Many folks are quite happy with Bernie Sander’s being called a Democratic Socialist, but I have only one response – it is a meaningless label. Bernie is a socialist. Bernie’s brand of socialism shouts Marxism. Bernie’s policies and programs if implemented would give him the same kind of powers seen by the likes of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, etc. Yes, that would make him in reality a Marxist Communist using the euphemism of putting the word “democratic” in front of what he really is to make it more palatable to those who sadly have no idea what is in store for America if Bernie actually is successful in his Marxist revolution. Here’s my analysis.
Education Reform
Let’s start with the fact that what Bernie proposes for Education reform matches quite nicely with a key plank in the Communist Manifesto:
He proposes: College for All and Cancel Student Debt – is essentially Plank #10 – Free education for all children in Government schools.
As he states on his website, it will ONLY cost $2.2 trillion to make all government colleges tuition fee and CANCEL all student debt over the next decade.
But guess who pays for it. Essentially, it will be the middle class. More to follow below on why.
Then there is his plan to expand social security to be paid by anyone making over $250,000. And of course, here’s where the absurdity of this plan comes to light – just tax billionaires and millionaires and wait – any one making over $250,000 – and these plans will miraculously be funded. But the real world doesn’t work the way Marxists want. You see, the rich will not willingly fund this because Bernie and the Marxists say so. Problem is that rich people for the most part didn’t get rich losing money. So, the unintended outcome or perhaps Bernie and his brain trust already know this – it won’t be the rich who pays for this, but rather the middle class, all those same little people who got hammered by Obamacare’s high deductibles, few choices and high rates. The poor as we know pay nothing in taxes and the rich will move their money to AVOID taxes, but the middle class without resources to move money will be stuck with this bill.
In the end, when you look at the commonality say between the father of Community Organizers and author of Rules for Radicals – Saul Alinksy – and Marxist doctrine – the outcome is about the same – shared misery and hatred for the middle class. Alinsky says so quite clearly that the goal of his radicals was to take from the rich and give to the poor. And that the middle class were to be destroyed since they were all racists and war mongers. It’s right there in Alinsky’s version of Marxist doctrine. And to the point for all those tyrannical ideologies – whether discussing Radical socialists of the Alinsky and Obama type or pure Marxists as Sanders is – their Utopian vision could not be accomplished without destroying the middle class and making all outcomes equal. Well, equal except for the philosopher kings like Bernie and his fellow Marxists. They of course will have at least 3 houses – one in Vermont, one in DC, and one that they will call their “summer camp”. How nice!
Bernie plans to expand Social Security
Bernie’s bill to expand Social Security will increase benefits for low-income senior citizens and people with disabilities by more than $1,300 a year. It is fully paid for by making the wealthiest 1.8 percent of Americans – those with incomes over $250,000 a year – pay the same rate into Social Security as working families.
This bill will also extend the solvency of Social Security into the year 2070 – ensuring that Social Security can pay every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 50 years.
Again, same problem, do sane people really think that the wealthiest people in Any society will simply stay put and allow their labor their property to be taxed into oblivion?
The one policy that makes me laugh out loud is his Housing for All which will guarantee housing as a human right and to eliminate homelessness will cost a mere $2.5 trillion over the next decade. It is fully paid for by a wealth tax on the top one-tenth of one percent – those who have a net worth of at least $32 million. (Bernie’s wealth tax will raise a total of $4.35 trillion.) Only brainwashed economic illiterates believe any of this drivel.
Again, any rational person knows that the wealth tax will only force people that rich to move to Canada or say Ireland or anywhere they are not going to be taxed into poverty. This plan will never work.
Universal Childcare/Pre-K
Bernie’s proposal to guarantee universal childcare and pre-school to every family in America who needs it will cost $1.5 trillion. It is fully paid for by a wealth tax on the top 0.1 percent – those who have a net worth of at least $32 million. (Bernie’s wealth tax will raise a total of $4.35 trillion.)
Eliminating Medical Debt
Bernie has introduced a proposal to eliminate all of the $81 billion in past due medical debt held by 79 million Americans. It is fully paid for by establishing an income inequality tax on large corporations that pay CEOs at least 50 times more than average workers. So where do large corporations go when they are heavily taxed? They will flee the country. Physics, not just economics, is a problem for Bernie and his followers. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Just saying.
Green New Deal
But without a doubt the most absurd plan to come down the pike is the Green New Deal. The entire GDP of the US about $20 T and this plan only costs $16.3 T. Of course, the plan has been said to actually cost over “$90 T which is larger than the entire GDP of the planet! Using Obama’s language of “fundamentally transforming” our energy system Sanders makes the following outrageous claims:
- It will also create 20 million good-paying union jobs in the process.
It is fully paid for by:
- Raising $3.085
trillion by making the fossil fuel industry pay for their pollution,
through litigation, fees, and taxes, and eliminating federal fossil fuel
subsidies.
- Did he say “litigation”? Yes. He did.
- Generating $6.4
trillion in revenue from the wholesale of energy produced by the
regional Power Marketing Administrations. This revenue will be collected
from 2023-2035, and after 2035 electricity will be virtually free, aside
from operations and maintenance costs.
- Did he say after 2035 electricity will be free? Yes. He did. Is that possible? You can answer that one by asking who is going to give you free anything. Santa Claus Sanders? Free?
- Reducing
defense spending by $1.215 trillion by scaling back military
operations on protecting the global oil supply.
- So, we live in such a safe world, that we can essentially gut our military and this is a good idea?
- Collecting $2.3 trillion in new income tax revenue from the 20 million new jobs created by the plan.
Though it is Highly unlikely 20 million new jobs are created, how many jobs will his policies eliminate. Let’s make a wild guess by simply saying how many jobs are directly or indirectly related to fossil fuels. While some sites make the absurd claim that renewable energy jobs are ten times the number of fossil fuel jobs – In 2016, 55 percent, or 1.1 million, of these employees worked in traditional coal, oil, and gas, while almost 800,000 workers were employed in low carbon emission generation technologies, including renewables, nuclear, and advanced/low emission natural gas” www.energy.gov
At bare minimum we will be losing a million new jobs. And there is no real evidence to give credence to the notion that 20 million jobs will come from energy that hasn’t been developed yet. Existing solar and wind technology is not going to meet our energy needs. Perhaps, fusion power, or some miracle of innovation will occur but it is pure speculation to throw out a number like 20 million new jobs. And of course, 20 million jobs that are high paying to support individuals and families without Government support is highly unlikely.
- Saving $1.31
trillion by reducing the need for federal and state safety net
spending due to the creation of millions of good-paying, unionized jobs.
- Again, pure speculation based on wishful thinking and no real evidence.
- Raising $2
trillion in revenue by making large corporations pay their fair share
of taxes.
- Total absurdity. Large corporations will simply move out of the country.
Key Points:
- 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.
- What climate catastrophe? Where do these numbers come from? Research grants funded by Universities and organizations with vested interest in keeping the Climate hoax going. First, it’s a Marxist redistribution scheme based on fear not science. Second, grant money was significant enough to give us good evidence that they “cook the books” – East Anglia College and the Climategate scandal is what these so-called scientists do if they don’t get the results they predict – they simply make them up!
- If
we do not act, the U.S. will lose $34.5 trillion by the end of the
century in economic productivity.
- Where’s the evidence for that? Right now, with energy independence directly related to fossil fuels, fracking etc., US economic productivity is at all time high and lowest unemployment in 50 years.
Medicare for All
According to a February 15, 2020 study by epidemiologists at Yale University, the Medicare for All bill that Bernie wrote would save over $450 billion in health care costs and prevent 68,000 unnecessary deaths – each and every year.
This is the first of his policies backed by any respectable “study”. My problem is the assumptions are not quite valid. If anything, there will be rationing of care, there will be less incentive for innovation to give us drugs that actually save lives. In fact, what we find in those countries that have universal health care – there are death panels – and end of life is promoted – not saving lives.
Medicare for all is simply MEDIOCRE Care for all.
I suppose you can save trillions by killing off people, not investing in drugs – those hated pharmaceutical companies that Bernie vilifies everyday – not investing in life saving technology and medical devices that keep people alive for many years. It is so much easier to simply give patients some pain pills and encourage them to die. Less people in the system will certainly save billions – but I’m still not sold on how it turns into trillions without mass slaughter. But then again, Mao’s Great Leap Forward starved about 80 million people. Perhaps mass slaughter is their path to trillions in savings.
This is how Bernie says he will pay for it:
Current federal, state and local government spending over the next ten years is projected to total about $30 trillion.
The revenue options Bernie has proposed total $17.5 Trillion
$30 trillion + $17.5 trillion = $47.5 Trillion total
Sources:
Since 2016, Bernie has proposed a menu of financing options that would more than pay for the Medicare for All legislation he has introduced according to the Yale study.
These options include:
- Creating a 4 percent income-based premium paid by employees, exempting the first $29,000 in income for a family of four.
In 2018, the typical working family paid an average of $6,015 in premiums to private health insurance companies. Under this option, a typical family of four earning $60,000, would pay a 4 percent income-based premium to fund Medicare for All on income above $29,000 – just $1,240 a year – saving that family $4,775 a year. Families of four making less than $29,000 a year would not pay this premium.
(Revenue raised: About $4 trillion over 10 years.)
- Imposing a 7.5 percent income-based premium paid by employers, exempting the first $1 million in payroll to protect small businesses.
In 2018, employers paid an average of $14,561 in private health insurance premiums for a worker with a family of four. Under this option, employers would pay a 7.5 percent payroll tax to help finance Medicare for All – just $4,500 – a savings of more than $10,000 a year.
(Revenue raised: Over $5.2 trillion over 10 years.)
- Eliminating health tax expenditures, which would no longer be needed under Medicare for All.
(Revenue raised: About $3 trillion over 10 years.)
- Raising the top marginal income tax rate to 52% on income over $10 million.
(Revenue raised: About $700 billion over 10 years.)
- Replacing the cap on the state and local tax deduction with an overall dollar cap of $50,000 for a married couple on all itemized deductions.
(Revenue raised: About $400 billion over 10 years.)
- Taxing capital gains at the same rates as income from wages and cracking down on gaming through derivatives, like-kind exchanges, and the zero tax rate on capital gains passed on through bequests.
(Revenue raised: About $2.5 trillion over 10 years.)
- Enacting the For the 99.8% Act, which returns the estate tax exemption to the 2009 level of $3.5 million, closes egregious loopholes, and increases rates progressively including by adding a top tax rate of 77% on estate values in excess of $1 billion.
(Revenue raised: $336 billion over 10 years.)
- Enacting corporate tax reform including restoring the top federal corporate income tax rate to 35 percent.
(Revenue raised: $3 trillion ,of which $1 trillion would be used to help finance Medicare for All and $2 trillion would be used for the Green New Deal.)
- Using $350 billion of the amount raised from the tax on extreme wealth to help finance Medicare for All.
Conclusion
The idea that anyone making over $29,000 will be taxed means that everyone will be taxed except the very poor. And as I have said, Bernie’s assumptions about where he is going to get the tax revenue to fund his schemes are absurd. Save $10,000 per year he says! When Socialists tell you can keep your doctor and save $2500 a year– remember that what actually happened was – you couldn’t keep your doctor and your costs went up by about $4000 per year! Corporations and the very wealthy will leave the country and hide their money. The very poor will not pay taxes, so the middle class will ultimately be taxed into oblivion – which is exactly what Alinsky and good Marxists like Bernie want. Because what they are really after is power and control by an all knowing Govt that no longer has to deal with racist, war mongers and deplorables. They are all sharing equally in the misery of their Marxist Dystopia – while Bernie has his houses and his “summer camp”. Such a deal. I say no deal. Thank you!