Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has a grand design for the future of America and it includes just about free everything. His campaign promises include free college, universal pre-K, Medicare for everyone, Social Security expansion, paid medical and family leave -- you name it, he wants you to have it.
It's all a part of the Vermont senator's worldview he calls "Democratic Socialism." He defined the term during the debates on CNN:
What democratic socialism is about is saying that it is immoral and wrong that the top one-tenth of one percent in this country own almost as much wealth as the bottom ninety percent. That it is wrong, today, in a rigged economy that 57% of of all new income is going to the top one-percent.
It's an effort, Sanders says, that will make the United States more like Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.
And the vehicle he wants to use to get us there is taxing the wealthiest of Americans until his proposed utopia is reached. But there is a problem: there aren't enough of them to generate the money needed to pay for it all.
Even worse, according to Wall Street Journal calculators, even if Sanders confiscated 100% of the one-percenters' income, it's still not enough.
Not including figures for universal pre-school, WSJ calculated that Sanders would need $18 trillion over ten years to cover those other items listed above. Taking every last drop from those making $1 million and up, the net would be $616 billion. Certainly a lot of money, but it misses the mark for Sandersville, USA catastrophically.
Conclusion: there's just not enough greed in America to help you cover this, Bernie.
The National Review's conclusion:
Sanders may be disillusioned to discover that Scandinavian countries have thriving private sectors and are in many respects more business-friendly these days than the United States. Norway funds its welfare state through the sale of — wait for it — fossil fuel pumped from the North Sea. But Bernie doesn’t pause over pesky details like how to afford things. He and his party are officially in the reality-free zone where, if you close your eyes and wish with all your heart, dreams really do come true. He’s Santa Claus with a Brooklyn accent. This is not politics for grown-ups.
Sanders has become the conscience of the Democratic party. They fulminate about the rich, promise the moon, and flunk math.