# Has Bernie Sanders been honest about his vision for achieving Democratic Socialism? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 2, 2020, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-bernie-sanders-been-honest-about-his-vision-for-achieving-democratic-socialism/848814 "2020-03-02T19:40:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2020, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-bernie-sanders-been-honest-about-his-vision-for-achieving-democratic-socialism/848814/21 "2020-03-02T21:14:03Z")
IIRC he’s stated that taxes will probably go up on some middle income Americans, and IIRC the calculator on his website actually makes this clear with specific numbers. He argues that UHC will overall be cheaper for Americans because the out of pocket expenses, including taxes, will go down significantly. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2020, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-bernie-sanders-been-honest-about-his-vision-for-achieving-democratic-socialism/848814/22 "2020-03-02T21:36:08Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > IIRC he’s stated that taxes will probably go up on some middle income Americans, and IIRC the calculator on his website actually makes this clear with specific numbers. He argues that UHC will overall be cheaper for Americans because the out of pocket expenses, including taxes, will go down significantly. The, “…for some middle income American”, is a lie. But never mind all that for now. The following is not a one or two year sample size, so my figures are not creative economics or extrapolations. I was and still am in independent IT consultant. Living in Canada my income as a married person with two kids was half of what it is now with the same status. I paid virtually exactly the same amount in taxes at the end of each year. To wit, twice as much in Canada as in the US per dollar of income. If I add my healthcare insurance in the US (I have a gold ACA plan), I still pay 10-20% less out of pocket, including taxes. Convince me that Bernie’s plan will lower my out of pocket expenses, including UHC, given that he has a much higher mountain to climb with regards to population size and current cost of healthcare. Maybe you can make the math work where I can’t. I want want to believe. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2020, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-bernie-sanders-been-honest-about-his-vision-for-achieving-democratic-socialism/848814/23 "2020-03-02T21:41:51Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > IIRC he’s stated that taxes will probably go up on some middle income Americans, and IIRC the calculator on his website actually makes this clear with specific numbers. He argues that UHC will overall be cheaper for Americans because the out of pocket expenses, including taxes, will go down significantly. Yup. He has a 4% payroll tax on employees and a 7.5% payroll tax on employers combined with various progressive taxes on wealth, income, stock trading, etc. UHC will be far cheaper. One figure I’d heard is that keeping the current health system will cost 50 trillion over the next decade, but a well run medicare for all system will only cost 35 trillion. So it isn’t like our choices are ‘spend nothing or spend 35 trillion’, our choices are spend 50 trillion in public/private funds or spend 35 trillion in public/private funds. Also about 50-60% of all medical spending is already spent via the public sector (medicare, medicaid, VA, CDC, state/local programs, ACA, etc). So we don’t need to raise 100% of the cost of a M4A system, we just need to raise taxes to cover the private spending that will disappear. Which again, because its cheaper will be less than the 40-50% we current spend privately. But his programs are huge. I don’t know if the 60 trillion price tag is correct or not. Medicare for all may only cost 1.5 trillion a year in new taxes since we’re already raising another 1.5 trillion or so in pre-existing taxes to fund health care. His other big programs like daycare and public college are 1-2 trillion over a decade each. Green new deal, I’m not sure. I mean, $100 billion in public sector spending would probably be met by $200 billion in private sector spending on renewables, which is a far more reasonable number but would still increase the US’s spending on renewables by nearly 700%. One study found switching to a 100% renewable energy sector will require 2% of GDP spending a year for 30 years. If there is a 2:1 multiplier effect from the private sector for every public dollar spent, that is about $130 billion a year in public sector spending, a fairly reasonable number. ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2020, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-bernie-sanders-been-honest-about-his-vision-for-achieving-democratic-socialism/848814/24 "2020-03-02T21:45:12Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Cite: [Democratic Socialism](https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-02-25/bernie-sanders-democratic-socialism-isnt-communism) **Democratic Socialism** is basically wanting socialism through democratic elections. No workers revolution, no bloody revolt. Socialism coming in because the population desired it, not imposed from above by a victorious junta. But it is still workers owning the means of production. It is not at all what we do in the Nordics. **Social Democracy** is a very capitalist setup, in many ways more capitalist than the US. Even the biggest businesses can go under, employees are not feudal ssubjects of their employers through health care but can make competing businesses, employers can get together to negotiate for wages and benefits with employers. The government uses the money generated by this capitalist setup to run big social programs ti benefit and grow the middle classes. UHC, free college, subsidized daycare, year-long parental leaves. Now here is the thing: The middle class is by far the best source of tax money. Poor people don’t have much money and rich people have lawyers and offshore bank accounts. The middle class is where the revenue is. So that means free college because now all the poor peoples kinds can get an education and join the middle classes. And parental leave, subsidized healthcare and suddenly everyone is a two-income family and you’ve doubled revenues without increasing taxes. It means UHC because sick people consume benefits and healthy ones generate taxes. And make no mistake, that is how these things are set up. To maximize revenue. Which is fantastic for the middle class of course. It is a symbiosis, not a parasitical relationship. Thats the Nordic Model. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2020, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-bernie-sanders-been-honest-about-his-vision-for-achieving-democratic-socialism/848814/25 "2020-03-02T22:01:56Z")
> [@Grim\_Render](#): > > **Democratic Socialism** is basically wanting socialism through democratic elections. No workers revolution, no bloody revolt. Socialism coming in because the population desired it, not imposed from above by a victorious junta. But it is still workers owning the means of production. It is not at all what we do in the Nordics. > > **Social Democracy** is a very capitalist setup, in many ways more capitalist than the US. Even the biggest businesses can go under, employees are not feudal ssubjects of their employers through health care but can make competing businesses, employers can get together to negotiate for wages and benefits with employers. > > The government uses the money generated by this capitalist setup to run big social programs ti benefit and grow the middle classes. UHC, free college, subsidized daycare, year-long parental leaves. Now here is the thing: The middle class is by far the best source of tax money. Poor people don’t have much money and rich people have lawyers and offshore bank accounts. The middle class is where the revenue is. > > So that means free college because now all the poor peoples kinds can get an education and join the middle classes. And parental leave, subsidized healthcare and suddenly everyone is a two-income family and you’ve doubled revenues without increasing taxes. It means UHC because sick people consume benefits and healthy ones generate taxes. And make no mistake, that is how these things are set up. To maximize revenue. > > Which is fantastic for the middle class of course. It is a symbiosis, not a parasitical relationship. Thats the Nordic Model. I see what you’re getting at. Except Bernie calls it the former and you’d prefer he got the naming convention of his ‘revolution’ more in line with the latter. Me too. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![tullsterx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tullsterx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tullsterx)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2020, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-bernie-sanders-been-honest-about-his-vision-for-achieving-democratic-socialism/848814/26 "2020-03-02T22:09:55Z")
I think he’s honest. . . . he’s just wrong. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2020, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-bernie-sanders-been-honest-about-his-vision-for-achieving-democratic-socialism/848814/27 "2020-03-02T22:18:33Z")
I don’t think he’s been honest. I think he does honestly believe that ‘only Bernie can fix it.’ He’s probably honest as to what he wants, but so is a six year old when they make out their Christmas list. ---
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2020, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-bernie-sanders-been-honest-about-his-vision-for-achieving-democratic-socialism/848814/28 "2020-03-02T23:02:37Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > I don’t think he’s been honest. I think he does honestly believe that ‘only Bernie can fix it.’ > > He’s probably honest as to what he wants, but so is a six year old when they make out their Christmas list. Sooo… You DO think he’s been honest, but you answered in the negative because BERNIE BAD! ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-bernie-sanders-been-honest-about-his-vision-for-achieving-democratic-socialism/848814/29 "2020-03-03T00:02:23Z")
> [@Grim\_Render](#): > > If he has, he should know that we are Social Democrats, not democratic socialists. > > Democratic Socialism is a form of socialism, Social Democracy is capitalism for the middle classes. The terms only look alike. This. I keep pointing it out, and I appear to be invisible. Democratic socialism is socialism – that is, public (government) control of most means of production. Social democracy is a capitalist economic system with strong social programs such as universal health care. If Bernie calls himself a democratic socialist he’s wrong, and it’s particularly misleading if his models are countries like Canada and Sweden, which are social democracies. If Republicans attack him on the basis that socialist countries have typically been economic failures – whether democratic socialist or otherwise – they will be right. Understanding the difference between the two similar-sounding terms is vitally important, and I’m pretty sure for just that reason Republicans will do their best to obfuscate the difference. Bernie’s job is to be crystal-clear that he’s a social democrat. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-bernie-sanders-been-honest-about-his-vision-for-achieving-democratic-socialism/848814/30 "2020-03-03T00:09:56Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > This. I keep pointing it out, and I appear to be invisible. Democratic socialism is socialism – that is, public (government) control of most means of production. Social democracy is a capitalist economic system with strong social programs such as universal health care. If Bernie calls himself a democratic socialist he’s wrong, and it’s particularly misleading if his models are countries like Canada and Sweden, which are social democracies. If Republicans attack him on the basis that socialist countries have typically been economic failures – whether democratic socialist or otherwise – they will be right. > > Understanding the difference between the two similar-sounding terms is vitally important, and I’m pretty sure for just that reason Republicans will do their best to obfuscate the difference. Bernie’s job is to be crystal-clear that he’s a social democrat. Do you really think the average voter understands or cares about the difference between communism, socialism, democratic socialism and social democracy? The average GOP voter will label all of it communism, and I don’t know if the average swing voter will want to learn enough about poly sci to distinguish them. Wouldn’t a better marketing term be something like ‘capitalism without the harsh edges’? I’ve heard social democracy described this way. It is capitalism with wealth redistribution, a social safety net and regulations to protect labor and the environment. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-bernie-sanders-been-honest-about-his-vision-for-achieving-democratic-socialism/848814/31 "2020-03-03T00:23:05Z")
> [@Kron](#): > > Sooo… You DO think he’s been honest, but you answered in the negative because BERNIE BAD! He’s been honest about what he wants. He hasn’t been honest about how he achieves it so that why I don’t consider Bernie honest. ---
**Author:** ![str8cashhomie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7cd45c/32.png) [@str8cashhomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/str8cashhomie)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-bernie-sanders-been-honest-about-his-vision-for-achieving-democratic-socialism/848814/32 "2020-03-03T00:48:56Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > This. I keep pointing it out, and I appear to be invisible. Democratic socialism is socialism – that is, public (government) control of most means of production. Social democracy is a capitalist economic system with strong social programs such as universal health care. If Bernie calls himself a democratic socialist he’s wrong, and it’s particularly misleading if his models are countries like Canada and Sweden, which are social democracies. If Republicans attack him on the basis that socialist countries have typically been economic failures – whether democratic socialist or otherwise – they will be right. > > Understanding the difference between the two similar-sounding terms is vitally important, and I’m pretty sure for just that reason Republicans will do their best to obfuscate the difference. Bernie’s job is to be crystal-clear that he’s a social democrat. I do think that Bernie knows the difference, and calls himself a democratic socialist as opposed to a socdem or a progressive for a reason. I think if it were more palatable to the public, he would be pushing for more radical changes such as nationalization of a large portion of the American economy. I think most Democratic Socialists see changes like universal healthcare and welfare programs as win-wins that simultaneously alleviate some of the worst abuses that a capitalist society enacts on poor people, act as gateways into opening the public up to socialism and a way to get capitalists to squirm trying to defend the way the system currently works. There have been a lot of countries (including the US) where it sometimes takes a real socialist who wants to tear capitalism down to get the establishment to wake up and give workers and poor people some rights, so while I wouldn’t go nearly as far left as Bernie, I think it can end up being the kick in the ass that our country needs - obviously time will tell. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-bernie-sanders-been-honest-about-his-vision-for-achieving-democratic-socialism/848814/33 "2020-03-03T03:11:07Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > This. I keep pointing it out, and I appear to be invisible. Democratic socialism is socialism – that is, public (government) control of most means of production. Social democracy is a capitalist economic system with strong social programs such as universal health care. If Bernie calls himself a democratic socialist he’s wrong, and it’s particularly misleading if his models are countries like Canada and Sweden, which are social democracies. If Republicans attack him on the basis that socialist countries have typically been economic failures – whether democratic socialist or otherwise – they will be right. > > Understanding the difference between the two similar-sounding terms is vitally important, and I’m pretty sure for just that reason Republicans will do their best to obfuscate the difference. Bernie’s job is to be crystal-clear that he’s a social democrat. I think he knows the difference. I think he is a democratic socialist. He is being dishonest in saying he only wants it to be a social democratic society because he knows he can’t achieve what he wants. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-bernie-sanders-been-honest-about-his-vision-for-achieving-democratic-socialism/848814/34 "2020-03-03T03:22:02Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Bernie’s job is to be crystal-clear that he’s a social democrat. And yet he calls himself a Democratic Socialist. I don’t for a second believe that he’s just confused the two terms after all these years or that he considers them interchangeable. I think to those who absolutely oppose him, it’s a distinction without a difference and changing it won’t win anybody over. ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-bernie-sanders-been-honest-about-his-vision-for-achieving-democratic-socialism/848814/35 "2020-03-03T13:34:31Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > I see what you’re getting at. Except Bernie calls it the former and you’d prefer he got the naming convention of his ‘revolution’ more in line with the latter. Me too. 🙂 Pretty much. I mean, for us small nations at the edge of the world, it is pretty flattering when Presidental candidates in the most powerful nation in the world goes “_Look at those guys, we can really learn something from them_” But then…he proceeds to totally misrepresent what we are and do. Its like “_Noooooo!_” We have our own political debates. Because we do not have a first past the post system, we have more parties represented in parliament, and occasionally real socialist parties manage to get some delegates in. So we know what socialism is, and how different it is from what we do. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-bernie-sanders-been-honest-about-his-vision-for-achieving-democratic-socialism/848814/36 "2020-03-05T14:16:48Z")
People can talk themselves into believing anything, if they want to badly enough. If that’s honest, then Bernie is honest. If everything goes the way he wants, everything will work out the way he wants. Everything is not going to go the way he wants. He’s been in Congress for decades, and not done anything to bring about what he wants to bring about as President. So he has no experience in actually seeing legislation thru and dealing with the consequences. The idea of taxing somebody else and using the money to fund everything under the sun is appealing. So is free money - tax cuts pay for themselves, M4A means you will pay less in taxes than you do in insurance premiums, raising the minimum wage means everyone has more money to spend, free college means tax revenues will go up because any major is as good as any other in getting a job. People tend to forget that TANSTAAFL. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-bernie-sanders-been-honest-about-his-vision-for-achieving-democratic-socialism/848814/37 "2020-03-05T14:44:22Z")
Trump is in the white house. Clearly P.J. Barnum (or whoever) was right. My OP is not whether Bernie’s policies can succeed or are in the public interest, but whether he was honest about how much they would cost and (more importantly) who would actually be paying for it. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2020, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-bernie-sanders-been-honest-about-his-vision-for-achieving-democratic-socialism/848814/38 "2020-03-05T15:11:54Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > I really appreciated that about Obama. I think he meant it when he said, “You could keep your doctor”. When it turned out not to necessarily be true, he should have come out and explained why it didn’t work out the way he hoped and why. That is what backfired. The lack of honesty about why things played out they way they did. Obamacare is a good example. > [@](#): > > ["Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” Gruber said. “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.” > > Gruber made the comment while discussing how the law was “written in a tortured way” to avoid a bad score from the Congressional Budget Office. He suggested that voters would have rejected ObamaCare if the penalties for going without health insurance were interpreted as taxes, either by budget analysts or the public. > > “If CBO scored the [individual] mandate as taxes, the bill dies,” Gruber said. > > “If you had a law that made it explicit that healthy people are going to pay in and sick people are going to get subsidies, it would not have passed,” he added.]([https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/223578-obamacare-architect-lack-of-transparency-helped-law-pass](https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/223578-obamacare-architect-lack-of-transparency-helped-law-pass)) Obama swore up and down that the penalties weren’t a tax, until the case was argued in court. Is that a case of Obama knew, or a case of Obama should have known? Is that being honest? “If I tell the truth, my bill will fail” is a pretty good reason to talk yourself into thinking you are telling the truth. The difference with Sanders is that he doesn’t realize his plans will fail. Because he has talked himself into believing it already. Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-bernie-sanders-been-honest-about-his-vision-for-achieving-democratic-socialism/848814.md?page=1)