Bernie Sanders unexpectedly released a fact-sheet Monday night explaining that he’d pay for his sweeping new government programs through new taxes and massive lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry, as well as by slashing spending on the military, among other methods. The move sought to head off complaints from Republicans and some rival Democrats that his plans were economically unrealistic, especially after a head-turning CBS News interview in which the frustrated Vermont senator said he couldn’t “rattle off to you every nickel and every dime” about his proposed expenditures. He released his plan on his website just minutes after promising to do so during a CNN town hall. However, the fact-sheet highlighted for the first time that many of Sanders’ expected cost-saving measures relied on conjecture and best-case scenarios. For example, Sanders’ document asserts that a “modest tax on Wall Street speculation … will raise an estimated $2.4 trillion over ten years” and, in one fell swoop, make all “public colleges, universities and trade schools tuition-free … and cancel all student debt over the next decade.” The proposal specifically would place a “0.5 percent tax on stock trades – 50 cents on every $100 of stock – a 0.1 percent fee on bond trades, and a 0.005 percent fee on derivative trades.” The National Review has likened a tax on so-called “Wall Street speculation” to a de facto tax on savings, saying the Sanders plan is untested and “would mean paying $25 to the federal government every time you traded $5,000 worth of stock — or five times what you’d pay the typical online brokerage in fees. … Over the long term, that imposes serious costs on actively traded funds such as the ones containing many Americans’ retirement funds.” Meanwhile, housing for everyone would cost $2.5 trillion over ten years, and would be paid entirely by a “wealth tax on the top one-tenth of one percent,” raising a total of $4.35 trillion, according to Sanders’ fact-sheet. Similarly, “universal childcare and pre-school to every family in America” would be provided with a wealth tax on the “top 0.1 percent,” again raising more than $4 trillion. The taxes would target wealthy individuals’ “net worth,” not simply their income. Sanders’ plan did not discuss the possible stock market ramificiations of a major seizure of some of this wealth, much of which is held in markets and other investments. The plan also did not discuss how the government would be able to reliably obtain the money even assuming the assets held their value, given that many investments could quickly be liquidated or transferred elsewhere before his administration took office. Instead, Sanders’ proposal said only that it would eventually establish a “national wealth registry and significant additional third party reporting requirements,” buff up IRS funding and, and “include enhancements to the international tax enforcement.” The plan would require the IRS “to perform an audit of 30 percent of wealth tax returns for those in the 1 percent bracket and a 100 percent audit rate for all billionaires,” and would include a “40 percent exit tax on the net value of all assets under $1 billion and 60 percent over $1 billion for all wealthy individual seeking to expatriate to avoid the tax.” A new “income inequality tax on large corporations that pay CEOs at least 50 times more than average workers” would take care of $81 billion in past-due medical debt, Sanders further claimed. Sanders’ projections also stated without providing details that his Green New Deal plan would create “20 million new jobs,” thus ensuring $2.3 trillion in “new income tax revenue.” Additionally, Sanders cited “economists” as he promised that by “averting climate catastrophe we will save: $2.9 trillion over 10 years, $21 trillion over 30 years and $70.4 trillion over 80 years.” No information was provided to validate that assertion…
Of course not. Its Bernie. And, to him..facts don’t matter. All of his pie in the sky ideas sound good to the low-information voter…who doesn’t bother looking at the fine print. We’ll try to do our best to get those facts out to everyone. For more on this article, click on the text above.
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