Economic Sustainability of Bernie Sanders S Platform Research Paper

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Bernie Sanders's economic platform is based on the concept of income inequality. As a socialist liberal, his main thesis is that the U.S. economy is producing wealth, but, at the same time, a large income inequality. His platform explores an interesting dichotomy, namely the fact that, despite the continuous increase in economic productivity over the years and despite the tremendous advances in technology, which should theoretically balance a reducing of economic disparities, workers have to work longer hours for the same or lower wages.

Sanders's approach is more complex than just emphasizing economic disparities. He is interested in building his platform around a transfer of wealth, not only on wealth disparities, between the middle class and the rich and very rich classes. As all know, the U.S. was built around the proliferation of a rich middle class, so this transfer should be of concern to potential voters. At the same time, when talking about poverty, Sanders emphasizes child poverty, where the U.S., according to him and UNICEF, has the highest child poverty rate among developed countries (32.2%, compared to the second in the list, the UK, with 25.6%).

So, Bernie Sanders's cornerstone of the economic platform is to revive the middle class. There are several ways it intends to do this, including major federal jobs programs, fueled by a strong investment in infrastructure, with an estimate that 1 trillion USD can provide as many as 13 million jobs. This is a return to the Keynesian type of economics, which was successfully used by F.D. Roosevelt during the New Deal. The idea is to finance from the Federal budget large infrastructure projects that would employ great number of employees, thus decreasing unemployment rates and doing a better job of reducing income disparities.

Along similar lines, B. Sanders has also pledged to increase the pay from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour over the next years, up to 2020. This would be another attempt to reduce income disparities, but, primarily, this would be focused on reducing poverty across the U.S. society, including targeting child poverty and other auxiliary aspects.

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Expansion of benefits should also include, according to Bernie Sanders, an expansion of Social Security benefits, overall protection of social security and consistent funding for Medicaid and Medicare programs.

Obviously, the problem with such a generous benefits platform and one that is designed to have some sources of income. In order to bring the discussion within a macroeconomic framework, the budget is generally formed of income and expenses. Given that Sanders's platform incurs so many expenses, ranging from a doubling of the minimal wage to social security and to huge infrastructure problem, and knowing that the U.S. will no longer be able to run the kind of budgetary deficits it used to ten years ago, the legitimate questions is where will Bernie Sanders have the money to cover all these expenses.

Taxation seems to be one of the methods he has proposed to use and this was clearly outlined in his platform. First, he proposes to close some of the taxation loops, whereby companies that move funds into fiscal paradises such as the Cayman Islands will either no longer be able to do so or will find more difficult conditions on moving profits back to the U.S.

At the same time, Sanders is also looking at higher taxation for Wall Street speculators, but also for a progressive estate tax, looking to obtain additional revenues from taxation on inheritance, but also from a variety of other sources. The common denominator remains similar: taxation of high-earning individuals or economic entities and returning the funds to the middle and lower classes, either in the form of benefits or in the form of infrastructure and similar projects.

Sanders's economic platform is not limited to this type of Keynesian approach. For one thing, noticing and emphasizing….....

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