely agree we should improve the asylum process, for sure. Where we differ, it seems, is that since we are not doing that, I don't think we should be persecuting people where a large portion of those people, I'm quite sure, would legally apply if they were able to do so with the reasonable expectation that they would be heard and their case decided within a few months' time, and not have to worry that their children will be taken from them for a long period of time. I just don't think these people really see that they have another option. Like everyone else, they want to live peacefully, free of violence and persecution, and be able to provide a good living for their families. Our current asylum process does not provide this, and people fleeing intense gang violence do not have the luxury of waiting years for approval.
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Are you suggesting that the majority of non-criminal people being detained are fleeing imminent danger? How do we not know that a sizable number aren't economic migrants? If the US government is promising all these benefits to illegals, then maybe that's an incentive for parents to pay cartel members to smuggle their children across the border? Listen, if a family goes to a point of entry the proper way and tells US officials that their lives are in imminent danger then they're not going to turn them away. Unless someone has an example of this happening I'd like to see it.

Xorkoth said:
In an ideal world, immigration should all happen legally.
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In an ideal world every country would have a decent standard of living and people could stay in their own countries with their own cultures and families. That would also naturally improve global immigration. It wouldn't be necessary for people to relocate. There's a lot pointing to this recent push for global migration as being orchestrated.

Xorkoth said:
Also remember, much of the right and your former criticism of migrants (the immigrant caravans rhetoric) were, in fact, seeking legal asylum at legal ports of entry, and yet people were vilifying them anyway.
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Well it was more so the theatrics and orchestration of that whole thing. It was such an obvious media-fueled attack against Trump, plus probably a distraction from other damaging news. And that caravan was dodgy as it was mostly young males and there were even some people in it who were not from Central or South America.
 
cduggles said:
I find this argument a bit specious; Bernie would be spending money on quite different things.
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I never argued what the money would be spent on, I argued anyone that doesn't like the ever growing deficit should question, or be opposed to, Bernie's plan. The root question remains as it always has = how to pay for the increases.
 
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I disagree. When the deficit is being increased in order to benefit a select few, I feel a lot differently about it than when it is being increased to benefit the people as a whole. Plus there is so much wasteful government spending, and already huge burden on taxpayers of supporting a bloated healthcare system. If healthcare wasn't for-profit and was instead socialized, perhaps our costs would be more in line with the rest of the developed world, instead of 10 times as much because of insurance companies.
 
It really is pretty amazing how we've been brainwashed into believing that a bloated for-profit healthcare system is somehow better for us than not-for-profit, and that "socialist" ideas are terrible for us and inevitably lead to people being executed against brick walls, when nearly the entire rest of the developed world has these things in place already and have for some time. The average American is spending 10-20% (or more) of their paycheck on healthcare premiums and most people are not very happy with their level of care. We have a system where someone has an unexpected medical emergency and has to declare bankruptcy or be in debt for decades. It's inexcusable and absurd. For your average level of medical practice, the quality of care is poor. Granted, if you have money for it, you can go to the best quality medical facilities in the world. But does that offset the terrible cost to everyone else who can't afford it? I don't know, even if taxes go up, it would be worth it for me to provide a basic level of health care to tens of millions of people who, right now, literally can't afford to see a doctor and who are one car accident away from financial ruin.

Think of all the government assistance already going into helping people pay for pharmaceuticals that cost 10 times more here than they do anywhere else in the world. And the cost of unpaid medical bills when people get charged $50,000 for one emergency room visit and can't pay it. Our current healthcare system already costs us a lot as taxpayers.
 
It's an intentional brainwashing because as it turns out, the health insurance and pharmaceutical companies are making tremendous amounts of money hand over fist at our expense, and moving to medicare for all would utterly disrupt that. So their best strategy is to convince the American people that it's in their best interest to keep the current system, even though it clearly isn't.

Take a look at California, they have free healthcare for all state citizens, and they have, what, the 4th largest economy in the world? In fact they have a number of these "socialist"-leaning systems in place that people are so scared of.
 
People are more and more open to the idea of a single-payer system...people aren't buying the propaganda anymore, even people on the political right

I heard an interview with one of the people behind the Yale study on M4A recently, she brought up a number of interesting points about how the program would save money for consumers, including instituting Medicare-style price controls on Rx drugs and reducing the negative health outcomes of the mass of uninsured people in this country (who are some 40x more likely to suffer negative health outcomes than those with insurance)

Its an idea who's time has come and Sanders deserves a lot of credit for continuing to push it forward
 
Yeah, it's simply criminal that Rx drugs cost literally I think the figure I saw said 10 times as much as they do in the next most expensive country. It's out of control predatory practices by insurance companies. Add to that the immense bloat of wasted money that results from hospitals being for-profit, and the insane emergency room costs (like an MRI in the ER can cost $10,000, while the same MRI at a lab resulting from a regular doctor visit could cost $500), and it shows just how badly broken the system is, and all because it's making some people phenomenal amounts of wealth. If health care was state-run, there would be no benefit from overcharging and our costs would line up with the costs in other countries.

To the people who are always shouting doom about these "socialist" programs such as state run healthcare, why don't you ever seem to acknowledge that although, yes, there are examples of countries succumbing to corruption like Venezuela after adopting them, there are also many examples of thriving first-world nations who have had state-run healthcare for a long time? That those countries can hardly even believe the situation we have over here? If you have health insurance (like I do), then great, you're fine, and if your work pays for it 100% then you're really lucky... but in my case, I spend about 12% of my paycheck on that health care. I'd rather my taxes go up 12% and everyone gets health care so we don't have the deplorable scenario we see today of 30+ million uninsured, people going broke because of a medical emergency, people unwilling to engage in preventative healthcare because they can't afford a doctor, who end up draining the whole system later on due to health problems. It's nuts.

Of course when you factor in what we already ARE spending to support this bloated system, it really is a no-brainer. Or it should be... instead we have people defending the very system that it screwing them over. Because Socialism!
 
Xorkoth said:
It really is pretty amazing how we've been brainwashed into believing that a bloated for-profit healthcare system is somehow better for us than not-for-profit, and that "socialist" ideas are terrible for us and inevitably lead to people being executed against brick walls, when nearly the entire rest of the developed world has these things in place already and have for some time.
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People are skeptical of giving the government more power. Even if they f**ked it up it could still be better than the system the US has now, but they don't really have a good track record of responsible spending so people are suspicious. There's also the questionable effectiveness of socialized healthcare systems. I agree it needs to change, whether Bernie has the answers and capabilities to do so.... I'll guess we'll see soon if enough people believe that.
 
JGrimez said:
People are skeptical of giving the government more power. Even if they f**ked it up it could still be better than the system the US has now, but they don't really have a good track record of responsible spending so people are suspicious. There's also the questionable effectiveness of socialized healthcare systems. I agree it needs to change, whether Bernie has the answers and capabilities to do so.... I'll guess we'll see soon if enough people believe that.
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I definitely get the suspicion, it's true there is a bad track record. I guess I just trust Bernie to at least have our interests at heart. The current system is clearly unsustainable, as evidenced by rising premiums every year and continually rising health care costs. We need to do something, I think we just need to try. Medicare for all is the right direction, IMO. I don't think it's realistic to expect a for-profit healthcare system and a for-profit government structure to regulate itself.
 
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