Please take note of the italicized portion.
Posted on 01/29/2020 3:46:37 AM PST by Kaslin
The Iowa Caucus, the real start of the 2020 presidential primaries, is next week. Who's favored to win? Sadly, as I write this, the smart money says it's the candidate who's promised Americans the most "free" stuff.
Six months ago, my staff and I tallied the candidates' promises. All wanted to give away trillions -- or more accurately, wanted government to tax you and spend your money on the candidates' schemes.
At that point, Senator Kamala Harris led. Fortunately, her promises did not bring her sustained support, and she dropped out.
Unfortunately, now the other candidates are making even more promises.
So, it's time for a new contest.
My new video ranks the current leading candidates by how much of your money they promise to spend. We divide the promises into four categories:
Education
Joe Biden would make community college free, cut student loans in half, increase Pell Grants and modernize schools.
Added to his previous campaign promises, he'd increase federal spending by $157 billion per year.
Elizabeth Warren would spend much more. She wants government to "provide universal child care for every baby in this country age 0 to 5, universal pre-K for every child, raise the wages of every childcare worker and preschool teacher in America, provide for universal tuition-free college, put $50 billion into historically black colleges and universities... and cancel student loan debt for 95% of the people."
She'd outspend Biden -- but not Bernie Sanders.
Sanders would forgive all student loans -- even for the rich. He also demands that government give everyone child care and pre-K.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg also promises free child care, more pay for teachers, more career education, free college and Pell Grants, plus the refinancing of student debt.
Good try, Pete, but Sanders "wins" in the education category, with nearly $300 billion in promises.
Climate
All the Democrats pretend they will do something useful about climate change. Biden would spend $170 billion per year, Buttigieg $150 billion to $200 billion and Warren $300 billion. Sanders "wins" this category, too, by promising more than $1 trillion.
Health Care
Even the "moderate," Biden, now wants to "build out Obamacare" and to cover people here illegally.
So does Buttigieg -- but he'd spend twice as much on it.
Warren complains the Buttigieg plan "costs so much less" than her plan. She'd spend $2 trillion a year.
Sanders is again the biggest spender. He'd spend $3 trillion of your money on his "Medicare for All" plan.
Welfare
In this category, Biden, to his credit, plans no new spending.
But Buttigieg has been cranking out lots of new promises, like $45 billion for "affordable housing" and $27 billion to expand Social Security payments beyond what people paid in.
Warren would also spend more on "affordable housing" and give kids more food stamps.
Sanders "wins" again. He promises to guarantee everyone a job, provide "housing for all" and give more people food stamps.
Miscellaneous
Then there's spending that doesn't neatly fit into major categories, like Biden's plans for new foreign aid for Central America, Sanders' high-speed internet, Buttigieg's expanding national service programs like the Peace Corps and Warren's plan to force government to buy only American-made products.
Finally, we found a spending category that Sanders doesn't win. With $130 billion in new plans, Biden wins the "miscellaneous" round.
And what about that incumbent Republican?
Donald Trump once talked about "cutting waste," but government spending rose more than half a trillion dollars during his first three years.
Now Trump wants $267 billion in new spending for things like infrastructure and "access to high-quality, affordable childcare."
At least Trump wants to spend less than the Democrats.
Biden and Buttigieg would double Trump's increase. Warren would quadruple it. She'd increase spending by almost $3 trillion.
But Bernie Sanders blows them all out of the water, with nearly $5 trillion in proposed new spending!
"I'm not denying we're going to spend a lot of money," he admits.
He'll probably win in Iowa next week. Whoever wins... taxpayers lose.
WTH is with Dems in IOWA?
It’s always amazed me that they’re as loony as their left and right coast counterparts.
For perspective, there are a total of 3.04 trillion trees on planet earth.
I don’t get it either. But then, I don’t understand any Democrat. They are out-of-touch with reality since the arrival of the Lying Kenyan Usurper.
100 years ago there was a commie Midwest agricultural movement. Some of them had retarded children. Their descendants are still there. Hope this helps.
Decades ago I was a flaming socialist.
I grew out of it.
Note to Iowa Dems: Don’t stay stuck in stupid.
Trees are made into paper.
Paper is made into money.
Profit?
“ What’s this about trees?”
It puts the concept of a x-trillion dollars in perspective. A $10 dollar bill hanging from every tree on earth would not begin to pay for all this nonsense.
I think to be fair to Trump, if memory serves correctly I believe the first budget he sent over to the house/senate had a lot of cuts, not decreases to the increases but actual cuts. And (memory still working) the turtle said it was DOA. So blaming the president on spending increases, I believe if he was given a free hand there would be a lot of hurt in DC and the rest of us would be cheering.
Everybody grows up. Well, maybe not everybody but most people.
Hurt stimulates self-reliance.
ohhhh...the entitlement “Americans” ...not the people who are on assistance that don’t actually need it (although, that a problem and not just monetarily but spiritually)...not even the illegals who are using up resources that are not rightfully theirs..not to mention committing crimes that should never have happened because they should not have been here in the first place..but our beloved elected(?) officials.
The stupid, like the poor, will always be with us.
Time to cull a few.
Please take note of the italicized portion.
Well, I don't know how much hurt we'd have if the EPA's budget was cut in half. ;^)
Some of us grow old. If Bernie promises me a paid for live in massage therapist for my back and also promises to convince my wife it is a good thing I might vote for him.
Also I want flying pigs.
GIBSMEDAT!
This is not to debate the necessity or the wisdom of that program, rather it is to observe that quantitative easing has so distorted our perception of financial reality that it is unrealistic to expect the voting public to vote itself out of goodies and into austerity.
Once that state of mind took possession of the electorate it was hopeless to expect a politician to campaign against spending -the cost of spending has been entirely masked by our power to borrow. Enter Steve Bannon who points out to all who will listen on virtually every continent that the borrowing spree indulged in by the Fed and other national banks went to not only save an elite but to enrich an elite that had themselves caused the great recession. Worse, much of the fiscal and monetary policy that followed impoverished much of the middle class.
So we have an electorate that is largely uninformed that has no idea of the dangers of overspending because there are no observable consequences to overspending, we simply borrow more. They simply know that something is wrong and the system is not working for them -enter Donald Trump.
To those in the electorate who are informed, why should they volunteer to have their rice bowl broken even as they see the elites prospering the more? The odds are that Trump will not be able to convince the electorate that the music must stop, and in fairness we must acknowledge that he is not tried to do so. Rather he has sought to improve only one side of the balance sheet, to improve the economy for the stricken middle-class.
That means that we will continue on this course with the electoral advantage always running toward the spendthrift (read Democrat) over those politicians who would prudently manage our balance sheets. It will require another Great Recession or even, God forbid, another Great Depression to alter the national mindset and open the way for reform.
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