Opinion: Four reasons why The Wall Street Journal attack on Bernie is bogus
Great response to the WSJ smear job by Robert Reich.
Opinion: Four reasons why The Wall Street Journal attack on Bernie is bogus
The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article claiming that Bernie Sanders's proposals would cost $18 trillion over a 10-year period. The number is wrong and the information doesn't add up.
By Robert Reich - SEPTEMBER 21, 2015
I’ve had so many calls about an article appearing earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal – charging that Bernie Sanders’s proposals would carry a “price tag” of $18 trillion over a 10-year period – that it’s necessary to respond.
The Journal’s number is entirely bogus, designed to frighten the public. Please spread the truth:
1. Bernie’s proposals would cost less than what we’d spend without them. Most of the “cost” the Journal comes up with—$15 trillion—would pay for opening Medicare to everyone.
This would be cheaper than relying on our current system of for-profit private health insurers that charge you and me huge administrative costs, advertising, marketing, bloated executive salaries, and high pharmaceutical prices.
(Gerald Friedman, an economist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, whom the Journal relies on for some of its data, actually
estimates a Medicare-for-all system would actually save all of us $10 trillion over 10 years)....
Full editorial:
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Robert-Reich/2015/0921/Opinion-Four-reasons-why-The-Wall-Street-Journal-attack-on-Bernie-is-bogus
About Robert Reich:
Robert is chancellor’s professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Clinton. Time Magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written 13 books, including “The Work of Nations,” his latest best-seller “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future," and a new e-book, “Beyond Outrage.” His new movie, "Inequality for All," is available on Netflix. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.
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