Democratic socialist darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appeared on the “Daily Show” last night to talk about what it meant to be one and surprisingly was pressed on the affordability of her ideas.
Host Trevor Noah asked Cortez how she would pay for the portfolio of social programs that are part of her platform (which includes expanding social security, Medicare for all, free college, housing as a human right, a universal jobs guarantee, government-funded paid sick leave, and a “green new deal” to combat climate change. “Then the pragmatic side comes in”
Noah began to ask. “How do you pay for these [programs]? You always see people coming in with economic arguments, and they say, ‘look, these numbers don't really add up. In order to get health care for everybody, this is what it would cost. Even if we reverse the Republican tax deal, it only covers 5% of what we'd need for Medicare for all.'”
“This is an excellent, excellent question,” she replied. “I sat down with a Nobel Prize-winning economist last week — I can't believe I can say that, it's really weird — But one of the things that we saw is, if people pay their fair share, if corporations and the ultra-wealthy — for example, as Warren Buffett likes to say, if he pays as much as his secretary paid, 15 percent tax rate, if corporations paid — if we reverse the tax bill, raised our corporate tax rate to 28 percent … if we do those two things and also close some of those loopholes, that's $2 trillion right there.”
“The Daily Show” host @Trevornoah asked Socialist congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) how she plans to pay for her agenda.
It really is hard to watch. pic.twitter.com/OGiPAArlce
— The Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 27, 2018
So, two trillion generated over ten years is what she's come up with in terms of revenue. Let's just assume her figures are 100% accurate. During the 2016 election cycle, the Wall Street Journal ran the numbers on what it would cost to implement all of Bernie Sanders' proposals, which overlap heavily with Cortez's And that total? A whopping $18 trillion over ten years. Granted, Cortez's platform lacks some of Bernie's proposals (such as a youth jobs initiative and child care proposal), but those amount to rounding errors in the context of $18 trillion in new spending.
So, only 16 trillion to go!
Liberals love to pretend that we could pay for all the social programs they want if only we taxed the rich more, but even they wouldn't be able to foot the bill. This can be observed in the Scandinavian nations, which do have many of the generous welfare State programs that liberals want, such as socialized medicine, free college, government-funded maternity leave, among others. And with that comes massive taxation.
The average citizen in Denmark pays 45 percent of their income in taxes, and there's a national sales tax on top of that of 25 percent (which nets out to just over 59% combined). The top income tax bracket is 60 percent, but unlike in America, it kicks in at a relatively low level of income, $60,000 a year.
It's interesting that these liberals never disclose that for their vision of society to be realized, it would require the average person to pay 60% of their income in taxes. They'd soak the rich too of course, but even that wouldn't come close to funding everything they desire. I find it hard not to suspect that Cortez and those like her are well aware nobody would favor their ideas if they were advertised honestly.
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