ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Remember
when Democrats complained that $5.7 billion for a border wall was too
expensive? Well, that’s chump change compared to what many of the congressional
Democrats and nearly all of those 15 declared Democrats in the presidential
race are now rallying behind.
The
price tag isn’t in the billions, but in the tens of trillions. President Trump was attacked earlier this month by
Democrats for a budget blueprint that would run fiscal deficits of 5 percent of
GDP. That’s too high for sure, but count up the spending plans of Democrats and
deficits could easily hit 20 percent to 30 percent of GDP and tilt the nation
toward Greece and Puerto Rican-style bankruptcy.
Let’s
start to add it all up.
Start
with “Medicare for All,” the new health care anthem of the left. It is touted
as a way to make medical services “free” for everyone. The cost to taxpayers?
By some estimates $32 trillion over the next decade, according to a study by
the Mercatus Center. Medicare, just for the seniors it was designed to cover,
is already projected to run deficits in the tens of trillions of dollars over
the next four decades, according to the program’s own Trustees.
Then
there is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Green New Deal,” which is supposed to
turn America into an eco-friendly paradise and avert the apocalypse that AOC
claims will occur in just over a decade. Four presidential candidates have
endorsed some or all of that agenda.
Of
course, the politicians pushing these plans remain suspiciously quiet whenever
they’re asked to explain exactly how much their pet projects will cost U.S.
taxpayers and whether they’re worth the investment. But thanks to public-policy
watchdog groups, we have some preliminary estimates. According to one recent
study by the American Action Forum, the “Low-carbon Electricity Grid” proposed
in the Green New Deal will cost taxpayers $5.4 trillion over 10 years, or
$39,000 per household.
Similarly,
a “Net Zero Emissions Transportation System,” another part of the environmental
proposal, will require up to $2.7 trillion, or $20,000 per household, while
guaranteed “Green Housing” would cost an additional $4.2 trillion.
The
Democrat-backed welfare programs in the Green New Deal are even more daunting —
according to the study, “guaranteed jobs” and “universal health care” would
together cost each American family $582,000, or $80.6 trillion in total.
Then
there is the loss of as many as 10 million jobs in the oil, gas and coal
industries, which would add to welfare and unemployment benefit costs, let
alone the severe financial hardship this would impose on millions of
middle-class families whom Democrats once said they care about.
Added together, these preliminary Democratic
proposals are projected to cost about $92 trillion over 10 years.
But
wait, there’s more.
Another
hot proposal on the left gaining momentum is called “universal basic income.”
Everybody gets a free check from the government. A key sponsor of this is U.S.
Sen. Kamala Harris of California, a leading candidate for the Democratic
nomination. This would give families making less than $100,000 a check of up to
$6,000 from the government every year. “Americans are working harder than ever
but stagnant wages mean they can’t keep up with cost of living increases,” Ms.
Harris says.
Then
there is the cost of “free” college tuition, another federal freebie supported
by Democrats. That would add trillions more to the taxpayer tab over the next
decade while further inflating the outrageous tuitions that universities
already charge.
The
$15-an-hour minimum wage would also impose new costs on government at every
level.
Now
the latest craze on the left is for “reparations” payments for slavery. Beto
O’Rourke and other presidential wannabes have endorsed this radical income
redistribution scheme. A 2015 study by a professor at the University of
Connecticut estimates that the cost of reparations would be between $5.9
trillion and $14.2 trillion. These results were published in the journal Social
Sciences Quarterly.
Add
it all up and the estimated 10-year cost of creating the Democratic-socialist
utopia envisioned by the likes of AOC, Sen. Bernie Sanders and other leaders of
the Democratic Party reaches well north of $100 trillion.
Who
will be left to pay for the Democrats’ America when everything is “free.” To
the extent that any of the Democrats currently running for president has
offered an answer to this question, they’ve invariably claimed that they would
finance their schemes by levying punitive taxes on “the wealthy.” But even if
you took every penny of income from every millionaire and billionaire in
America it wouldn’t even pay half the cost. Some say we will just put on the
federal credit card. President Obama took our national debt from $10 trillion
to $20 trillion, but that might be loose change compared to the new spending
spree.
Ultimately,
the burden of paying for this radical transformation of America would fall
predominantly on the middle class, as usual. Just one example: Many Europeans
pay gas taxes that are double what we pay in the United States. That’s part of
the tab for their green energy policies that Democrats are eager to bring here.
Anyone want to pay $5 a gallon to fill up?
The
Democrats balked at spending $5.7 billion to protect American communities by
securing the border, but they’re perfectly happy to mortgage our future by
spending nearly 20,000 times that amount on their own utopian fantasies. We
will all have everything we want, and our country will be bankrupt.
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