Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders’ agenda for America would be the largest peacetime expansion of government in modern American history, according to the Wall Street Journal.
A new government-managed health-care program would cost roughly $18 trillion dollars over 10 years. However, he only has plans on increasing taxes by $6.5 trillion over that same time period, the Journal reports.
$15 trillion dollars would be directed toward “Sanders-care,” which would provide universal coverage for every American. The remaining $3 trillion would go to an infrastructure program for roads, bridges and airports. Social Security would be expanded to bolster solvency to the tune of $1.2 trillion, and provisions to provide free tuition at public colleges at the coast of $750 billion is planned.
Sanders’ Proposed Spending [Screenshot, The Wall Street Journal]
Sanderscare would represent a bigger increase in government spending than the New Deal or the Great Society. His plan would only be surpassed by the World War II military buildup.
To help put the $18 trillion sum into a more modern context, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will only cost an estimated $4 to 6 trillion dollars when all costs are final.
Sanderscare would increase total federal spending by about one third, to a projected $68 trillion over a decade.
Even Austan Goolsbee, an economist at the University of Chicago and former adviser to President Obama explained that in regards to Sanderscare, “Much, much more modest actions than those Bernie Sanders is describing were extremely heavy lifts, and many thought impossible.”
Goolsbee continued, “Both of them came down to a single vote.”