2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumIt's NOT "Free Stuff" It's Using Taxes to Fund What We Actually Need
http://usuncut.com/politics/its-not-free-stuff-its-using-taxes-to-fund-what-we-actually-need/Bernies proposals of a free, universal Medicare For All program, free public education through the 4-year college level, 12 weeks of paid family leave, and providing millions of new jobs through investments in infrastructure are lofty goals, but the money to fund them is there if we were to simply cut the most wasteful and fraudulent corporate welfare packages that help a small wealthy few Americans while burdening the rest.
First, lets add up the total annual cost of Sanders costliest policy proposals, using estimates provided by the Sanders campaign:
Medicare for All: $1.38 trillion
New WPA: $200 billion (5-year limit)
Free college: $75 billion
Paid family leave: $31 billion
Total annual cost: $1.49 trillion
That may seem like a lot on its own, but the funding can easily be raised by cutting the free stuff we currently lavish on the wealthy. Multiple entitlement programs that exclusively benefit multinational corporations (like tax breaks for hedge fund managers, rich kids inheritances, and CEO bonuses, handouts to the oil and pharmaceutical industries, costly weapons programs and unnecessary wars, subsidies for too-big-to-fail banks, handouts to corporate behemoths cemented in last years omnibus spending bill, and tax loopholes for multinational corporations can easily be sacrificed to benefit the other 99.9 percent of Americans. Heres the annual cost breakdown of those programs:
Allowing Wall Street to trade tax-free: $352 billion
Extension of Bush tax cuts for the wealthy: $277.6 billion
Government contracts for the 200 wealthiest corporations: $176 billion
Lifting cap on Social Security taxing: $120 billion
Money lost to corporate tax havens: $100 billion
Wall Street welfare: $83 billion
Corporate welfare in omnibus spending bill: $65 billion
Surveillance-industrial complex: $52.6 billion
Tax breaks for wealthy investors: $51 billion (average over 5-year period)
War in Afghanistan: $35 billion
Oil company subsidies: $37.5 billion
Tax breaks for rich brats: $26.9 billion
New nuclear missiles: $18 billion
Ford-class aircraft carrier: $15 billion
Federal war on drugs: $15 billion
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: $10 billion
Foreign war slush fund: $8 billion
Walmart subsidies: $7.8 billion
Tax breaks for CEO bonuses: $7 billion
Littoral Combat Ship: $2 billion
Unusable planes for Afghan Air Force: $800 million
Keeping the Guantanamo Bay detention center open: $454 million
Total annual savings: $1.46 trillion
As it stands right now, all of these aforementioned programs amount to $1.34 trillion every year in free stuff to those who need it the least. Eliminating these handouts would pay for 90 percent of Bernies policy platform. The remainder can be made up through nominal increases in the payroll tax (Sanders proposed a 0.2 percent increase to find paid family leave) and a slight increase in income taxes to fund Sanders sweeping healthcare program.
restorefreedom
(12,655 posts)great find, amborin!
Duckhunter935
(16,974 posts)ghostsinthemachine
(3,569 posts)DirkGently
(12,151 posts)what Sanders is proposing. All of this is just a matter of priorities. We have been persuaded / tricked / forced into choosing to spend our collective wealth on things that funnel that wealth upward. To defense contractors. To energy companies. To wealthy individuals interested in avoiding taxation.
We could quite easily choose to feed, educate, and care for the health of our population, improve our infrastructure, and pursue renewable energy rather than spend trillions flexing corporate and military power. Much poorer countries than ours manage to do so every day.
99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)Love your handle.. was a big fan of Douglas Adams, miss him terribly.
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)... having just looked it up! Do I have the reference right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredth_monkey_effect
99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)DiehardLiberal
(580 posts)Can someome please enlighten me why we are paying Walmart??
I'm usually fairly well informed but have been overwhelmed the last few months liquidating my own small business. Govt never made it easier for me to stay in business...
eShirl
(18,505 posts)MisterP
(23,730 posts)combined
ebayfool
(3,411 posts)http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/walmart-government-subsidies-study#51652
Walmart is the beneficiary of billions of dollars per year in federal subsidies, according to a new report [PDF] from the non-partisan, progressive group Americans for Tax Fairness.
The report estimates that Walmart and the Walton familywhich co-founded the company and still owns a majority sharecollectively profit from nearly $7.8 billion per year in federal subsidies and tax breaks.
This report shows that our current system is anything but fair rather it provides special treatment to Americas biggest corporations and richest families leaving individual taxpayers and small businesses to pick up the tab, the report concluded.
The $7.8 billion includes an estimated $6.2 billion in public assistance for low-wage Walmart employees, including programs like food stamps, subsidized housing, and Medicaid. It also includes an estimated $70 million per year in economic development subsidies from state and legal governments eager to host Walmart in their cities.
DiehardLiberal
(580 posts)ebayfool
(3,411 posts)tk2kewl
(18,133 posts)Total Cost of Wars Since 2001 $1,671,110,511,673
Every hour, taxpayers in the United States are paying
$8.36 million for Total Cost of Wars Since 2001.
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/
Faux pas
(14,695 posts)Faux pas
(14,695 posts)Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)Vincardog
(20,234 posts)Then show how it will cost you 5K more.
Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)Vincardog
(20,234 posts)Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)Higher payroll taxes and employer taxes.
Vincardog
(20,234 posts)Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)Qutzupalotl
(14,334 posts)Last edited Sat Feb 20, 2016, 02:17 PM - Edit history (1)
and I know most of it won't, I would at least know we'd have an honest presdient making decisions every day thinking about people like me and not continuing to stack the deck in favor of the wealthy.
If by some miracle there is progress on one of these fronts, that's still FAR better than what any other candidate is shooting for. So my choice is clear.
Now that the public knows what's possible, I think we will get there someday. I might not live to see it, but future generations will. But if you attempt only what you know you can achieve, you have compromised before you begin.
Bernie has changed the conversation, completely. Have you noticed these Republicans talking about poverty and wealth inequality? That's not by choice!
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
GreenPartyVoter
(72,381 posts)stillwaiting
(3,795 posts)If the politicians can get the people to not trust the government and not expect the government to ever do anything to help them, that allows for the wealthy and multinational corporations to Hoover up a larger and larger share of our tax dollars.
It's deliberate and purposeful. TPTB want corrupt politicians to continue to be elected to office so that the masses give up and never expect for the corrupt politicians to do anything to help them.
Bernie is the only current solution to beginning to end this corrupt system.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)precisely the outcome we have today.
retrowire
(10,345 posts)cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
Uncle Joe
(58,445 posts)Thanks for the thread, amborin.
suffragette
(12,232 posts)These impact most of us on a daily basis and have much more to do with our ongoing security than the funding and enormous waste in the other programs.
Excellent post!
Thespian2
(2,741 posts)"free" stuff is easily provided through intelligent asset management...as your figures clearly indicate...
TCJ70
(4,387 posts)...he needs to pivot his message to priorities and return on investment. Speak to Dems and Reps about how we're all getting screwed and have been denied nice things.
Boudica the Lyoness
(2,899 posts)"rich brats" we still come up short.
Boudica the Lyoness
(2,899 posts)mythology
(9,527 posts)He relies on incredibly optimistic growth numbers and savings to make the math look correct.
99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)esp against each other.
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)Those that do are being useful idiots for republicans.
I wwasn't around then, but I'll bet the "free stuff" meme ( in so many words ) was used by those opposing FDR's New Deal.
avaistheone1
(14,626 posts)This "free stuff" message needs to be repeated as often as possible.
DownriverDem
(6,232 posts)My husband and I would have to pay over $2,000 more in taxes if Bernie could manage to get his legislation through the RWNJ repub House. Go to fivethirtyeight.com Then click on Primary Forecasts. The dropdown box allows you to pick whatever race you are interested in. Nate Silver is has an excellent reputation for predicting elections.
H2O Man
(73,627 posts)Thank you!
GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)cash subsidies, and end up paying no taxes, and walk away with billions of taxpayer $ that they didn't earn.
geretogo
(1,281 posts)what he did for the country . Lies , lies and more lies from the evil right wing , F---k them .
brewens
(13,626 posts)of thing.
I'd like to see some research on just how much of our tax dollars go right to the top. I've been saying for some time, many of the 1% have to be way in the black on our tax dollars. A high ranking corporate office at a major defense contractor would be an easy one. Pretty much their entire salary and bonuses are courtesy of us taxpayers. But wealthy people invested in defense, oil and other industries that do a lot of business with state and federal governments probably come out ahead as well. It's why they can afford billions in lobbyist fees. It's now like the ruling class living off taxing the peasants in the middle ages.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)valerief
(53,235 posts)Ferd Berfel
(3,687 posts)damn now i"m going to have to update THIS:
zentrum
(9,865 posts)"Where To Invade Next", Michael Moore's new movie.
It's all about this tax issue, including how through paying private insurers etc. we actually are paying much much higher taxes than anyone else and getting little back for it.
Plus, it's about our racist prison system and how by never dealing with our true history, we are stuck in this endless cycle that's destroying democracy.
,
And much more.
The move is a profound experience.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)The fucking military and big corporations suck us dry. All we want are sensible priorities for our tax money.
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)snot
(10,538 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)all that stuff. I don't loves me some free wars and regime changes, though.
MadDAsHell
(2,067 posts)I love Bernies ideas for new programs, but why is the cost proposed to go almost entirely to the wealthy? Yes, they have money, but so do the rest of us (if maybe not as much).
Insisting that .1% of America exclusively pay for the benefits the rest of us will enjoy will just further entrench the us v. them mentality.
Besides, it's never good fiscal policy to have people insisting on new costs/expenditures that they themselves will never have to pay for. You're talking about 99.9% of America enjoying these benefits with no skin in the game.
amborin
(16,631 posts)The rest of us, and get off the gov't subsidies gravy train. This article shows how the. 1% evades taxes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/business/economy/for-the-wealthiest-private-tax-system-saves-them-billions.html?_r=0
AzDar
(14,023 posts)Robbins
(5,066 posts)they don't want to help anyone but top 1%
they went to right to attack bernie.what's next coming out for tax cuts.