http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/02/02/analysis-bernie-sanderss-tax-increases-fall-short-of-paying-for-health-plan/Bernie Sanders‘s plan to pay for government-provided health care falls
more than $3 trillion short of his campaign’s estimates, according to a budget watchdog group.
The plan, which includes new taxes on employers, new income taxes on all Americans and steeply higher tax rates on high-income households, would raise about $10.7 trillion over the next decade, not the $13.9 trillion the campaign projected, according a report being released Wednesday by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bipartisan group.
“Sen. Sanders has shown a commitment to paying for the cost of his single-payer plan, but the numbers at the moment don’t appear to add up,” the report says.
Mr. Sanders’s health care plan — which he calls Medicare for All — relies on a suite of new and higher taxes,
and even a $10.7 trillion tax increase would mark an extraordinary expansion of government by about 25%.His proposals include marginal income tax rates of as much as 52%, which would be effectively even higher because of expanded payroll taxes. He also would increase estate taxes, limit deductions for high-income households and tax capital gains at the same rates as wage income.
Those taxes have limits, the report says. For example, Mr. Sanders relies on higher capital-gains rates to collect $920 billion over a decade. But those taxes would just discourage people from selling assets and would be well above the revenue-maximizing rate. The report also cites Congressional Budget Office scores of payroll and income tax increases to mark down Mr. Sanders’s other estimates.
Mr. Sanders’s plan has also faced criticism for a lack of detail about how the single-payer health insurance would work and how much it would cost.
The campaign said its health plan would cost $1.38 trillion a year. That could end up being more than $13.8 trillion over a decade because of inflation. Mr. Sanders has urged voters to look at more than just the cost in taxes and to recognize that they and their employers would no longer be paying health insurance premiums.
The campaign didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment late Tuesday.
