Wash Post:No, Bernie Sanders is not going to bankrupt America to the tune of $18 trillion
By Paul Waldman
The big policy headline today comes from the Wall Street Journal, which delivers this alarming message:
Price Tag of Bernie Sanders Proposals: $18 Trillion
Holy cow! He must be advocating for some crazy stuff that will bankrupt America! But is that really an accurate picture of what Sanders is proposing? And is this the kind of number we should be frightened of?
The answer isnt quite so dramatic: while Sanders does want to spend significant amounts of money, almost all of it is on things were already paying for; he just wants to change how we pay for them. In some ways its by spreading out a cost currently borne by a limited number of people to all taxpayers. His plan for free public college would do this: right now, its paid for by students and their families, while under Sanders plan wed all pay for it in the same way we all pay for parks or the military or food safety.
But the bulk of what Sanders wants to do is in the first category: to have us pay through taxes for things were already paying for in other ways. Depending on your perspective on government, you may think thats a bad idea. But we shouldnt treat his proposals as though theyre going to cost us $18 trillion on top of what were already paying.
And theres another problem with that scary $18 trillion figure, which is what the Journal says is the 10-year cost of Sanders ideas: fully $15 trillion of it comes not from an analysis of anything Sanders has proposed, but from the fact that Sanders has said hed like to see a single-payer health insurance system, and theres a single-payer plan in Congress that has been estimated to cost $15 trillion. Sanders hasnt actually released any health care plan, so we have no idea what his might cost.
much more (not the Kos article, but is good)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/09/15/no-bernie-sanders-is-not-going-to-bankrupt-america-to-the-tune-of-18-trillion/