Sanders Confronted on Costs of His Plans at CNN Town Hall, Literally Pulls Out Receipts Claiming to Fund Everything
During CNN’s town hall in South Carolina, Democratic frontrunner Bernie Sanders somewhat dramatically pulled several documents out of his jacket and handed them to moderator Chris Cuomo as part of his answer when confronted by a likely Joe Biden supporter about how he will fund all his ambitious plans.
The just-released documents, Sanders claimed, could also be found on a new page of his campaign website, which he claimed will provide clear details of how he would raise enough money to pay for all his major policy plans, including Medicare for All, free public college, canceling all student debt, and universal pre-Kindergarten and child care.
“Here is what I want to do, I’m going to give this to you,” Sanders said, removing several sheets of paper from inside jacket pocket and handing them to Cuomo. “I thought that might come up, this is a list that will be on our website tonight of how we pay for every program that we have developed,” he added, as cheers arose from the audience.
This funding explanation marks a notable change from Sanders’ previous stance when pressed about paying for his plans. For the past year on the campaign trail, he has resisted going into specific, granular details about both the costs of Medicare for All and other policies as well as the revenue-raising mechanisms he would enlist to fund them. His 2020 rival, Elizabeth Warren, was sharply criticized last fall — while Sanders avoided scrutiny — after she finally rolled out her detailed plan for funding Medicare for All without raising taxes on the middle class.
“You’re slick giving me this piece of paper,” Cuomo noted after Sanders finished his response to the town hall participant’s question, as he was unable to fact-check it in any detail while standing onstage during a live town hall.
“I know, I know,” Sanders acknowledged, giving Cuomo a friendly jab in the arm.
“The criticism here is, there is a lot of detail in here, you can look for it yourselves on the website, but it is not matching the price tag that some put at about $30 trillion for the Medicare for All transition,” Cuomo offered by way of general pushback. “You get about halfway there. The question becomes how do get the rest of the way?
“No, we get there. There was a study, Chris, I don’t know if you happened to see it,” Sanders began to reply.
“$30 trillion over 10 years?” Cuomo pressed.
“Bup, but,” Sanders said quickly, breaking in to gently silence Cuomo. He then offered a long answer about the current costs of health care that concluded with him summarizing his claimed policy outcomes. “No more premiums for the worker or the employer, no more out of pocket expenses, no more deductibles, nor more out-of-pocket expenses and because we’re taking on the greed of the pharmaceutical companies, no one pays more than $200 a year for prescription drugs.”
“The point was just the math on how much the numbers added up to in the proposal,” Cuomo noted, before gesturing toward the audience and saying: “But this is something for you guys to decide.”
Watch the video above, via CNN.
