Evidently Hillary Clinton cannot run as her unlikable self and a slogan of “at least I wasn’t indicted” is not all that inspirational. Instead, Mrs. Clinton is doing her best to morph into Bernie Sanders, writes Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute. Here are a few Sanders-like proposals from “Hillary Sanders:”
- A so-called “public option” for ObamaCare, which would essentially establish a government-run single-payer system to compete with private insurance in every state. The government system—subsidized by taxpayers—would artificially hold down prices until it drives private insurance out of business.
- Reduce the age for Medicare eligibility to 55. To date, Hillary has not put a price tag on this proposal, but adding more people to Medicare will certainly not help the program’s expected $55.6 trillion shortfall.
Mr. Tanner: Together, these proposals mean “the slow, painful death of private health insurance in this country,”
- Public colleges for free for all families earning less than $85,000 per year as of now. This would rise to $125,000 in 2021, which would eventually make roughly 83% of U.S. college students eligible for “free” college. Cost to taxpayers? $450 billion over 10 years. And don’t forget, a three-month moratorium on student-loan payments.
Mr. Tanner: Free tuition “despite the fact that nearly everyone agrees that such subsidies simply inflate the cost of a college education.”
- A $15 per hour minimum wage has not yet been endorsed by Hillary, but “her delegates joined with Sanders’s to insert support for a $15 per hour minimum wage into the party platform. … Even economists who support an increase in the minimum wage, like Alan Krueger, understand that $15 an hour would be a job-killer.”
Mr. Tanner: Given the problems facing young blacks, there’s “a particular irony” about a $15 per hour wage “Black teen unemployment exceeds 31 percent. Eliminating low-wage, entry-level jobs is unlikely to improve that.”
Hillary Clinton is running to the left of Barrack Obama and has “largely embraced Sanders-like positions on issues ranging from expanding Social Security and increasing taxes on high-earners to further tightening gun control.” Read more from Michael Tanner here.
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