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Hillary Becoming Bernie

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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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Debbie Young

Debbie, editor-in-chief of Richardcyoung.com, has been associate editor of Dick Young’s investment strategy reports for over three decades. When not in Key West, Debbie spends her free time researching and writing in and about Paris and Burgundy, France, cooking on her AGA Cooker, driving her Porsche Boxter S through Vermont and Maine, and practicing yoga.