This answer reminds me a little bit of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asserting that self-assigned moral righteousness is more important than being "precisely, factually, and semantically correct," in that it's an entirely unserious cop-out. Pretending that factual accuracy is a minor annoyance is both revealing and irresponsible. So is waving off the enormous price tags for massive proposed expansions of government as irrelevant. It's not a cost, you see, it's an "investment:"
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) repeatedly failed to give CNN’s John King a clear answer on how she would pay for her proposals, saying, “it’s not about a cost.” pic.twitter.com/w8UHy10heg
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) February 24, 2019
It's a snappy, superficial sound byte, but it doesn't answer the fundamental question. Harris and other Democrats are welcome to try to make the case to the American people that their various statist "investments" are worth the costs -- but that doesn't eliminate those costs. They still exist in reality, and they must be paid for somehow. As we've discussed at length, just one major piece of the Left's agenda -- single-payer healthcare -- would mean well over $3 trillion in new spending every single year, in perpetuity. Paying for that would require giant, across-the-board tax increases on all American families and businesses. This includes small businesses, as well as working and middle class households.
Everyone would get hit, and the tax hikes would not be modest. And that's just a one agenda item. Once you toss the 'Green New Deal' into the mix, all of the numbers just balloon even further. The New York Times' analysis of how expensive it would be drew ire from liberal readers, many of whom apparently believe that the urgency to act renders the math unimportant. This tweet prompted furious complaints:
Green New Deal is technologically possible, experts say. But it will cost trillions of dollars, require expansive new taxes and federal programs, and could not be accomplished within the 10-year timeframe that supporters say is necessary. https://t.co/afWa9gOK45
— NYT Climate (@nytclimate) February 21, 2019
Grappling with fiscal realities, it seems, is enabling the "deniers." This Times account ended up firing off a string of quasi-apologetic and defensive tweets. Meanwhile, there's this wild component of the Green New Deal's infamous FAQ document:
This is how the revised Green New Deal FAQ actually describes the fringe economic concept known as MMT. pic.twitter.com/k55sEfH6tJ
— Phil Magness (@PhilWMagness) February 24, 2019
This truly nutty theory, which is absolutely not accepted by nearly any serious economists, posits the following:
MMT has many elements, and its advocates tend to express these in terms that aren’t familiar to many mainstream economists. But the central argument that the U.S. government doesn’t really have a budget constraint — and thus, that taxes are never needed to pay for federal spending — is simple enough to grasp. Basically, it’s because the government can print dollars whenever it wants.
Will Democratic proponents of endless new "investments" embrace this insanity? Or will they be forced to address the literal fact that these are costs that must be paid by someone? On that score, I'll leave you with yet another push to spend even more money -- this time, to expand a major entitlement program that is (a) already going insolvent and (b) already running annual cash deficits:
If we are going to raise tax rates on all workers -- I cannot think of a worse use than increasing benefits for the wealthiest age-group in America. Seniors already come out well ahead in SocSec & Medicare, and these huge programs are crowding out all other federal priorities. https://t.co/g19LzClRJE
— Brian Riedl (@Brian_Riedl) February 24, 2019
What could go wrong? Eh, who cares? People with big ideas, no matter how reckless, are apparently the "boss." Haven't you heard?