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No, Bernie Sanders is not going to bankrupt America to the tune of $18 trillion

cigaretteman

HB King
May 29, 2001
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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 isn’t quite so dramatic: while Sanders does want to spend significant amounts of money, almost all of it is on things we’re already paying for; he just wants to change how we pay for them. In some ways it’s 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, it’s paid for by students and their families, while under Sanders’ plan we’d 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 we’re already paying for in other ways. Depending on your perspective on government, you may think that’s a bad idea. But we shouldn’t treat his proposals as though they’re going to cost us $18 trillion on top of what we’re already paying.

And there’s 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 he’d like to see a single-payer health insurance system, and there’s a single-payer plan in Congress that has been estimated to cost $15 trillion. Sanders hasn’t actually released any health care plan, so we have no idea what his might cost.

But health care is nevertheless a good place to examine why these big numbers can be so misleading. At the moment, total health care spending in the United States runs over $3 trillion a year; according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, over the next decade (from 2015-2024), America will spend a total of $42 trillion on health care. This is money that you and I and everyone else spends. We spend it in a variety of ways: through our health-insurance premiums, through the reduced salaries we get if our employers pick up part or all of the cost of those premiums, through our co-pays and deductibles, and through our taxes that fund Medicare, Medicaid, ACA subsidies, and the VA health care system. We’re already paying about $10,000 a year per capita for health care.

So let’s say that Bernie Sanders became president and passed a single-payer health care system of some sort. And let’s say that it did indeed cost $15 trillion over 10 years. Would that be $15 trillion in new money we’d be spending? No, it would be money that we’re already spending on health care, but now it would go through government. If I told you I could cut your health insurance premiums by $1,000 and increase your taxes by $1,000, you wouldn’t have lost $1,000. You’d be in the same place you are now.

By the logic of the scary $18 trillion number, you could take a candidate who has proposed nothing on health care, and say, “So-and-so proposes spending $42 trillion on health care!” It would be accurate, but not particularly informative.

There’s something else to keep in mind: every single-payer system in the world, and there are many of them of varying flavors, is cheaper than the American health care system. Every single one. So whatever you might say about Sanders’ advocacy for a single-payer system, you can’t say it represents some kind of profligate, free-spending idea that would cost us all terrible amounts of money.

Since Sanders hasn’t released a health care plan yet, we can’t make any assessment of the true cost of his plan, because there is no plan. Maybe what he wants to do would cost more than $15 trillion, or maybe it would cost less. But given the experience of the rest of the world, there’s a strong likelihood that over the long run, a single-payer plan would save America money. Again, you may think single-payer is a bad idea for any number of reasons, but “It’ll be too expensive!” is probably the least valid objection you could make.

There are some proposals that involve spending new money that we never would have spent otherwise, like starting a war that ends up costing $2 trillion. But in every case, whether we’re doing something new or doing something we’re already doing but in a new way, the question isn’t what the price tag is, the question is whether we think what we’d get for that money makes spending it worthwhile.

For instance, Sanders wants to spend $1 trillion over 10 years on infrastructure. That’s a lot of money, but it’s significantly less than experts say we need to repair all of our crumbling roads, bridges, water systems, and so on. And infrastructure spending creates immediate jobs and has economic benefits that persist over time, which we’d also have to take into account in deciding whether it’s a good idea. But just saying, “$1 trillion is a lot of money!” doesn’t tell you whether or not we should do it.

The conservatives who are acting appalled at the number the Journal came up with are also the same people who never seem to care what a tax cut costs, because they think cutting taxes is a moral and practical good, in the same way that liberals think providing people with health coverage is a moral and practical good. For instance, Jeb Bush recently proposed a tax cut plan whose 10-year cost could be as high as $3.4 trillion. That’s a lot of money that the government wouldn’t be able to spend on the things it’s doing right now, although the campaign argues that we’d get much of that money back in increased revenues because of the spectacular growth the tax cuts would create. If you remember the claims that George W. Bush’s tax cuts would create stunning growth and prosperity for all, you might be just a bit skeptical of the Jeb campaign’s similar assertions. But in any case, we can’t evaluate the value of Jeb’s plan just by saying that $3.4 trillion is a big number. If you knew that the average family in the middle of the income distribution would get less than $1,000 from Jeb’s plan, while the average family in the top one percent would get a tax cut of over $80,000, then you’d have a better sense of whether it’s a good or bad idea.

As a general matter, when you see a headline with an unimaginably large number, chances are it’s going to confuse you more than it will enlighten you. The question when it comes to government should always be not what we’re spending, but what we’re getting for what we spend.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...he-tune-of-18-trillion/?tid=pm_opinions_pop_b
 
"Free college for all" is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard a serious candidate propose. Not only do at least 50% of our nation's 18 yr olds have no need or business attending college, proposing those that do attend having no stake in the game cost wise would be a recipe for disaster.
Bernie is quickly becoming the "all day recess" student council candidate to the dumb and uninformed.
 
Bernie's the best. I'm caucusing for Bernie. If college becomes free, I'm going back!
 
"So let’s say that Bernie Sanders became president and passed a single-payer health care system of some sort. And let’s say that it did indeed cost $15 trillion over 10 years. Would that be $15 trillion in new money we’d be spending? No, it would be money that we’re already spending on health care, but now it would go through government. If I told you I could cut your health insurance premiums by $1,000 and increase your taxes by $1,000, you wouldn’t have lost $1,000. You’d be in the same place you are now."

^Waste energy, and hand over control for the sake of getting nowhere?
 
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Sorry, that article was longer than 128 characters. There is no way that message will be read or understood by those that need to read it.

The articles premise, in a long winded and ridiculous argument, is that paying the government money, is a good thing, because your money will just be spent regardless.

Bernie doesn't have a Healthcare plan yet, and his infrastructure plan doesn't put a dent in the supposed infrastructure Armageddon we are currently going through.

It's very well understood what this article is claiming. It's almost hilarious how shameless it is at arguing for sending more money towards government, as if that is going to fix the country all of the sudden. How much more are you truly willing to hand over to DC? You do realize that at least 40-50% of your income goes directly towards taxing?
 
Where does it say "a college education is a right"? You get HS paid for on the tax payers back, if you want your college paid for get good grades and earn a scholarship or... God forbid, join the military and earn the education benefits.
It doesn't say it's a right, but we'd be pretty stupid as a country to think that we could compete in the world market with high school degrees.
 
"So let’s say that Bernie Sanders became president and passed a single-payer health care system of some sort. And let’s say that it did indeed cost $15 trillion over 10 years. Would that be $15 trillion in new money we’d be spending? No, it would be money that we’re already spending on health care, but now it would go through government. If I told you I could cut your health insurance premiums by $1,000 and increase your taxes by $1,000, you wouldn’t have lost $1,000. You’d be in the same place you are now."

^Waste energy, and hand over control for the sake of getting nowhere?
If the world has proven anything, it's that when the government goes single payer, costs drop like a lead balloon.
 
If the world has proven anything, it's that when the government goes single payer, costs drop like a lead balloon.
The world isn't America Huey. You guys always seem to forget that. You want your Health insurance? Then you need to focus on taking down the MIC, and the empire we have across the world. You can't have both. No other country has both.
 
No offense, but if the rest of the world has proven that you can both cover everyone and at a lower cost than us, yet you still insist that it's not possible for us, then you are being willfully ignorant.
 
China has more honor roll students in college than we have college students period. You can argue that we don't need an educated populace all you want, but we just fall further behind the rest of the world.
 
"Free college for all" is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard a serious candidate propose. Not only do at least 50% of our nation's 18 yr olds have no need or business attending college, proposing those that do attend having no stake in the game cost wise would be a recipe for disaster.
Bernie is quickly becoming the "all day recess" student council candidate to the dumb and uninformed.
I think you're confusing free college with mandatory college.
 
It doesn't say it's a right, but we'd be pretty stupid as a country to think that we could compete in the world market with high school degrees.
When have we ever thought that? The cost of education has gone up due to no constraints, check or balances in place for the majority of public institutions. Much like our government (which helps run said institutions) - the problem lies ultimately in the hands of the government again. Here we have the government wanting to give away education instead of cleaning up its house. Hold the politicians accountable, we have to stop empowering our government, it's supposed to be the other way around.
 
College degrees are already useless. People spend $100k on some jack off college degree then feel they are too important to take a $25k job a year.

If college were affordable or free (like it is for Indian citizens by the way that just come over here and only pay for graduate degrees here before they grab H-1B Visa jobs here), then kids that are smart enough but not rich enough who could be a doctor or an engineer wouldn't have to work at Wal-Mart for one of those jobs where the government has to go in to bigger debt for the taxpayers to pay down when Wal-Mart's employees have to take government assistance to get things like health care, etc. since those running Wal-Mart don't want to pay them a living salary in their efforts to make it so that the family gets closer to having the same amount of wealth as the bottom half of this country. The current debts are being paid less by the Waltons of the world and more by us the way we CURRENTLY have our system set up. Bernie would change that.
 
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"Free college for all" is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard a serious candidate propose. Not only do at least 50% of our nation's 18 yr olds have no need or business attending college, proposing those that do attend having no stake in the game cost wise would be a recipe for disaster.
Bernie is quickly becoming the "all day recess" student council candidate to the dumb and uninformed.

He doesn't mean that everyone goes to college, he means if you choose to go to college and can get in to one, you won't have to pay for it.

Just to look at the alternative, you are ok with huge numbers of young people being 40k+ in debt before they ever set foot in the work force? Or are you ok with people being unable to reach their potential because they can't afford college?
 
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When have we ever thought that? The cost of education has gone up due to no constraints, check or balances in place for the majority of public institutions. Much like our government (which helps run said institutions) - the problem lies ultimately in the hands of the government again. Here we have the government wanting to give away education instead of cleaning up its house. Hold the politicians accountable, we have to stop empowering our government, it's supposed to be the other way around.
I agree that out educational system could use an overhaul, but that doesn't seem to be the conservative argument here. The conservative argument seems to be that we don't need education period.
 
I agree that out educational system could use an overhaul, but that doesn't seem to be the conservative argument here. The conservative argument seems to be that we don't need education period.

Please point out where this was said. Use specific quotes to back up your argument. Thanks in advance.
 
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Where does it say "a college education is a right"? You get HS paid for on the tax payers back, if you want your college paid for get good grades and earn a scholarship or... God forbid, join the military and earn the education benefits.

It doesn't say high school education is a right either but we've made it that way.

I do think we need to seriously consider paying for higher education but I think also that doing so requires that there be serious restrictions as to who can get it for free and for how long.

I went to college 1 extra semester due to changing majors, I get that. But I also have a cousin who went to college for 8 years straight because he changed his major like 6 times. Fortunately for him his parents where well off and could afford such a thing.
 
The same argument this article makes could be made for anything. It goes like this:

You think $Y is a lot of money? It's not, because it's already being spent! Currently, people who use "X" pay for it themselves, but under this new plan, people who don't use "X" will pay for it as well (through more taxes), making the cost to those who do use "X" go way down!

Free Cars, gas, and maintenance for everyone!!

It's basically removing the choice in how you spend your money, and letting the government spend it on things you may or may not want, need, or use.
 
The same argument this article makes could be made for anything. It goes like this:

You think $Y is a lot of money? It's not, because it's already being spent! Currently, people who use "X" pay for it themselves, but under this new plan, people who don't use "X" will pay for it as well (through more taxes), making the cost to those who do use "X" go way down!

Free Cars, gas, and maintenance for everyone!!

It's basically removing the choice in how you spend your money, and letting the government spend it on things you may or may not want, need, or use.

True. . . but the reason for this is to reduce the privileges people with access to large amounts of money have over those that don't.

The rich see this as removing their choice. . . The poor see this as finally having a choice.
 
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China has more honor roll students in college than we have college students period. You can argue that we don't need an educated populace all you want, but we just fall further behind the rest of the world.

Do you really think the cost of college tuition is the primary factor in us falling behind from an education perspective, because I surely don't.
 
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 isn’t quite so dramatic: while Sanders does want to spend significant amounts of money, almost all of it is on things we’re already paying for; he just wants to change how we pay for them. In some ways it’s 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, it’s paid for by students and their families, while under Sanders’ plan we’d 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 we’re already paying for in other ways. Depending on your perspective on government, you may think that’s a bad idea. But we shouldn’t treat his proposals as though they’re going to cost us $18 trillion on top of what we’re already paying.

And there’s 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 he’d like to see a single-payer health insurance system, and there’s a single-payer plan in Congress that has been estimated to cost $15 trillion. Sanders hasn’t actually released any health care plan, so we have no idea what his might cost.

But health care is nevertheless a good place to examine why these big numbers can be so misleading. At the moment, total health care spending in the United States runs over $3 trillion a year; according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, over the next decade (from 2015-2024), America will spend a total of $42 trillion on health care. This is money that you and I and everyone else spends. We spend it in a variety of ways: through our health-insurance premiums, through the reduced salaries we get if our employers pick up part or all of the cost of those premiums, through our co-pays and deductibles, and through our taxes that fund Medicare, Medicaid, ACA subsidies, and the VA health care system. We’re already paying about $10,000 a year per capita for health care.

So let’s say that Bernie Sanders became president and passed a single-payer health care system of some sort. And let’s say that it did indeed cost $15 trillion over 10 years. Would that be $15 trillion in new money we’d be spending? No, it would be money that we’re already spending on health care, but now it would go through government. If I told you I could cut your health insurance premiums by $1,000 and increase your taxes by $1,000, you wouldn’t have lost $1,000. You’d be in the same place you are now.

By the logic of the scary $18 trillion number, you could take a candidate who has proposed nothing on health care, and say, “So-and-so proposes spending $42 trillion on health care!” It would be accurate, but not particularly informative.

There’s something else to keep in mind: every single-payer system in the world, and there are many of them of varying flavors, is cheaper than the American health care system. Every single one. So whatever you might say about Sanders’ advocacy for a single-payer system, you can’t say it represents some kind of profligate, free-spending idea that would cost us all terrible amounts of money.

Since Sanders hasn’t released a health care plan yet, we can’t make any assessment of the true cost of his plan, because there is no plan. Maybe what he wants to do would cost more than $15 trillion, or maybe it would cost less. But given the experience of the rest of the world, there’s a strong likelihood that over the long run, a single-payer plan would save America money. Again, you may think single-payer is a bad idea for any number of reasons, but “It’ll be too expensive!” is probably the least valid objection you could make.

There are some proposals that involve spending new money that we never would have spent otherwise, like starting a war that ends up costing $2 trillion. But in every case, whether we’re doing something new or doing something we’re already doing but in a new way, the question isn’t what the price tag is, the question is whether we think what we’d get for that money makes spending it worthwhile.

For instance, Sanders wants to spend $1 trillion over 10 years on infrastructure. That’s a lot of money, but it’s significantly less than experts say we need to repair all of our crumbling roads, bridges, water systems, and so on. And infrastructure spending creates immediate jobs and has economic benefits that persist over time, which we’d also have to take into account in deciding whether it’s a good idea. But just saying, “$1 trillion is a lot of money!” doesn’t tell you whether or not we should do it.

The conservatives who are acting appalled at the number the Journal came up with are also the same people who never seem to care what a tax cut costs, because they think cutting taxes is a moral and practical good, in the same way that liberals think providing people with health coverage is a moral and practical good. For instance, Jeb Bush recently proposed a tax cut plan whose 10-year cost could be as high as $3.4 trillion. That’s a lot of money that the government wouldn’t be able to spend on the things it’s doing right now, although the campaign argues that we’d get much of that money back in increased revenues because of the spectacular growth the tax cuts would create. If you remember the claims that George W. Bush’s tax cuts would create stunning growth and prosperity for all, you might be just a bit skeptical of the Jeb campaign’s similar assertions. But in any case, we can’t evaluate the value of Jeb’s plan just by saying that $3.4 trillion is a big number. If you knew that the average family in the middle of the income distribution would get less than $1,000 from Jeb’s plan, while the average family in the top one percent would get a tax cut of over $80,000, then you’d have a better sense of whether it’s a good or bad idea.

As a general matter, when you see a headline with an unimaginably large number, chances are it’s going to confuse you more than it will enlighten you. The question when it comes to government should always be not what we’re spending, but what we’re getting for what we spend.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...he-tune-of-18-trillion/?tid=pm_opinions_pop_b

Obama spent money on fixing Infrastructure outside Lindale Mall in CR. Where are all the new jobs that infrastructure created?
 
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The same argument this article makes could be made for anything. It goes like this:

You think $Y is a lot of money? It's not, because it's already being spent! Currently, people who use "X" pay for it themselves, but under this new plan, people who don't use "X" will pay for it as well (through more taxes), making the cost to those who do use "X" go way down!

Free Cars, gas, and maintenance for everyone!!

It's basically removing the choice in how you spend your money, and letting the government spend it on things you may or may not want, need, or use.


Yes, where is my free car. We all have to get to work, we all need one, so why is the government not giving me an obamacar! Why do we have to pay for anything? I want EVERYTHING free.
 
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True. . . but the reason for this is to reduce the privileges people with access to large amounts of money have over those that don't.

The rich see this as removing their choice. . . The poor see this as finally having a choice.

So when people earn money, it really is not their money? Ok, lets implement these changes, but ONLY for liberals. Let create a wealth tax and apply it only to liberals. Stand up and become the example of the right thing to do. Do liberals actually have the guts to do this? not a chance.
 
Please point out where this was said. Use specific quotes to back up your argument. Thanks in advance.
Oh brother.

Saying the GOP is against public education is like saying water is wet.

What's the over/under on the number of GOP candidates who say they want to kill the Dept of Education, or go heavy on vouchers, or cripple teachers' unions, or other crazy things in today's debates?

Do you think ANY of them would raise their hand to oppose such things? One? Two? And if any did, they'd be attacked as RINOs.
 
Yes, where is my free car. We all have to get to work, we all need one, so why is the government not giving me an obamacar! Why do we have to pay for anything? I want EVERYTHING free.

So, when Republican Eisenhower was president, to be true to the beliefs of that party today, he should have not given away education to GIs coming back from WWII with the GI Bill, and should have taken down the 90% top tax marginal break like Reagan did, and not spent so much money on building a highway system. Then he wouldn't have had to warn us about the military industrial complex at the end of his presidency, since they would have been a lot happier and nicer in return.

Or maybe you would have rather had someone like Mussolini in charge who just about guaranteed those at the top of corporate infrastructure with places in government instead of them having to buy them the way they do today?
 
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I agree that out educational system could use an overhaul, but that doesn't seem to be the conservative argument here. The conservative argument seems to be that we don't need education period.
Well, I mean the conservatives are the party of the rich as you say, and they have all the money, so maybe they are correct? What do you think?
 
I agree that out educational system could use an overhaul, but that doesn't seem to be the conservative argument here. The conservative argument seems, in the fantasy world I live in, to be that we don't need education period.
 
Or maybe you would have rather had someone like Mussolini in charge who just about guaranteed those at the top of corporate infrastructure with places in government instead of them having to buy them the way they do today?
They'll deny it, of course, but I think you've hit on the fundamental GOP wet dream.

No wonder the right pushes back so hard on Nazi comparisons. They hit too close. Take away the Holocaust and the whole starting WWII bit, and don't mention Hitler or Mussolini by name, and they really don't see much to dislike.

Scott Walker's attacks on unions and teachers are blatant examples out of the fascist playbook.
 
So when people earn money, it really is not their money? Ok, lets implement these changes, but ONLY for liberals. Let create a wealth tax and apply it only to liberals. Stand up and become the example of the right thing to do. Do liberals actually have the guts to do this? not a chance.

You can't place a tax only on people of certain political leanings nor can you be exempt from taxes based on political leanings.

A share of your money belongs to the community at large because the community at large provides you services which you do not pay the full price for. It is up to the community at large to determine how much this share is.

You already pay for elementary to high school for everyone as does everyone else. It's not a question of who's money it is, it's a question of supporting an expansion of educational guarantees.
 
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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 isn’t quite so dramatic: while Sanders does want to spend significant amounts of money, almost all of it is on things we’re already paying for; he just wants to change how we pay for them. In some ways it’s 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, it’s paid for by students and their families, while under Sanders’ plan we’d 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 we’re already paying for in other ways. Depending on your perspective on government, you may think that’s a bad idea. But we shouldn’t treat his proposals as though they’re going to cost us $18 trillion on top of what we’re already paying.

And there’s 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 he’d like to see a single-payer health insurance system, and there’s a single-payer plan in Congress that has been estimated to cost $15 trillion. Sanders hasn’t actually released any health care plan, so we have no idea what his might cost.

But health care is nevertheless a good place to examine why these big numbers can be so misleading. At the moment, total health care spending in the United States runs over $3 trillion a year; according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, over the next decade (from 2015-2024), America will spend a total of $42 trillion on health care. This is money that you and I and everyone else spends. We spend it in a variety of ways: through our health-insurance premiums, through the reduced salaries we get if our employers pick up part or all of the cost of those premiums, through our co-pays and deductibles, and through our taxes that fund Medicare, Medicaid, ACA subsidies, and the VA health care system. We’re already paying about $10,000 a year per capita for health care.

So let’s say that Bernie Sanders became president and passed a single-payer health care system of some sort. And let’s say that it did indeed cost $15 trillion over 10 years. Would that be $15 trillion in new money we’d be spending? No, it would be money that we’re already spending on health care, but now it would go through government. If I told you I could cut your health insurance premiums by $1,000 and increase your taxes by $1,000, you wouldn’t have lost $1,000. You’d be in the same place you are now.

By the logic of the scary $18 trillion number, you could take a candidate who has proposed nothing on health care, and say, “So-and-so proposes spending $42 trillion on health care!” It would be accurate, but not particularly informative.

There’s something else to keep in mind: every single-payer system in the world, and there are many of them of varying flavors, is cheaper than the American health care system. Every single one. So whatever you might say about Sanders’ advocacy for a single-payer system, you can’t say it represents some kind of profligate, free-spending idea that would cost us all terrible amounts of money.

Since Sanders hasn’t released a health care plan yet, we can’t make any assessment of the true cost of his plan, because there is no plan. Maybe what he wants to do would cost more than $15 trillion, or maybe it would cost less. But given the experience of the rest of the world, there’s a strong likelihood that over the long run, a single-payer plan would save America money. Again, you may think single-payer is a bad idea for any number of reasons, but “It’ll be too expensive!” is probably the least valid objection you could make.

There are some proposals that involve spending new money that we never would have spent otherwise, like starting a war that ends up costing $2 trillion. But in every case, whether we’re doing something new or doing something we’re already doing but in a new way, the question isn’t what the price tag is, the question is whether we think what we’d get for that money makes spending it worthwhile.

For instance, Sanders wants to spend $1 trillion over 10 years on infrastructure. That’s a lot of money, but it’s significantly less than experts say we need to repair all of our crumbling roads, bridges, water systems, and so on. And infrastructure spending creates immediate jobs and has economic benefits that persist over time, which we’d also have to take into account in deciding whether it’s a good idea. But just saying, “$1 trillion is a lot of money!” doesn’t tell you whether or not we should do it.

The conservatives who are acting appalled at the number the Journal came up with are also the same people who never seem to care what a tax cut costs, because they think cutting taxes is a moral and practical good, in the same way that liberals think providing people with health coverage is a moral and practical good. For instance, Jeb Bush recently proposed a tax cut plan whose 10-year cost could be as high as $3.4 trillion. That’s a lot of money that the government wouldn’t be able to spend on the things it’s doing right now, although the campaign argues that we’d get much of that money back in increased revenues because of the spectacular growth the tax cuts would create. If you remember the claims that George W. Bush’s tax cuts would create stunning growth and prosperity for all, you might be just a bit skeptical of the Jeb campaign’s similar assertions. But in any case, we can’t evaluate the value of Jeb’s plan just by saying that $3.4 trillion is a big number. If you knew that the average family in the middle of the income distribution would get less than $1,000 from Jeb’s plan, while the average family in the top one percent would get a tax cut of over $80,000, then you’d have a better sense of whether it’s a good or bad idea.

As a general matter, when you see a headline with an unimaginably large number, chances are it’s going to confuse you more than it will enlighten you. The question when it comes to government should always be not what we’re spending, but what we’re getting for what we spend.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...he-tune-of-18-trillion/?tid=pm_opinions_pop_b
So what he is really doing then is moving the deck chairs on the Titanic around a bit?
 
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