Fareed Zakaria: Sanders’ Plans Make Republicans Look Serious

http://www.investors.com/politics/on-the-left/fareed-zakaria-sanders-plans-make-republicans-look-serious/

By Fareed Zakaria



A key sign of the Republican Party’s dysfunction in recent years has been its unwillingness to produce serious policy proposals. Instead, its leading lights routinely present outlandish plans that they know well can never be enacted or in which the math simply doesn’t add up.

What will Republicans do this year if elected to the White House? All GOP candidates would repeal Obamacare, some would pass a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, and others would deport several million undocumented workers. Needless to say, none of this will actually happen.

Take their tax plans. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that Marco Rubio’s would produce deficits of $8.2 trillion over the next 10 years. Ted Cruz’s plan clocks in at $10.2 trillion in deficits. And Donald Trump, predictably, outdoes them all with a proposal that would add $11.2 trillion in deficits and would increase the national debt by nearly 80% of GDP over the next two decades.

Even House Speaker Paul Ryan, famous for his budgetary expertise and pragmatism, proposed a budget in 2014 in which the math was unworkable.

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