Some Economists See Huge Costs in Bernie Sanders' Agenda

Following-up from last September, "Bernie Sanders' Socialist Agenda Would Expand Government to the Tune of $18 Trillion (VIDEO)."

At the New York Times, "Left-Leaning Economists Question Cost of Bernie Sanders's Plans":

WASHINGTON — With his expansive plans to increase the size and role of government, Senator Bernie Sanders has provoked a debate not only with his Democratic rival for president, Hillary Clinton, but also with liberal-leaning economists who share his goals but question his numbers and political realism.

The reviews of some of these economists, especially on Mr. Sanders’s health care plans, suggest that Mrs. Clinton could have been too conservative in their debate last week when she said that his agenda in total would increase the size of the federal government by 40 percent. That level would surpass any government expansion since the buildup in World War II.

The increase could exceed 50 percent, some experts suggest, based on an analysis by a respected health economist that Mr. Sanders’s single-payer health plan could cost twice what the senator, who represents Vermont, asserts, and on critics’ belief that his economic assumptions are overly optimistic.

His campaign strongly contests both critiques, defending its numbers and attacking prominent critics as Clinton sympathizers and industry consultants.

Mr. Sanders, on “Fox News Sunday,” reiterated his oft-stated claim that progressive critics dispute: “A family right in the middle of the economy would pay $500 more in taxes and get a reduction in their health costs of $5,000.”

But by the reckoning of the left-of-center economists, none of whom are working for Mrs. Clinton, the new spending would add $2 trillion to $3 trillion a year on average to federal spending; by comparison, total federal spending is projected to be above $4 trillion in the next president’s first year.

“The numbers don’t remotely add up,” said Austan Goolsbee, formerly chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, now at the University of Chicago...

Radical leftists, at Daily Kos and elsewhere, smeared the Wall Street Journal when it came out with its $18 trillion estimate of Sanders' policies in September, but $2 trillion over 10 years would add $20 trillion to the national debt if nothing else changes in Washington's budgeting.

I get a kick out of listening to the old Jewish "democratic" socialist, but America can't afford his agenda.

Keep reading, in any case.