This article originally appeared on Fox News on October 16, 2019.
Twelve Democratic presidential hopefuls took the debate stage Tuesday night and espoused a flurry of terrible economic policy proposals. While not a comprehensive list, here’s one concerned American’s thoughts on their seven most glaring mistakes and omissions regarding the economy.
1. No plan Let’s start with a glaring omission: No one proposed a plan to grow the economy.
Not one candidate said anything like, “Here’s how I’ll encourage American entrepreneurs to grow their businesses, creating jobs and the competition for employees that drives wage growth for working Americans.”
Instead, every policy proposal boiled down to dividing our economic pie into smaller pieces. Rather than proposing to grow that pie, the candidates simply assumed economic growth would continue – as if it were a given. It’s not.
2. Grow the government Every proposed solution was based on empowering government, diminishing our freedom, increasing our taxes, regulating our businesses and creating massive – unprecedented – government dependence.
No matter how benevolent they might sound, we should all be suspicious of anyone who asks us to sacrifice our freedoms, expand and empower the government and then put them in charge. Do we really trust our politicians that much?
3. Middle class to pay? For example, Medicare-for-all. Even assuming we wanted to eliminate all private insurance, could we pay for it?
The Mercatus Center, a think tank at George Mason University, “conservatively” found that “Medicare-for-all” would cost taxpayers $32.6 trillion over a 10-year period, even with associated cost savings, an average of about $3.26 trillion per year.
The federal government’s total revenue for fiscal year 2018 was $3.3 trillion and even that was insufficient to cover the government’s existing expenses — which totaled $4.1 trillion.
No wonder Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., refused to answer any questions about increasing taxes for the middle class. As Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., admitted, they would – and a lot.
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