Sanders releases list of how to pay for his proposals

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Monday night released a list of how he plans to pay for his proposals.

The presidential candidate announced during a CNN town hall Monday night that he planned to distinguish himself from President Trump and the promises the Trump campaign made in 2016 by posting to his website a detailed proposal on how to raise money for his plans. 

The list published Monday details how the senator plans to pay for his big-ticket promises like “Medicare for All” and the Green New Deal, in addition to smaller plans like Housing for All. The presidential candidate has proposed these funding ideas before in his campaign.

Sanders said he planned to raise $16.3 trillion for the Green New Deal to combat climate change. 

The money would come from making the fossil fuel industry “pay for their pollution,” garnering profit from the wholesale of energy, decreasing defense spending, getting new income tax revenue and saving federal and state safety net spending from the jobs created in the plan and enforcing higher taxes on large corporations. 

For the Medicare for All plan, Sanders has offered a number of financing options, including creating a 4 percent income-based premium while exempting the first $29,000 in income for a family of four, requiring employers to pay a 7.5 percent income-based premium, getting rid of health tax expenditures and increasing the top marginal income tax to 52 percent on incomes over $10 million.

He also mentioned an option to tax capital gains at the same rates of income from wages, enact the For the 99.8% Act, reform the corporate tax system and use money from the tax on the extremely wealthy.

But CNN’s Chris Cuomo said Sanders’s plan for Medicare for All “is not matching the price tag” of the total estimated cost. 

CNN’s Chris Cuomo calls out Bernie Sanders for claiming to pay for his programs when his plan “is not matching the price tag”https://t.co/ocroZle2ov pic.twitter.com/BtkWi356rO

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 25, 2020

The Vermont progressive’s plans for College for All and removing student debt would be funded by a tax on Wall Street speculation, according to the list. Housing for All and universal child care and pre-K would be funded by the wealth tax on the 0.1 percent, or those making more than $32 million.

Sanders said an extension of Social Security benefits for low-income senior citizens and people with disabilities would be paid for by having the top 1.8 percent pay the same rate into Social Security as working families. 

Sanders proposed getting rid of medical debt by implementing an income inequality tax on large corporations that pay CEOs at least 50 times more than average workers.

His list comes at a time as his critics warn his ideology may be too radical to be successful in a general election against Trump.

Sanders fought the criticism by asking his CNN town hall audience if raising the minimum wage, providing free college and guaranteeing health care were radical ideas, to which the audience responded, “No!”

Sanders has become the front-runner in the Democratic primary as he leads the field with 45 delegates from the first three races.

Updated on Feb. 25 at 12:13 p.m.