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Confirmed: Sanders is selling a fantasy agenda
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 Sanders’s plan and finding that it is profoundly flawed. Before the Democrats agree to adopt his agenda, a price they might pay to get him to end his doomed campaign, they should be clear about what they are signing onto.
The analysts found that Sanders’s 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. They granted Sanders that his single-payer health system, in which the government would pay for everyone’s care and demand no co-payments or other cost-sharing, would expand health-care access and cut the growth of health-care costs, and they made “aggressive” assumptions about how much the new system would reduce drug and other prices.
But there is a massive catch. Sanders’s 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. Expanding Social Security, for example, would become much more expensive as more people retired.
Sanders’s 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. Making his system less costly, the analysts found, would require doing very unpopular things. Deeply cutting payments to doctors and hospitals, for example, would induce “supply constraints” — that is, a shortage of providers willing to meet demand for health services, which would make it harder to access care. Think long wait times and other hurdles.
The analysts found that Sanders’s 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. They granted Sanders that his single-payer health system, in which the government would pay for everyone’s care and demand no co-payments or other cost-sharing, would expand health-care access and cut the growth of health-care costs, and they made “aggressive” assumptions about how much the new system would reduce drug and other prices.
But there is a massive catch. Sanders’s 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. Expanding Social Security, for example, would become much more expensive as more people retired.
Sanders’s 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. Making his system less costly, the analysts found, would require doing very unpopular things. Deeply cutting payments to doctors and hospitals, for example, would induce “supply constraints” — that is, a shortage of providers willing to meet demand for health services, which would make it harder to access care. Think long wait times and other hurdles.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/05/09/confirmed-sanders-is-selling-a-fantasy-agenda/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-c%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
Hillary's plans are the only plans of any candidate that do not explode the national debt. They are also the only plans that work with - rather than ignore - reality in the U. S.
15 replies
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They forgot to factor in how much we like the guy, the fact that he won 6-7 caucuses in a row, and the revenue of "Birdie Sanders in the White House" memorabilia. That accounts for at least 5 trillion.
The Berners are talking how Trump's guaranteed a win unless Hillary gets indicted and Bernie comes to save the day.
fantasy. burnie's the candidate that nobody can look too closely at or they find out what his platform is built on and what he's really like.
That's one big reason why Hillary supporters on DU have gotten so many hides from the majority of BS fans.. trying to post his background. They must not think much of him if they can't be proud of his past.
Thank you, SunSeeker!
