An analysis in the Washington Examiner has determined that Senator Bernie Sanders’s tax proposals claim to pull in nearly $20 trillion in additional money from taxpayers over the course of ten years.
Just under $14 billion of this comes from proposals to fund “universal health care” – the socialist euphemism for a communistic model of health care delivery.
The Sanders campaign document makes no mention of how the supply of health care goods and services (doctors, technicians, hospitals, clinics, medicines, research and development, etc) will be increased to match the universal demands proposed to be placed upon them via governmental decree.
For decades, Sanders has stated that he believes access to material goods and services such as health care is a “right.”
To contextualize this number, consider that federal taxation currently accounts for 22% of national GDP. Assuming GDP remains constant around $17.5 trillion (despite projections for marginal future growth from the Congressional Budget Office), and taking Sanders’s proposals at face value, this would increase annual federal tax revenues from a total of $3.1 trillion collected in 2014 to nearly $5 trillion per year over ten years. This would increase federal taxation as a share of GDP to nearly 29%.
For a broader context of total spending by all levels of government, the OECD estimates that total government spending accounted for 39% of GDP in 2013.
Below is the chart new tax revenue proposals and claims from the Sanders campaign.
Forbes reported that Sanders’s tax plan will create new tiers of taxation, with 52% marginal income tax rates for those earning over $10 million in a year. Sanders’s tax plan also proposes a 48% marginal income tax rate for annual earnings between $2 million and $10 million.
See the rates below.
H/T Philip Klein at Washington Examiner
H/T Tony Nitti at Forbes
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