Report: Sanders's proposals would add trillions to the debt

[stopbush]

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders's proposals would add $2 trillion to $15 trillion to the national debt, an analysis published Thursday found. The range is due to differing estimates about the cost of Sanders’s healthcare plan, and the figures include net interest, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) said in its report.

While Sanders “deserves a great deal of credit for proposing specific and serious offsets for his spending proposals,” his offsets “would fall significantly short of the costs,” CRFB said.

Sanders’s major spending proposals include single-payer healthcare, free college tuition at public colleges and paid family and medical leave. He would offset his initiatives through a number of tax changes.

The group found that Sanders major spending initiatives would cost from $17 trillion to $28 trillion, depending on health assumptions and without including net interest. However, his tax plan would only raise about $15.7 trillion. When including net interest, Sanders would cause debt to rise from 86 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2026 under current law to between 93 and 139 percent of GDP by 2026, CRFB said.

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/275470-report-sanderss-proposals-would-add-trillions-to-the-debt

[Skwmom]

1. Bullshit! They will do ANYTHING to protect the insurance companies and their profits. n/t

[virtualobserver]

2. Mitch Daniels, Leon Panetta, Erskine Bowles....Team Hillary and Team Bush

[brentspeak]

3. CRFB is a Pete Peterson-affiliated neoliberal think tank dedicated to cutting Social Security

Figures the latte liberal Hillary supporters feel an affinity with it:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Committee_for_a_Responsible_Federal_Budget

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) is housed at the New America Foundation (NAF), a 501(c)(3) that receives considerable funding from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.[1] According to its website, "The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget is a bipartisan, non-profit organization committed to educating the public about issues that have significant fiscal policy impact. The Committee is made up of some of the nation's leading budget experts including many of the past Chairmen and Directors of the Budget Committees, the Congressional Budget Office, the Office of Management and Budget, the Government Accountability Office, and the Federal Reserve Board."[2]

Since 1981, CRFB has kept up a steady drum beat of seminars, reports, blue ribbon commissions, and the like, all focusing on the nation's debt crisis and the need to reform "entitlements" such as Social Security and Medicare, which are better described as earned benefit programs that American workers pay into with each paycheck. Pete Peterson, Erskine Bowles, Alan Cranston, and Alice Rivlin all serve on its large board.[3]

[stopbush]

7. Its members include

Leon Panetta, Mata Macguiness, Erskine Bowles, Kent Conrad, Vic Fazio, James Jones, Lou Kerr, Bob Packwood, Alice Rivlin, John Spratt and a number of others who were major players in the Democratic Party for years. To suggest they are a bunch of RW hacks is disingenuous.

[shawn703]

10. Erskine Bowles

Of catfood commission fame?

[AzDar]

35. Yep. Of the good ol' Catfood Commission... he's baaaack.

[socialist_n_TN]

22. Yeah, they're all neo-liberals economically.........

And yeah, there are a lot of Democrats there. Which doesn't make them any less neo-liberal economically. This is part of the bunch that been trying to "reform" (read: gut) social security for decades. Since I depend exclusively on social security, I don't want these fuckers anywhere NEAR the economy. What we have NOW is the result of their and their co-thinkers, actions.

NO MAS!

[stopbush]

23. Kent Conrad and John Spratt?

Really?

I seem to recall them giving detailed analysis of the budgets during the W years that tore the Rs and their policies a new one.

And herein lies the problem with the Sanders mentality: you can dismiss the research of a bi-partisan organization all you want, but the fact is that nothing gets done in DC without bipartisan effort and support. The next president is not going to have a filibuster-proof Senate or a huge majority in the House. By definition, process and intent, political parties in these law-making bodies need to work together and compromise for anything to get done.

Sanders' campaign trail version of purity is not only a dead end. It doesn't reflect his own successes in Congress, which came through compromises, not through a my-way-or-the-highway approach.

[socialist_n_TN]

36. Why in the FUCK would anybody want to "get things done".......

when what you get done is some sort of right wing "compromise" that changes FOR THE WORSE a law like social security that's been on the books for almost a century and has worked exactly as it's supposed to?

When you're trying to change things for the better, most of the time that starts with STOPPING things from getting worse.

[stopbush]

24. So I guess that mean you dismiss out of hand their finding that

“(Sanders) deserves a great deal of credit for proposing specific and serious offsets for his spending proposals."

Got it!

[Lucinda]

4. Yet another reason to assume Sanders wasn't serious about actually being elected.

He puts forward ideas most of us can agree with, but didn't do the homework to figure out how to make it actually work. They had already adjusted their numbers once, when it became clear they weren't even close to accurate.

I get the fact that the campaign took off when they weren't expecting it to, so they weren't prepared. I also undertand you pretty much have to ride it out if that happens, but a lot of new voters are going to be disappointed to find out it was all smoke and mirrors.

[Politicalboi]

5. Bullshit

He's going to tax the rich. Between that and taxing weed, these numbers are bullshit. How come stories like this don't come out about military spending and how we shouldn't spend so much on that. And how it is going to add trillions to our debt. This IS bullshit.

[stopbush]

6. The entire defense budget is $600-billion a year.

If you took that down to $0, you're still short about $1.5 trillion to pay for Sanders' proposals.

[stopbush]

25. Sanders is proposing an across-the-board 2% increase in the income tax rate

that would effect EVERYONE, not just the rich.

Surely you know this, having examined Sanders plans in depth.

[pinebox]

8. They are part of the establishment

and why did they only analyze Bernie, Trump & Cruz.
If it smells like a rat....

[stopbush]

9. Sanders is part of the establishment.

Your point?

[pinebox]

11. Uh huh sure he is

You keep believing that but he isn't a Dem is he?

[stopbush]

14. No, he isn't a D. He's running as an I in 2018.

Already set up the campaign committee for that I run.

Yes, he's establishment. 25 years in Congress picking up a paycheck and what does he have to show for it? He got two post offices renamed. Wow!

Collecting a paycheck paid for by the taxpayers, identifyng as an Indy so he can stay out of the line of fire that attends to any member who identifies as a D or an R, voting protest votes that don't have any influence over the outcome of legislation.

Yep, that's as establishment as you can get.

[pinebox]

19. Uh huh typical Hillary supporter talking points

If you honestly think Bernie is part of the 'establishment" while being one of the FEW to oppose DADT and DOMA, you're gravely mistaken. Sorry but it's a tad hard for a "I" to be "establishment.

It's "Hillar-ious" thinking that you only believe that Bernie got 2 post offices renamed.
Either you're willfully ignorant or you are low info, pick it.

I guess things like that whole Veteran thing isn't anything.

But wait! There's more and the list is a great deal longer than this too

[libtodeath]

12. Another day at free republic.

[Yurovsky]

16. Yep... We can't afford anything but the status quo...

which is another way for HRC and her Wall Street benefactors to say "sit down, STFU, and do as you are told!"

Yep, let's just waste trillions on killing people and destroying the plant. Taking care of the poor and ensuring working families can earn a living wage? That's crazy talk!!! 😣

[coyote]

13. Of course

[stopbush]

15. Apparently you don't know that Bernie Sanders is a YUGE supporter of the F35 program.

Do some research.

[PufPuf23]

18. This is a bogus argument.

The F35 and other military programs have been a given and what passes for federal spending in local communities.

Sanders would probably would have lost elected office had he been reason for Vermont not to receive Federal military spending.

Get real and respectful rather than mocking to other good Democrats.

[PufPuf23]

17. Unless taxes are raised on the rich and corporate and military spending is reduced. eom

Also the following would increase tax dollars from all:

(1) Various Keynesian stimulus of the middle class and poor.

(2) Investment in restoration and improvement of infrastructure.

(3) Better educated population.

[Nanjeanne]

20. Don't forget Mitch Daniels is on their Board -

Republican from Indiana and advisor to Ronald Reagan (of trickle down!)

and Timothy Penny (a self-described "raging moderate&quot who often voted with the Republicans on fiscal matters.

So tell me why I'm supposed to believe what CFRFB says again?

[Orsino]

21. Right-wingers also say that Hillary will destroy the country...

...but we don't necessarily fall for that lie, either.

[merrily]

26. How many times does this crap have to be debunked on one board?

[Blue Meany]

27. Well, we might have to start negotiating with pharmaceutical companies,

for-profit hospitals and other vendors to bring those costs down to a sane rate comparable to what the rest of the world pays.

[stopbush]

28. You do realize that the private insurers already have the right to negotiate prices

with the pharma companies, do you not? Same thing goes for the VHA. They can negotiate prices.

The Feds are not allowed to negotiate drug prices for Medicare/caid. That's it. Yes, those are big programs and the Feds should be able to negotiate prices, but they have nothing to do with the prices you are paying for drugs if you have insurance through your job. It's that simple.

BTW - the Feds pay on average 80% of the list price of a drug for Medicare. The VHA pays roughly 56% for the same drug. Private insurers pay even less because they know the VHA number and can negotiate off that number.

The only place where drug prices are a YUGE issue is in the uninsured and under-insured marketplaces. Those market rates do need to be addressed. But they have nothing to do with the rates most Americans are paying through their employer-provided plans.

I would agree that a big downside to the ACA currently are these bare-bones plans purchased by individuals through the exchanges that have high deductibles and high co-pays on drugs. That said, the Medicaid expansion through the ACA was the largest change to healthcare in this country and effected the most people. Under Medicaid, prescriptions are free. That's right, they cost $0 under Medicaid. Medicare is something else.

[winter is coming]

29. Reruns for supper again? This was first debunked months ago. n/t

[Avalux]

30. Are we a GOP message board now? This is bunk. n/t

[HumanityExperiment]

31. Shorter...

We have the longest running war in US history that's costs trillions currently and will cost trillions in aftermath and long term and HRC wants US involved in more without question ONCE where we'll get the $$ for that...

HRC supporters are a joke...

[Amishman]

32. better to have national debt from helping people than from corp kickbacks

or from bombing the middle east.

I'm willing to give it a chance.

[seattleite]

33. Funny, Clinton had no problem adding trillions of debt to invade a foreign country illegally.

Agreed that we're better off spending our money on our own damn people.

[Viva_Daddy]

34. Another unnecessary war would add even more to the debt.

[snowy owl]

37. Over a trillion dollars moved to the 1% - let them pay it back. Panama Papers?

There's a lot of money out there. Why don't you earn from other countries? We are the richest country in the world. What. is. it. that. you. don't. get. about. that?