Bernie Sanders’ economic policy: A vote for what?

[Stuckinthebush]

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21692895-health-care-costs-and-high-taxes-would-sink-sanders-economic-plan-vote-what

HOW radical is Bernie Sanders? The self-declared socialist likes to remind voters that many of his policies—say, on health care, or on paid family leave—simply copy most of the rest of the rich world. Compared with left-wingers there—Jeremy Corbyn in Britain, for instance—Mr Sanders is no socialist. It is freewheeling America which puts Mr Sanders on the far-left. The truly socialist thing about Mr Sanders’s admirably detailed economic plan is not its goals. It is that it is completely unworkable.

Under President Sanders taxes, particularly on high earners, would soar. Mr Sanders wants to make public universities free, increase infrastructure spending and expand Social Security (pensions). His most ambitious policy calls for the government, rather than private insurers, to pay health-care bills. That would cost $14 trillion over a decade, requiring new taxes on most workers worth 8.4% of their income.

That is not without precedent: in the 1970s, the top rate was around 70%. This would probably dent growth, and it is at the high end of estimates of the rate which maximises revenue. Taxes might have to go higher still. Mr Sanders plans to tax capital gains as ordinary income. High earners can decide whether or not to sell assets, making this tax easy to dodge. Partly because of this, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an advocacy group, reckons Mr Sanders has highballed his revenue estimates by $3 trillion over a decade.

...

That looks like wishful thinking. A costing of Mr Sanders’s plans by Kenneth Thorpe of Emory University, using more conservative assumptions, found that the plan was underfunded by nearly $1.1 trillion (or 6% of GDP) per year. If Mr Thorpe is right, higher taxes will be required to make the sums add up. In 2014 Mr Sanders’ own state, Vermont, abandoned a plan for a single-payer system on the basis that the required tax rises would be too great.

...

Mr Sanders’ plans tend to suffer from a fallacy of composition. Although the average American might not mind paying higher taxes instead of a health-insurance premium, some—such as firms that do not provide health insurance—would face big losses. With such concentrated costs, Mr Sanders’s plans would have no chance of making it past Congress, even an improbably friendly one.

[yallerdawg]

1. Another thing about European health care?

We cover their defense budget!

[Yavin4]

2. Correct. And they use VAT(Sales) taxes as an additional revenue source n/t

[yallerdawg]

3. And European income tax rates...

that would have all the American rich go live with their money in the Cayman Islands!

We have a global financial system now!

Warren Buffet said he should pay as much as his secretary. That is about as high as we can aim right now.

And no Republican will go along with it!

[jmowreader]

4. Don't tell the Bernie fans that

Their usual response is to look up the direct cash military aid payments to...oh, say Korea...and claim the military budget is "still too high." That analysis leaves out one minor thing: the US military assets dedicated to defending the ROK are not counted as foreign aid.

[72DejaVu]

5. Has anyone thought to ask?

If Bernie gets elected on Tuesday, what does the stock market do on Wednesday?

[pandr32]

6. "Mr. Sanders' plans tend to suffer from a fallacy of composition"

With a big emphasis on "fallacy!"

[Hekate]

7. KnR