Statement from Biden Campaign on sanders not knowing the costs of his massive programs

[Gothmog]

14. NYT-Sander plan may not add up

Link to tweet

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, under growing pressure to explain how he would pay for his very expensive policy agenda, released a checklist on Monday evening that he described as a full explanation of how he would finance all of his proposals.

The actual document is somewhat limited, and in some cases the revenue Mr. Sanders identifies doesn’t match the costs of his plans.

For example, he estimated Sunday night on “60 Minutes” that the price tag for his “Medicare for all” plan would be about $30 trillion over 10 years, but the revenue he identifies for it in the new outline totals about $17.5 trillion. It is possible that the gap could be filled by existing appropriations for Medicare and Medicaid, but Mr. Sanders did not mention those in his outline or in the Sunday interview...…

Ms. Warren released a comprehensive plan in November to pay for her own version of Medicare for all, and the resulting scrutiny of the details was a major factor in her campaign’s decline. Mr. Sanders largely avoided that level of scrutiny by not releasing such extensive details.

His announcement on Monday came nominally in response to a question about whether his plan for free college was equivalent to President Trump’s promise to build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it: a rallying cry for supporters, but with no realistic path to happening.