Bernie Sanders’ magic math: Double the government, pay with unicorn dust

Bernie Sanders on Monday night released a plan for “how we pay for every program that we have developed.” No one’s surprised that the numbers don’t remotely add up — or even pass the laugh test.

The list only covers 10-year costs for seven of his headline items: $16 trillion for the Green New Deal; $4 trillion for free college, pre-K and day care; $2.5 trillion for affordable housing and so on.

Independent estimates from progressive outfits like the Urban Institute put the price for Medicare for All at well over $30 trillion. Sanders insists it will cost half that because he’ll magically cut costs.

It adds up to easily doubling what the federal government spends now.

And all his new taxes only bring in about half what he means to spend.

Assuming they work as intended: Of course he pretends they wouldn’t slow the economy in the least. (Hey, it worked in … well, nowhere, but Bernie doesn’t care.)

He also claims his policies will bring in vast new income-tax revenues from 20 million new jobs — despite the fact that his fracking ban and other economic plans would plainly kill jobs.

It’s all piffle, because common sense is irrelevant to Bernie Sanders’ agenda: For decades, he’s been posturing about how socialism can save America, and his act is finally clicking with enough Democrats that he’s the frontrunner for the nomination.

Why let a little thing like reality get in the way of victory?

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