It’s Not ‘Free Stuff

[BlueRaiderFan]

It’s Not ‘Free Stuff’ — It’s Using Taxes to Fund What We Actually Need


The corporate media’s pundits and the corporate-owned political class love to dismiss Bernie Sanders’ platforms as “free stuff” that can’t realistically be provided at a nationwide scale, while completely ignoring the vast multitude of corporate entitlements that cost trillions to maintain. It’s time to set the record straight.

Bernie’s proposals of a free, universal Medicare For All program, free public education through the 4-year college level, 12 weeks of paid family leave, and providing millions of new jobs through investments in infrastructure are lofty goals, but the money to fund them is there if we were to simply cut the most wasteful and fraudulent corporate welfare packages that help a small wealthy few Americans while burdening the rest.


First, let’s add up the total annual cost of Sanders’ costliest policy proposals, using estimates provided by the Sanders campaign:

• Medicare for All: $1.38 trillion
• New WPA: $200 billion (5-year limit)
• Free college: $75 billion
• Social Security expansion: $120 billion (10-year limit)
• Paid family leave: $31 billion
• Total annual cost: $1.61 trillion

That may seem like a lot on its own, but the funding can easily be raised by cutting the “free stuff” we currently lavish on the wealthy. Ten entitlement programs that exclusively benefit multinational corporations (like tax breaks for hedge fund managers, rich kids’ inheritances, and CEO bonuses, handouts to the oil and pharmaceutical industries, costly weapons programs and unnecessary wars, subsidies for “too-big-to-fail” banks, Ex-Im Bank handouts to corporate behemoths, and tax loopholes for multinational corporations) can easily be sacrificed to benefit the other 99.9 percent of Americans. Here’s the annual cost breakdown of those programs, based on verified numbers from credible sources:

• Government contracts for the 200 wealthiest corporations: $176 billion
• Handouts to the pharmaceutical industry: $270 billion (paid by drug costs per household)
• Money lost to corporate tax havens: $100 billion
• Wall Street welfare: $83 billion
• Corporate welfare in omnibus spending bill: $65 billion
• Tax breaks for wealthy investors: $51 billion (average over 5-year period)
• Afghan war: $50 billion
• Oil company subsidies: $37.5 billion
• Tax breaks for rich brats: $26.9 billion
• New nuclear missiles: $18 billion
• Ford-class aircraft carrier: $15 billion
• F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: $10 billion
• Tax breaks for CEO bonuses: $7 billion
• Littoral Combat Ship: $2 billion
• Unusable planes for Afghan Air Force: $800 million
• Total annual savings: $912 billion

As it stands right now, all of these aforementioned programs amount to $1.62 trillion every year in “free stuff”

http://usuncut.com/politics/its-not-free-stuff-its-using-taxes-to-fund-what-we-actually-need/

 

[MTOleBlue]

"Socialism for the wealthy, rugged individualism for the poor" -- common and saddening phrase, but more true every day in this country.

 

[BlueRaiderFan]

We spent trillions bailing out Wall Street, but we don't have enough to forgive student loans for those that are in debt and insolvent...Debtors prison...a very Christian idea.